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7 |
It wasn’t until Beverly Jones was five years old that she discovered the people she had always thought were her mum and dad were really her | grandparents.
It was the day she also found out that her parents had been killed in the worst ever plane crash at Gatwick Airport.
Ann and William Jones died when a passenger jet crashed onto their home - completely obliterating the building before bursting into a fireball, killing another 48 people on board the aircraft.The tragedy unfolded as the plane approached Gatwick in thick fog.
Miraculously, Ann and William’s 18-month-old baby daughter Beverly survived when two ends of her cot collapsed and shielded her from the rubble of the demolished house. She was rescued by two police officers.
The devastating crash which changed her life happened between Crawley and Horley on Sunday January 5 1969.
An error by the pilot of the aircraft, an Ariana Afghan Airlines jet, was later blamed for the crash which claimed 50 lives.
Three aircraft crew members, including the pilot, and four passengers also survived, along with Beverly.
And she revealed this week that her |
The trust factor could well determine the tight U.S. Senate race between Democrat Alexi Giannoulias and Republican Mark Kirk with a month | left in an attack-driven campaign, a new Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV poll found.
Giannoulias held a 38 percent to 36 percent advantage over Kirk, but that result falls within the poll’s 4-percentage-point margin of error. Another 17 percent were undecided, offering ample opportunity in a contest where both sides are trying to sway voters with millions of dollars in negative TV ads assailing the character and veracity of the other guy. Two largely unknown minor-party candidates lagged behind.
A month ago, a Tribune poll found the race tied at 34 percent, with 22 percent undecided.
Since then, the two major-party contenders have tried to exploit campaign fodder each has provided the other in spades. Kirk has acknowledged embellishing parts of his military record as a Naval Reserve intelligence officer. Giannoulias was a senior loan officer at his family’s failed bank when loans were given to convicted felons.
Voters surveyed |
California is turning to solar power and innovative ways of using energy to fight the droughts, floods and fires which climate change worsens.
| On California state route 14, about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, somewhere between Mojave and the ghost town of Garlock, Martin Hermann has built what he believes is a small but symbolic slice of electricity’s future: a state of the art solar farm that, for the first time, produces electricity in California more cheaply than a plant powered by fossil fuels.
Springbok 2, as the project is called, was conceived and built by his company, 8minutenergy, a nod to how long it takes for the sun’s rays to reach earth. The company is now one of the largest in the US solar-power market, with 7,500MW of solar power and more than 50,000 acres of land under development in California, Texas and the south-east, as well as south Asia. It has 700MW of power production already in operation and another 800MW to be completed by next year.
Springbok 2, with its shimmering |
__Sleeping at an airport overnight, once almost a sport for the young and short of cash, has become a lot more common lately, | affecting even older and professional travelers. And a big reason is that airlines are no longer as free with complimentary hotel vouchers as they once were.
"Belt tightening by airlines over the last 18 months, and more so this year," is how Randy Petersen, editor of the online magazine InsideFlyer and the frequent-flier Web site FlyerTalk.com, explains it.
"They have to look at everything they spend a penny on," Mr. Petersen said. And because flights are fuller, he added, "they're not just dealing with a few passengers."
I almost had to sleep in the Los Angeles airport a few months ago. I missed my connection to Reno, and there were no more flights until the next morning. I debated driving--which was a no because it was too far. I saw people in a similar situation who opted to lay their heads on a metal armrest of a dirty chair. Passed on that idea as well. The thought of putting my mouth |
James May supporting the campaign.
A trio of famous faces have added their weight to a terminally-ill doctor’s patient empowerment campaign | .
Former Top Gear hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May have been pictured holding up personalised #hellomynameis signs in a nod to Dr Kate Granger from East Ardsley.
Amid their busy schedule filming for the upcoming Amazon series The Grand Tour, Clarkson tweeted images of him and his co-hosts showing their support for the campaign.
Dr Granger launched the campaign to encourage medical workers to introduce themselves after her own experiences as a patient.
The consultant, who works at Wakefield’s Pinderfields Hospital, was diagnosed with a rare type of sarcoma which attacks the tissue supporting the internal organs in 2011.
Some 400,000 doctors, nurses, therapists, receptionists and porters across 90 organisations are now backing the drive that has also received high-profile support from a number of celebrities.
The success of the campaign, which has been backed by Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, saw her pick up the Special Achievement Award at the BMJ |
Professor Pat Utomi is an economist and a politician. He joined LBS in 1994 as a senior faculty member and was at various times Director of | School Development, Director of the Centre for Applied Economics and a member of the management team of the school. In this interview, Utomi speaks on the on-going National Conference and the economy among other issues.
One of the biggest issues in the country today is the National Conference. We have optimists concerning the conference. We also have pessimists. There are those who are neither here nor there. Where do you stand?
I have made it part of business to keep challenging us about what our consciousness should be. In recent times, we have begun to focus on two sets of activities to deal with this matter. The first has to do with the hope that was raised that a national dialogue could result in a certain understanding of what has kept us back and how we could look at the future so that we could make the progress that is deservedly ours given the endowment of our country.
In that regard, I was the convener of the National Summit Group which began the formal canv |
A woman who was found dead in her driveway on the south side of Great Falls last week has been identified by authorities.
A woman who was | found dead in her driveway on the south side of Great Falls last week has been identified by the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office.
Lisa Marie Doty, 48, was found face down in her driveway on the 1600 block of 30th Avenue South Saturday morning after likely succumbing to the exposure in frigid temperatures, according to a media release.
An investigation by the sheriff’s office found that Doty was driving home around midnight Saturday morning when she slid off the road and got stuck in a ditch. After unsuccessfully trying to dig her vehicle out of the snow, a passerby gave Doty a ride to her house about five blocks away and left.
Doty reportedly had dropped her keys near her vehicle and attempted to break a window to enter her home when she was unable to unlock the door.
Doty was found around 11:30 a.m. on Saturday by another passerby. Temperatures dropped as low as 14 degrees below zero that morning, |
William Wayne Webster passed peacefully away on Jan. 15, 2019, at Pacifica Senior Living in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. | “Bill” was born on Feb. 10, 1930, to Barbara and Thomas Webster in Tacoma, Wash.
Bill graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, with a law degree. At the university, Bill met his wife, Diana “Dea” Schade Webster. Bill and Dea were married in 1955, and they moved to Benton, Ark., where Bill was employed by ALCOA and was a member of the National Guard.
Bill worked in personnel for ALCOA and was transferred every three years to ALCOA plants across the country. He ended his 30-year career with ALCOA at their headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pa.
After retiring, Bill and Dea moved to Sterling, Va., to be closer to their daughter, Vicky Webster Rosser, and her family. When Dea passed away in 2015, Bill came to Coeur d’Alene to be closer to his daughter, Kathy Webster Cooper, and her |
CABARRUS COUNTY, NC (WBTV) - From Cabarrus County: You have a cart for trash and a cart for recy | clables, but what should you do with household hazardous materials? And what is a household hazardous material?
Cabarrus County wants residents to know about materials that should never end up in trash or recycling bins. These include nail polish, oven cleaner, paint, pesticides, bathroom and kitchen cleaners, fluorescent bulbs, brake fluid, gas and other chemicals.
Instead, take them to the Cabarrus County Household Hazardous Waste Facility at 246 General Services Drive in Concord (off Hwy 49 near Hwy 601). The facility provides a safe place to dispose of materials that can hurt the environment and damage the health of humans and animals when handled improperly.
In addition to hazardous materials, the facility accepts recycling, TVs and other electronics and batteries. Residents can also make an appointment to browse the paint room and take paint cans at no charge.
The Cabarrus County Household Hazardous Waste Facility is open Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. However, |
ISTANBUL -- The search for Paris terror suspect Hayat Boumeddiene is focused far beyond France's borders. Surveillance cameras captured Bou | meddiene entering Turkey through an Istanbul airport on Friday, Jan.2, a week before her partner - Amedy Coulibaly - killed four hostages in a Kosher grocery store in Paris.
The Turkish authorities said Monday that they were not warned about Boumeddiene by the French government. So they stamped her passport, and let her into the country.
And she wasn't alone. In the surveillance video you can see a man who Turkish officials named as 23-year-old Mahdi Sabri Belhoucine - another French citizen.
Photographs of Hayat Boumeddiene show her transformation from the daughter of a French delivery driver to an armed Islamic extremist.
Turkish authorities believe after arriving in Istanbul, Boumeddiene stayed two nights in a hotel. After she left Istanbul, Boumeddiene spent four days in another city close to the Syrian border before crossing into the war zone on Thursday, according to Turkish officials.
The same day her |
1.1 Welcome to Biography, a website provided to you by Say Media, Inc. ("we" "us" "our" or | "Say Media") on behalf of its client A+E Television Networks, LLC.
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MANILA (REUTERS) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday (Nov 15) heaped praise on visiting Chinese Premier Li Keqiang for | what he said was China's "critical" role in expediting the end of a five-month war with Islamist insurgents in a Philippine town.
Mr Duterte credited China with supplying what he said was the rifle that on Oct 16 killed Islamic State in Iraq and Syria's (ISIS) regional point man, Isnilon Hapilon, and said he would present that weapon to China as a mark of appreciation for its help in the war in Marawi City.
"I am going to return to you the rifle so that the Chinese people would know, it was critical, it is a symbol of the critical help," Mr Duterte told Mr Li, the first Chinese premier to visit the Philippines in a decade.
There are doubts, however, about if it really was a Chinese sniper rifle that killed Hapilon, and uncertainty about whether the military has used any of the 6,100 guns Beijing has donated since June.
The Philippine defence minister recently said all those weapons were given to the police |
Despite the winter cold that's arrived to welcome 2015, the New Year is a great time to discover new running inspiration. Outline some running goals | for the year, put on your warmest gear and keep on trekking. The Chicago area has several great races and challenges to keep you training throughout chilly January.
New Year's Day 5K -- There's no better way to begin the New Year than by running a 5K on day one. In the 30th annual New Year's Day 5K, participants can choose from a timed 5K, a 5K fun run or a 5K walk. In order to accommodate late-night New Year's Eve plans, the race doesn't begin until 11 a.m. The course runs through Lincoln Park and begins at Stockton Drive and LaSalle. A portion of the proceeds will go to the non-profit Lake View Citizens Council, and the registration cost is $35 on race day.
Lifetime Indoor Triathlon -- For those who need the extra training for triathlons, or for those who simply don't want to run outside, Lifetime has organized eight |
The Food & Drug Administration has test results from a probable cancer-causing chemical that’s been popping up in everyday foods like breakfast cere | als and granola bars – but is withholding the results, says Sen. Chuck Schumer.
“The federal government is, in fact, investigating this chemical,” Schumer said Sunday, demanding the FDA share the results.
The chemical — called glyphosate and sold to farmers and school ground keepers by Monsanto as a weed killer called Roundup – has been on the FDA’s radar for at least two years, he said.
Scientists with the Environmental Working Group last week said they found unacceptably high traces of the herbicide in virtually every oat cereal, oatmeal and granola bars for sale in the United States.
Schumer said Freedom of Information requests to the FDA revealed the agency has been testing food samples for the weed killer, but is sitting on the results.
In 2016, an FDA spokesman also confirmed the agency study of the chemical to media.
Schumer said Americans shouldn’t have to wait any longer for the results.
“I |
To create a sectional sofa look, you must minimize the arms.
The ideal situation is a one-armed or armless sofa and love | seat, which allow you to create a matching sectional grouping, with an ottoman at one end of the sofa that elongates one side. The opposing love seat forms a U-shaped seating cluster. But even with one-armed sofas and love seats that are designed to serve as sectional furniture, an ottoman at the same height and with similar style characteristics fills the space between the sofa and love seat, linking the pieces to create a unified space.
When a sofa and love seat are not designed to serve as sectional furniture, ottomans help to establish a sectional look. An oversized sofa with arms pairs with an ottoman to provide a sectional look, particularly if the ottoman is the same height as the sofa and has a similar composition, including matching fabric, such as an umber sofa and love seat with an umber ottoman. Matching upholstery unifies the elements of a faux sectional grouping via color |
In many a company, you’ve heard the talk about unconscious bias, and likely attended trainings and so forth, but are these efforts | making a real difference the way we see and treat each other?
In Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do, Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt reveals the latest research and data, much of it her own, on racial bias and how it impacts us all every day. A Stanford social psychologist and MacArthur “Genius” award recipient, she is one of the world’s leading experts on racial bias.
Eberhardt works with several major police departments, helping them examine and address racial bias in their departments. It’s vital work when people are harassed, beaten, or even killed during something that should be a routine stop.
As a resident of Silicon Valley, Eberhardt is also in a prime position to observe how tech companies deal with bias, whether in their platform, product, or during the hiring process.
What she’s found is that we all have the potential for |
It's not been a good year for the maker of Dulux paint. Since AkzoNobel rejected a $30 billion takeover bid by P | PG Industries it's issued two profit warnings. The Dutch firm was looking to touch things up with a deal of its own. But it seems its target - Axalta - has been swayed by a new suitor. Japan's Nippon Paint Holdings has reportedly made an all-cash offer for the US coatings firm, who's largest shareholder is Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway. (SOUNDBITE) (English) MIKE INGRAM, CHIEF MARKET STRATEGIST, WH IRELAND, SAYING: "They're probably regretting not putting more on the table for Axalta. The perfect poison pill for PPG - it would have made the merged AkzoNobel-Axalta entity pretty much indigestible for PPG. And I think to some extent it would have it would have won approval from AkzoNobel shareholders." Akzo has confirmed it's ended what it said would have been a "merger |
Pakistan is not shying away from a fight with the U.S. over Washington’s threat of sanctions if Islamabad continues to push ahead | with plans for a gas pipeline to Iran.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar hit back hard after Hillary Clinton threatened Pakistan with sanctions.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton threatened sanctions if Pakistan goes ahead with the $1.5 billion pipeline, a project which Washington views as undermining its attempts to squeeze Iran to drop its nuclear program. The next day, Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar hit back hard.
For once, it appears Pakistan and India are taking a similar position. New Delhi, too, has argued that it needs Iranian crude oil to meet its energy needs, despite pressure from the U.S. to cut back.
But could it be that leaders from both countries are likely to talk tough in public and take a more conciliatory path behind the scenes as Washington attempts to get countries to back its attempts to cut-off Iran’s sources of foreign currency?
Well, this is exactly what Mrs. Clinton said she believed was |
BAGHDAD — The Islamic State’s latest suicide attack in Baghdad, which killed nearly 330 people, foreshadows a long and | bloody insurgency, according to American diplomats and commanders, as the group reverts to its guerrilla roots because its territory is shrinking in Iraq and Syria.
Already, officials say, many Islamic State fighters who lost battles in Falluja and Ramadi have blended back into the largely Sunni civilian populations there, and are biding their time to conduct future terrorist attacks. And with few signs that the beleaguered Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, can effectively forge an inclusive partnership with Sunnis, many senior American officials warn that a military victory in the last urban stronghold of Mosul, which they hope will be achieved by the end of the year, will not be sufficient to stave off a lethal insurgency.
“To defeat an insurgency, Iraq would need to move forward on its political and economic reform agenda,” Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, the top American commander in Iraq, said in an email.
A return to guerrilla warfare in Iraq, |
The lease was agreed at Rs 3.07 crore, instead of ₹113.22 crore, which would have incurred upon the HSVP | Rs 110.15 crore in losses.
The Punjab and Haryana High Court has directed the Haryana Shahri Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) to remove a tent house erected at the HUDA Gymkhana club, officials said on Saturday.
Petitioners had alleged that HSVP officials had leased 11,221 yards of land in the club, without floating any tenders, to the tent house in September 2017, for a nine-year period at a much lower rate than the actual cost of renting the ground.
In July last year, the HSVP had sealed the tent house upon the directions of D Suresh, then division commissioner of Gurugram and president of HUDA Gymkhana Club.
However, no action was taken against any HSVP officials at the time.
“The high court has directed the removal of the seal from the tent house, and asked the tent house’s owner to remove all his |
This article was published 15/9/2013 (2042 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Christians have | been part of what is today Syria since the first century. In fact, it was in the ancient Syrian town of Antioch that followers of Jesus were first labelled Christians. Today, of the country's 22 million population, approximately 10 per cent are Christians. Most belong to three streams of Christianity, the Syrian Orthodox, the Greek Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Church.
However, Syria's Christians now find themselves in a very conflicted situation. Many have been supporters of the Assad government which, despite its repressive reputation, offered protection to Christians that Islamist governments are not inclined to give. For that reason, many Christians who fled Iraq during the Iraq war went to Syria. In turn, an estimated 500,000 of Syria's some two million Christians have fled their homeland because of the civil war.
Christian communities in the Middle East find themselves in a very difficult situation these days. For one, the Christian population generally has declined dramatically since the beginning of the 20th century. Then about 25 per cent of the population |
Ryan Loflin, of Colorado Hemp, funnels his hemp seeds into a baggie in Crested Butte in April.
Ryan L | oflin, of Colorado Hemp, handles a batch of a particular kind of hemp seeds that produce vast amounts of hemp oil.
Ryan Loflin, owner of Colorado Hemp, examines his hemp plants last month.
Springfield farmer Ryan Loflin on Monday planted the nation’s first industrial hemp crop in almost 60 years.
Loflin’s plans to grow hemp already have been chronicled, and Monday’s planting attracted the attention of more media in southeastern Colorado and a documentary film crew.
Hemp is genetically related to marijuana but contains little or no THC, the psychoactive substance in marijuana. Hemp has dozens of uses in food, cosmetics, clothing and industrial materials.
Its cultivation in small test plots became legal last year under a Colorado law. The passage of Amendment 64 in November allowed commercial growing, even though hemp, like marijuana, is illegal under federal law.
Loflin is planting 60 acres on acreage previously used to grow alf |
Heavy rain and hailstorm, preceded by thundersquall ripped through Bhopal on Saturday, throwing life out of gear for about an | hour. Branches of trees broke and hoardings were damaged at several places in the city.
Heavy rainfall and hailstorm, preceded by thundersquall ripped through Bhopal on Saturday afternoon, throwing life out of gear for about an hour.
Though Saturday morning was sunny, clouds started gathering in the sky since afternoon and by 3pm, dense clouds had covered the city sky. Later, the weather changed drastically and Bhopal witnessed dust storm, thunder and lightning. Soon, hailstones lashed some parts of the city, followed by heavy showers.
Branches of trees broke and hoardings were damaged at several places in the city. A tree branch fell on a car in front of Betwa apartment as a result of high-velocity winds, although no damage was reported. An official at the Meteorological office in the city said that winds blew at a speed of 30-35km per hour.
The rainfall that lasted for just about half-an-hour |
Amber Heard has opened up about the years of abuse she experienced at the hands of her ex-husband Johnny Depp, while referring to the | latter as 'the monster'. The 32-year old further claimed that Depp won't remember the abuse for he is an alcoholic and a drug addict, Page Six reported.
He even dragged her to a bed and started punching her head. The couple started dating in 2012, a year after which Heard came to know about his drugs and alcohol abuse. They, however, tied the knot in February 2015.
Further elaborating the abuse she faced, Amber recalled that in May 2014, Depp started drinking heavily, threw things at her and abused her in a private flight. Depp, however, apologised to her via text and claimed he didn't remember whatever happened.
The couple, after getting married, went on a three-day bender on ecstasy. However, Depp resumed abusing and drinking, claimed Amber. Amber said he threw her on a ping-pong table, choked her and wrote messages on the wall with blood before being hospitalised.
"To this day, |
AARON RAMSEY was in "imperious" form yesterday as Arsenal swept to the top of the table, according to Garth | Crooks.
The 24-year-old capped off a man-of-the-match display against Aston Villa by following up Olivier Giroud's opener to secure a 2-0 win.
Ramsey has returned to his natural position in the centre of the park following injuries to Santi Cazorla and Francis Coquelin and stepped up to the plate in Alexis Sanchez's absence.
The Welshman cut a frustrated figure on the wing at the start of the season but he has been crucial during a brilliant week for Arsenal that also saw them reach the Champions League last 16.
"I find it quite interesting that Aaron Ramsey is starting to look at his best again without the presence of injured pair Alexis Sanchez and Santi Cazorla," Crooks wrote in his latest BBC blog.
"There is no doubt in my mind that the Wales international features far more in Arsenal's build-up play when they are not around.
"And on this display, against an utterly |
Could Dorothy Dixers be cut from the ACT parliament's question time?
Question time is a key period where MPs can get information from ministers | .
Up to half the time can be effectively wasted by government backbenchers' questions.
They're the scourge of question time in parliaments all around Australia.
But could Dorothy Dixers finally be eradicated from the ACT Legislative Assembly?
Speaker Joy Burch has indicated she would look at curtailing the practice in favour of encouraging backbenchers to ask constituency questions, after a $5040 trip to the Scottish parliament in June.
In a recently tabled report about her trip, Ms Burch appeared impressed with its version of question time - First Minister’s Questions - noting there did not appear to be any Dorothy Dixers asked and there was a category of questions specifically for advocating on behalf of constituents.
This stands in stark contrast to most Australian parliaments, where backbenchers from the ruling party ask stage-managed questions designed to promote the work of government and make the minister look good.
Those questions are referred to as Dorothy |
UK supporters of Concern Worldwide who give a fixed contribution to the charity each month had their bank accounts debited by up to 100 times the correct amount | earlier this year as a result of computer problems.
The international humanitarian organisation said it moved swiftly to address donor concerns and apologised to them for the mistake.
The UK Charity Commission confirmed it has been in regular contact with the charity since it was contacted over the “serious incident”. A spokesman said it had been monitoring developments in recent weeks to ensure all the steps required to resolve the problems were being taken.
At the end of April, staff at Concern’s UK section made an error processing monthly direct debits of thousands of supporters, leading to increased sums taken from donor accounts.
Refunds were processed in early May after which auditing firm Deloitte was asked by the charity to carry out an independent investigation. It identified two factors which led to the processing issues.
It determined there had been problems with the installation of banking software used in direct debit collections which had led to the amounts due to be collected being increased by a factor of 100. It also found |
Urban areas have begun to outpace the growth of suburbs. Could that be good for America's social ecology?
New numbers from the Census Bureau | suggest that America’s long love affair with the suburbs may be cooling off just a bit: In the year-long span from July 2010 to July 2011, in the majority of America’s largest metropolitan areas, densely packed urban areas grew faster than suburbs — reversing a trend that has held since the heyday of the Model-T in the 1920s. If this current trend holds, it could be good news for the environment, reducing the time commuters spend in gas-guzzling cars going to and from their jobs in the city. Could it also be good for America’s social ecology?
That’s one of the implications of a new paper by Harvard economist Edward Glaeser, which takes aim at something that many homeowners and would-be homeowners consider as American as apple pie and Apple iPads: the home mortgage interest deduction.
Glaeser argues that the deduction, as well as other governmental policies that encourage homeownership, effectively “b |
They Might Be Giants boast one of the most diverse and full catalogs of any band of the last 30 years. In March they released Nanob | ots, the 16th studio album in their three-decade career.
Though the band formed in 1982, it wasn't until the early 1990s that they broke out. Their third album, Flood, went platinum following its 1990 release and the band has been consistently pushing out further iterations of its quirky style of indie pop ever since.
Though casual listeners might know They Might Be Giants (primarily composed of members John Flansburgh and John Linnell) best for that album's songs "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and their rendition of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)," in recent years the band has turned to making children's albums and indulging other musical pursuits outside the traditional album and tour routine. The band's second children's album, Here Come the 123s, got the band its second Grammy Award in 2009. The first was for their song "Boss of Me," the theme song for the TV show Malcolm in the Middle.
On Nanobots, the band's |
I had to get to the bottom of this Russia thing.
What better way to track their dealings than to go to Fort Ross on the Son | oma Coast, site of the southernmost Russian settlement in the U.S.? The Russians began building the fort and settlement in 1812, the result of explorations from their established territory in Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.
The fur trade in Alaska had thinned, and having little luck raising sufficient crops to feed their colonists in Alaska, the Russian-American Company, a trading arm of the Tsar, chose a small cove above Bodega Bay to moor their ships, build a fort and replenish the fur trade and food stocks for the Russian colonists.
There were plenty of cannons and sentries with flintlocks in those early days, but this was a commercial outpost, not a military one. Though the armaments remain, I don’t think we’re under threat: The California State Park system officially took over the fort in 1962, after it had stood as a state historical monument since 1928.
Today, the stockade grounds are still striking |
Now is the summer’s discontent for some of us, when any moment not spent on a beach or a mountain, when instead you must | tend to work or literally anything else, is some kind of vulgar torture that insults the grace of life itself. To you, we say: Stay strong, and perhaps rejuvenate your spirit with a visit to the old Ritz Five, and take in a showing of Lost In Paris, a movie so sublime it’s both a wonder it got made at all and it’s even more of a wonder that more movies like this aren’t there to softly catch us in these terrible times. And we can’t understand why we haven’t heard a single other person mention it.
The movie uses both of the only two plots John Gardner once famously said there are: A person goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. But through the premise of a Canadian librarian going to Paris to visit her long-lost (and busily senile) aunt, writers/directors/stars Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon wreak a kind of fun |
The mind of the libero in volleyball is something to behold. The libero — the only member of the team to wear a differently colored jersey | — stands a breed apart. He is a defensive specialist, so he never approaches the front line at the net with the hitter/blockers he has to work with. He is usually shorter in stature than the hitters. Many times he is the high-spirited one on the floor, showing emotion, exclaiming on crucial points, pugnacious in diving after balls.
Alec Swanson of The Bishop’s School is one of these. In fact, though he has been starting libero all three of his years on the varsity Knight squad, he isn’t the only player in the rotation who is an experienced libero. His teammate, Scott McPherson, plays libero on his club team, though he plays a different position, hitter-blocker, for Bishop’s. In addition to all these other stand-apart factors, Swanson also has to swap out with a teammate, Pierce Schneider, in serving situations.
At this point |
A deep-dive comparison into Samsung's and Apple's depth of field effects.
The Galaxy Note 8 is the first Samsung phone to feature | a dual lens camera system. Similar to Apple’s iPhone 7 Plus, it includes a telephoto lens paired with a standard lens. This allows both phones to deliver fun depth of field effects—but does one company do bokeh better? Let’s check out the differences between their approaches, and see if one phone can emerge victorious.
Apple's iPhone 7 Plus came out late last year while Samsung's Galaxy Note 8 launches in September.
Apple’s "Portrait Mode" and Samsung’s "Live Focus" use their dual camera systems to gauge depth in a scene and introduce bokeh, or blur, into a photo taken with the telephoto lens. This mimics high-end DSLRs and creates a stunning effect when done properly. But we're talking about smartphone cameras here, so let's first dig into the phones' not-so-DSLR-caliber specs.
On paper the differences may seem slight, but the two phones differ |
MIDDLETON, Wis. (WMTV) -- The lives of people in Middleton were changed on September 19, 2018. Danielle | Kimball is a part of the team that kept the terrible memory from being any worse.
At 10:26 a.m., a man began shooting his coworkers at WTS Paradigm. One minute, Kimball was laughing with her web technician, then next, she was answering calls from terrified people who heard gun shots.
"Your training kicks in, and you resort to what you know," Middleton Communications Dispatcher, Kimball said.
Kimball has been answering emergency calls since she was 19-years-old. All the training in the world couldn't have prepared her for how personal things got for her that day.
"It was one of the hardest things I have ever done," Kimball said.
Sending the officers she had gotten to know over five years into a situation with an active shooter was terrifying for Kimball. She says she couldn't help thinking about all the little things she knew about each and every one of them.
"I know |
The Brazilian vessel left Rio do Janeiro October 29 and will remain in Antarctic waters until March 7.
The twenty five research projects are concentrated in ocean | ography, meteorology and marine biology with most of the action taking place in the South Shetland, Biscoe, Joinville and Elephant islands.
"Ary Rongel" normally operates from the Antarctic base of Comandante Ferraz which next February 6 will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary.
Captain Joao Bandeira Leandro during a brief press conference in Punta Arenas said that the Brazilian Antarctic Program involves five main areas: atmosphere, solar exploration and its impact on the Earth, geology, education and logistic training, and live sciences.
Brazil first began Antarctic exploration in the summer of 1982/83 with the "Barao de Teffé", which in 1994 was replaced by the Norwegian built "Ary Rongel" that can carry a crew of 78, plus 27 scientists and operates with two helicopters.
According to Captain Bandeira Leandro during this first cruise of the 2003/04 season temperatures were lower than normal and there was |
Shock therapy failed to produce the desired result at Tottenham as Spurs conceded two goals in the last 10 minutes to bow out of the League Cup in the | quarterfinals after a 2-1 defeat to West Ham on Wednesday.
Tottenham, with Tim Sherwood in charge for the first time, flew out of traps and went close twice through Jermain Defoe and the lively Andros Townsend. Emmanuel Adebayor, restored to the starting line-up after being frozen out by Andre Villas-Boas, steered a header wide as Spurs continued to boss the opening period without truly testing Adrian in the visting goal.
West Ham were much more positive after the break but it was Spurs who broke the deadlock in the 66th minute when Defoe’s cross to the far post was superbly volleyed home by Adebayor. The Hammers drew level, however, with 10 minutes to go when Jarvis beat Hugo Lloris at his near post after good work by Modibo Maiga and Matt Taylor.
And Sam Allardyce’s men stunned the home faithful with five minutes to go when Ma |
Autism spectrum disorder affects 1 in 68 children in the U.S. Challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communications are | some of the issues people with autism may experience. But what many don’t know is that those with autism often struggle with an array of other health problems, too.
A new report from the advocacy group Autism Speaks looks at how and why the neurodevelopmental disorder may be linked to other health problems, including difficulty sleeping, digestive distress, epilepsy, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), eating challenges, depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety.
“We now know, beyond doubt, that for many people, autism is a whole-body disorder,” the report authors say in their introduction, and the issues can extend throughout a lifetime.
More than half of people with autism have trouble sleeping, according to the report. Thirteen-year-old Colby Rosenblatt is one of them; he has difficulty falling asleep and staying asleep.
“It has gotten progressively worse and couldn’t get him to bed because he was scared to be |
CNN’s town hall on gun control and safety following the Parkland shooting received “fake news” backlash after Marjory St | oneman Douglas High School shooting survivor Colton Haab claimed CNN tried to script his question. CNN denied these claims and said that the student’s father, Glenn Haab, sent doctored email exchanges between CNN and himself to media outlets. When the dust settled from this back-and-forth, it turns out Haab did, in fact, alter the emails.
Haab admitted to deliberately leaving out words in emails to CNN producer Carrie Stevenson that he sent to Fox News and Huffington Post, according to the Associated Press. After cries of “fake news”, CNN released the email exchanges between both parties as proof.
“It is unfortunate that an effort to discredit CNN and the town hall with doctored emails has taken any attention away from the purpose of the event,” the network said in a statement. According to Glenn Haab, he didn’t have any “malicious” intent by omitting the words.
As reported over |
One boy and five girl students of a college here have been suspended by its management after a photo of theirs emerged on social media showing the boy lying | on the lap of the girls in their classroom.
The matter, which the college said has “created emotional outbursts” amongst the student community, has also seen the boy being thrashed by unknown persons, leading to his hospitalisation.
Also, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarti Parishad (ABVP) members have submitted a memorandum to the college’s principal asking him to debar the students after the photo, according to sources at the college, was uploaded on Facebook on February 22 and went viral online.
“The incident, the photo and its circulation on social media has created emotional outbursts among the student community and the public,” the college, which is situated at Suratkal here, said in a letter to Mangalore University.
The boy was thrashed by a group of people on Sunday after the photo appeared on Facebook and he has been admitted to a hospital for treatment, police said.
The college |
The Pixel 3 camera is about to get a lot better at couples portraits.
Google's Pixel 3 camera is getting even smarter. The latest camera | update adds new "kiss recognition" abilities to the phone, allowing it to automatically detect — and photograph — your smooches.
The new feature, part of the newest update to the Google Camera app, is part of the Pixel 3's Photobooth mode. Photobooth uses the front-facing camera to detect smiles and other expressions so you can snap selfies without actually physically pressing the shutter button.
SEE ALSO: Is Google teasing new Pixel phones for May 7?
With the new update, this now applies to photos where you're kissing someone (or something). Plant a smooch your significant other/pet/child/glass of wine, and the Pixel 3's camera should be able to snap your photo for you.
It's a fun update, but there's actually some impressive AI at work behind the scenes. In order to build the feature, Google had to teach its software to recognize people kissing, and when it's the optimal moment to shoot a photo. |
With Round 6 team lists a lot more stable than in previous weeks, the unique selections that you can pick up this week can be a bit more | luxurious than previous injury-driven selections.
Rhyse has backed it up three weeks in a row now, with scores of 65, 70, and now 69. Martin is very much looming as a must-have across the byes, but with his price he won’t be dropping too much so you’ll need to fork it out for him.
While not the worst pick, the Bulldogs were very underwhelming on the weekend and, as part of that, Harawira-Naera suffered as well, only managing to score 39 points. His CTW/2RF dual position is very handy, but he is now at $468,400, which is a lot to fork out for a player who may not be a gun.
NRL: Take a look back at some of the best and worst moments of round five in the NRL.
Ryan Sutton looms to be the biggest beneficiary from Joseph Tapine’s unfortunate ankle injury. In the two |
The move toward an Internet of Things (IoT) world is already happening and it will be simplified, streamlined, and most importantly, cost | -effective by the year 2018 thanks to the lowered cost of LTE chipsets and bandwidths, says Altair Semiconductor co-founder Eran Eshed.
The trend of a wide availability of cost-effective LTE modem chips and mobile carriers' moves to change their business model to offer low-cost bandwidth will allow the public to truly feel the advent of Interent of Things (IoT) by 2018, according to Eran Eshed, co-founder and VP of worldwide sales and marketing of Israeli firm Altair Semiconductor, which specializes in LTE solutions for IoT.
South Korea has one of the highest LTE penetrations in the world and local telcos SK Telecom and KT are planning to deploy an IoT-dedicated network within this year. "Korea is starting to really wake up in the context of IoT," Eshed told ZDNet in an interview in downtown Seoul following his business meeting with local telcos. "We announced together with KT demos for smart |
This week I’m sharing a fabulous steak recipe and a light lunch salad option. I’ll chat about reaching your potential in your | personal and professional life.
Part of my work is speaking engagements. I speak on various topics but generally the theme is how to be your best self – this is how I motivated myself to reach a high level as a professional athlete and now how I stay motivated to be my best in my life post-professional sport.
January is always a busy time for this type of work, workplaces are hoping to motivate their staff and in turn staff are planning for a big year ahead.
I recently did four speaking engagements in the financial sector. It was really interesting for me to be immersed in a totally different industry for a few days.
I studied business management for my masters in the Smurfit Business School which meant I wasn’t completely out of my depth but at the same time it was great to be back in this environment.
I took a lot of learning from the few days.
1. Pension planning – what is your health pension?
Pensions are not the most |
WASHINGTON—The United States said on Wednesday that U.S. citizens were among the hostages taken when Islamists raided a gas facility in Algeria and that | U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had telephoned Algeria’s prime minister to discuss the incident.
“Beyond confirming that there are Americans among the hostages, I will ask you to respect our decision not to get into any further details as we try to secure these people,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a news briefing.
Nuland said Clinton had spoken with both Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and the U.S. ambassador in Algeria on Thursday, and that U.S. officials were also in contact with the security office of BP, which operates the gas field together with Norway’s Statoil and Algeria’s state company Sonatrach.
There were two reported deaths, one of them a Briton, in the early morning attack on the complex, which may be linked to France’s strike on rebel groups in northern Mali.
Algerian forces have surrounded the kidnappers and negotiations |
POMONA — Tattoo enthusiasts and the merely tattoo-curious converged on Fairplex for a three-day tattoo show this weekend | .
The Pomona Body Art Expo and Music Fest brought together more than 300 tattoo artists and body piercers at Fairplex. Although tattoo artists came from as far away as Las Vegas and Provo, Utah, most of the booths belonged to Southern California shops.
Once mostly the province of the counterculture, tattoos have gone mainstream in recent years.
“It probably all started with (the television show) ‘Miami Ink’ and crept up from there,” said Amber Anderson, co-owner and artist at Brave New World California in Upland.
Benjamin Hook, one of her partners at Brave New World California, pointed to the popularity of heavily tattooed West Coast musicians from Los Angeles and Seattle in the late 1980s and early 1990s as the start of the growing acceptance of tattoos.
But things really exploded in 2005, when cable TV channel TLC began showing “Miami Ink” and its spin-off reality shows.
“ |
"They recalled that intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of | the UN, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict, constitutes a crime under international law."
So if a member of the FIB is attacking to "neutralize" armed groups, can he or she be " entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflict"? The answer appears to be no.
For weeks Inner City Press has asked the UN to clarify its understanding of the applicability of the international law of armed conflict to its FIB, without success. In a UN basement conference room an expert, on camera, told Inner City Press it is not a war crime to shot at a combatant. Click here. And that is what the FIB has become. But how far does the slippage go?
The Mission reports that it can confirm firing incidents into Rwanda territory originated by M23 positions between 22 and 29 August. The Mission further reports that it has not |
After a season that has seen them fail to reach the lofty levels anticipated in training camp, this was supposed to be the Washington Wizards' first decisive | step toward a playoff spot.
But the Milwaukee Bucks got in the way last night at MCI Center. Playing with a determination the Wizards never exhibited, they stopped Washington from running at the outset and won the crucial season series tiebreaker game between the teams 85-82.
The victory gave the Bucks (31-31) a one-game lead over the Wizards for the eighth and final spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs with the regular season fast dwindling. More importantly, if the teams end with identical records, Milwaukee will have the advantage because it won two of their three meetings.
The loss continued a debilitating trend that has seen the Wizards run for cover whenever they seem faced with adversity which can come in many different forms for this team.
One reason they are in this tenuous position is that they have dropped too many games against bad teams. And last night, against a team that clearly seemed to have a better grip on the gravity of the situation, the Wizards spent most of the night |
Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 offers significant security improvements over its deservedly criticized predecessor. But the new IE still does not do enough to protect users. |
Firefox's NoScript plug-in (a free download at NoScript.net) provides an elegant solution to the problem of malicious scripting. Once installed, NoScript prevents scripting from working at any Web site you visit until you approve it for that particular site. Being able to control scripting on a site-by-site basis with a single mouse click gives you a powerful security advantage.
But instead of the surgical script controls of NoScript, IE 7 still uses the same mud-covered sledgehammer that IE 6 did. Like NoScript, IE lets you block scripting for all sites in the Internet Zone, after which you can enable scripting for a particular site, but getting to the necessary dialog box takes at least six mouse clicks, and you must then enter the site's URL into the Trusted Sites list. It's a hassle most users won't deal with.
Microsoft touts IE 7's Phishing Filter as a significant new security feature, but a recent test of IE |
All male college to admit transgender men. Wait... what?
First of all, I didn’t realize we still had any all- | male schools left in the country after the gender wars of the past several decades. It turns out we have three, or possibly four. In addition to Morehouse College, there are Wabash College in Indiana and Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. St. John’s University in Minnesota is also male only, but they share a co-ed program with the College of St. Benedict where ladies attend.
So in order to get into Morehouse, you not only need to be African-American but male. That doesn’t sound very “inclusive,” does it? And even with the upcoming change, it’s not going to be completely integrated along these lines. The new policy will only apply to students who are born female but “identify” as male. If you you’re a boy who identifies as a girl you still won’t be admitted even though you have all of the correct reproductive equipment. |
It's the town east of Westhampton, which snobs will say is too far west to count as a Hampton. But what are you | doing listening to snobs anyway?
That's about it for Quogue. Is it a Hampton? Is it an Un-Hampton? It doesn't matter. It's a perfect and peaceful couple of days.
By Pavia Rosati for Fathom | I have spent most summer weekends since 2000 in the Hamptons. And although I run this fine travel website and am usually a tireless, see-it-all traveler, when I'm the Hamptons, I become my alter ego, Lazygirl.
Lazygirl gets to her preferred Hamptons hamlet, Sagaponack — a wealthy potato field in Bridgehampton — as quickly as possible, lamenting throughout the entire journey that there is no quick way to get there, and then does nothing more than read books, go to the beach, and eat far too much grilled steak, tomato salad, and peach crumble.
This by way of an explanation for why I have never once bothered to |
JAMES COLLINS will wear his heart on his sleeve this afternoon - in more ways than one - as West Ham's Welsh international defender returns | to his homeland on TWO dream missions.
The first will be to put one over Swansea because as a former Cardiff player and fan they are the enemy, so to speak.
But the second one - and the most important to him - is to play the sort of blinder that will help clinch his place in the Wales national squad that faces England in next summer's European championships.
Collins knows he will run a gauntlet of abuse from Swansea fans he never actually played against when he was with Cardiff City. But he's ready for them.
He said: " I get some stick down there which is understandable. Obviously as a Cardiff fan I don't want Swansea to do too well. All my pals are still Cardiff fans so it would be nice to put one over Swansea for them.
"I speak a lot to Ash (Williams). There is a bit of turmoil down there with the manager being sacked, but the rivalry (with Williams) has started already."
Having said that |
The U.S. House of Representatives committee investigating the 2012 attacks on an American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, said the State Department has pledged | to hand over 5,000 new pages of documents related to the incident on Tuesday.
"The State Department has informed the Committee it will make a production of approximately 5,000 pages tomorrow - the second largest production the Committee has received and the largest since last summer," Republican Representative Trey Gowdy, the committee's chairman, said in a statement on Monday.
The documents are not expected to include emails involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has been embroiled in a controversy over her use of a private email account while she was America's top diplomat.
At least four emails out of some 30,000 from Clinton's private account contained classified information, according to a government inspector's letter to Congress last week.
Clinton, who is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, was secretary of state when Islamic militants attacked the Benghazi compound on Sept. 11, 2012, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
The State Department has provided the committee with thousands of documents |
Tyler Breeze defeats EC3. Breeze has a new facial hair pattern that makes it look like he’s trying out for the V | audevillains and I don’t think I like it. EC3 dominates the early going with his strength, keeping Breeze grounded. This goes on for a short while before Breeze makes the spirited comeback. Breeze catches EC3 with a hurricanrana and cradles the legs to get the pin. Ugh. I like these guys, but how are these matches doing anything to help them out?
The Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado) defeat Jinder Mahal & The Singh Brothers (Samir Singh & Sunil Singh) in a Six-Man Tag Team Match. Last week we almost saw this same match, just swap Metalik out for Tyler Breeze. The LHP take early control and we go to commercial. When we come back, Sunil is in control of Kalisto. Eventually, Metalik gets the hot tag and he’s on fire. The referee loses control |
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 isn’t a good movie. It’s about as bad a superhero movie | as we are bound to see. And yet, those involved in the film are still able to say that it is a successful movie… to a certain extent.
I know the movie did well for Sony, but I also know a lot of people weren't happy with it. I think Sam is so talented. … He was like the president of a small country — by the way, [Spider-Man 3] had the gross national income of a small country, too. I have huge respect for him. I think, on a whole, he did such a fantastic job [on that trilogy]."
And he’s right. Sam Raimi’s third Spider-Man movie banked $336 million domestically, and totaled an impressive $890M worldwide. BoxOfficeMojo tells you that it’s the third-highest-grossing film in the Spider-Man series, besting both of Marc Webb's Amazing Spider-Man efforts… despite the fact |
The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) says its new whistleblowing website has helped it extinguish a cigarette-smuggling ring | and sniff out falsely labelled garlic.
Since OLAF launched the internet-based Fraud Notification System last year, the number of fraud tip-offs has increased: previously, whistleblowers could leave a message on a freephone tip-line, but the system didn't allow for any dialogue with the tipster which made it tough to follow up clues and launch probes, Olaf said in its annual report.
This [online] system has the advantage of helping OLAF better to assess the credibility of anonymous reports of corruption and fraud. It also makes abuse of the system more difficult.
In 2010, with the help of both web fraud notifications, the phone line and other sources, as well as official reports from EU bodies and member states, OLAF received 983 different scraps of information on fraud and 225 new investigative and operational cases were opened.
Particular cases that OLAF highlighted in its report included consultants selling inside information to clients so that they could bid for contracts for the delivery of goods |
ISLAMABAD - Jahangir Khan Tareen’s shadow looms large over the PTI as he continues to call shots | from behind the scene and remains a dominant political player like he used to be before his disqualification by the apex court.
The prominent political player from Southern Punjab, who played a pivotal role in the formation of PTI coalition governments in Punjab and centre, is spending most of his time in his Lahore residence, which is sometimes also called as the ‘second headquarters of PTI’.
Interestingly, since the residence is always bustling with visits of political figures from ruling clique and coalition partners, both from centre and Punjab, some opponents dub his Lahore residence the ‘first headquarters of PTI’.
The award of Senate ticket to Seemi Ezdi, the sister of Jehangir Tareen, had recently also given an opportunity to the political opponents to raise objection over his lingering influence.
“It is one of the U-turns of Imran Khan, as he claimed his friend (JKT) would no more intervene in the party’ |
Plymouth Argyle top scorer Reuben Reid returned from injury to help the Pilgrims beat Shrewsbury Town.
Re | id's head met on-loan Bristol City midfielder Bobby Reid's first-time cross from the left to power home his sixth goal of the season on 33 minutes.
Dominic Blizzard's dipping shot from the left soon after was well saved.
Plymouth goalkeeper Luke McCormick palmed Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro's close-range header onto the bar in the second half and also denied James Collins.
Shrewsbury have not scored away from home in more than eight hours of football, since Andy Mangan's first-half match-winner at Leicester in the League Cup on 26 August.
"I would call anyone a liar in this stadium who says that we didn't deserve something out of this game - but we'll continue to play the way we have been.
"I can't question the commitment from any of our players. We just need to be better from set plays and be more clinical in front of goal.
"But I couldn't have |
A firefighter who met the love of his life as they battled to save lives during 9/11 proposed on the anniversary of the terror attack 17 years | later.
David O'Neal, 48, and Missy Epperson, 54, met as first responders at Ground Zero, where she worked with the K-9 police dog unit whilst he was a Station 43 fireman in Pennsylvania.
They kept in touch online following the Twin Towers atrocity, but had not met again in the flesh until he moved from Staten Island, New York, to Illinois, in July to see Missy for the first time since the horror of that day, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
After a whirlwind romance, David got down on one knee at a 9/11 memorial service and the couple are due to tie the knot on September 11 next year.
David, now retired, said: 'I wanted to get engaged on 9/11 to turn it into a happy day. I wish I had married her onsite 17 years ago.
Part time firefighter David was just blocks away from the World Trade Center when the first plane hit on |
News Analysis: Bill Gates' Tuesday announcement of Caller ID at the RSA Conference was the biggest boost ever for SMTP authentication technology. Yahoo! also | chimed in with some news on its similar Domain Keys proposal.
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Tuesday announced a proposed open standard to deter e-mail spoofing, a k a caller ID for e-mail. Microsofts proposal pitched to the security experts at the RSA Conference falls right in line with the emerging industry consensus that changes must be made to the e-mail infrastructure in order to make serious progress in the battle against spam.
The actual "Caller ID for E-Mail" specification calls for a system that has more in common with competing proposals than it has separating them. Like the SPF (Sender Policy Framework) specification, the basic mechanism involves requiring domains that send messages to add records to their DNS that will allow recipients to determine the addresses of the authorized sending servers. Recipients can then see if the sender of a message is really authorized to do so.
SMTP authentications systems like Caller ID wont stop spam in and of themselves, but they will make it |
Political cartoonist Badiucao has given up his Chinese citizenship -- if not his critical views -- and built a new life as an artist in | Australia.
Halfway up Mount Lofty, a squat, scenic mountain that overlooks the Australian city of Adelaide, Badiucao is uneasy.
The dissident Chinese artist left his phone in the car, over an hour's hike away, and now he feels cut off.
Even for a millennial, Badiucao -- he uses a deliberately nonsensical pseudonym to protect his identity -- is tied to his phone. With it in hand he is constantly checking Twitter, staying connected with China thanks to a non-stop stream of posts from journalists and fellow dissidents.
After almost seven years in self-imposed exile in Australia, more than anything else he fears being cut-off from his homeland, becoming another irrelevant overseas critic fighting yesterday's battles.
It was easier when he could use Weibo. Badiucao joined China's heavily-censored but incredibly dynamic answer to Twitter in early 2011, around the time of the Wenzhou high-speed train crash.
That |
Why Do So Many Companies Shortchange Innovation?
Companies are still allocating a much greater share of the IT budget to routine operational and maintenance needs | rather than to innovation-driven initiatives.
40% of the CIOs and other business-focused tech leaders surveyed said their organization's overall IT budget has increased by 10% or more over last year's.
On average, 55% of tech budgets support operational and maintenance needs, while just 13% fund innovation.
54% of the survey respondents said their organization is undergoing a major IT transformation, and 31% said their company is experiencing a high level of disruption due to this transformation.
43% of the respondents said legacy infrastructure presents a major hindrance to IT transformation efforts, and 39% cited a tech culture that is not agile when it involves change.
64% said their organization is focusing on and investing in the cloud, and 46% said that at least 20% of their apps, infrastructure and platforms are now run in the cloud.
44% of the survey respondents said their organization is focusing on and investing in agile processes.
39% said their company is using |
Our elected leaders must have the strength to speak frankly about entitlement reform if we are to right our nation’s financial course and get the USA | working again. For too long, politicians have been afraid to speak honestly about Social Security. We must have the guts to talk about its financial condition if we are to fix Social Security and make it financially viable for generations to come.
Now, I’m pretty sure the Washington Post would have given Perry a little more room on their op-ed page if he’d truly wanted to speak frankly and gutsily about how to fix Social Security, as opposed to merely saying that we ought to speak frankly about it and then calling it a day. But for some reason, Team Perry decided that USA Today, with its vast hotel-bound audience and 300-word limit, was a better bet.
Which is too bad, because of course, we should speak frankly about the financial condition of Social Security. So here’s some gutsy talk for y’all: Social Security has a small long-term funding shortfall. It can be fixed easily. The CBO recently estimated |
Were they paid to protest?
Protestors for hire? Demonstrators along the Syria-Israel border were paid thousands of dollars by President | Bashar Assad's regime to take part in Sunday's riots, Syrian opposition activists charge.
Israeli officials later reinforced the claims, accusing the Syrian regime of encouraging protests along the northern border.
Late Sunday, Syrian officials claimed that 23 people were killed and 350 were wounded after the IDF fired at protestors aiming to rush the border fence earlier in the day. However, the army dismissed the figures, claiming that they were inflated.
Washington-based members of the Reform Party of Syria said intelligence sources close to the Syrian government in Lebanon informed them that the protesters on the Syrian side of the Druze community of Majdal Shams were in fact poverty-stricken farmers paid by the Assad regime.
According to the sources, the farmers migrated over the last few years from drought-stricken northeast Syria to the south. They reached the Israel-Syria border on Sunday in the aims of reenact "Nakba Day" events, the sources said.
The Syrian opposition group claimed that each farmer |
Republican presidential nominee and avid football fan Donald Trump generated controversy this past weekend by attacking the established schedule of general election debates this fall, because two of | the four (including the VP face-off) conflict with NFL games. Trump alleged that Hillary Clinton's campaign had somehow "rigged" the process to ensure that fewer viewers would tune in.
Trump's claims of tampering on the part of Democrats can be easily debunked, since the dates were set by the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates, and they were selected prior to the NFL's official schedule was revealed and before the 2016 primary campaign was in full swing, which would seem to preclude any involvement from the Clinton camp.
Yet, with "Sunday Night Football" dominating as the reigning top network TV program for four years in a row, there may be legitimate concern over whether audiences are being done a disservice by having such a high-profile diversion competing with potentially decisive debates. However, history suggests that the impact of NFL games, and sporting events in general, on presidential debates has been relatively negligible, at least ratings- |
RT’s sister channel Actualidad caught up with the WikiLeaks founder in London. Assange shared his views on NSA scandal in Latin America and the | future of freedom of information.
The whistleblower, who was granted asylum by Ecuador last year and since then been waiting in the country’s embassy in London for safe passage, shared his thoughts on how WikiLeaks helped saved Edward Snowden – the prominent NSA leaker – from a US manhunt.
“We were involved in filling out the asylum requests for Edward Snowden formally and informally for around 20 different nations. Some because we thought there was a decent chance, others because we wanted to show the public the refusals, to generate some public debate and awareness how their government is behaving,” Assange said.
Speaking on the topic of President Obama’s recent declaration on US exceptionalism, Assange was quick to point out that such this was reflected in American power to violate laws.
“Whenever you see the President talk about exceptionalism what he is trying to say is that rules of civil behavior do not apply to him. Whether that is invading some other country or whether |
India Today reported on January 4, that a secret report prepared by the government's joint intelligence committee has confirmed India's worst fears - China is planning | a military base in Pakistan. The paper said that the report, based on inputs from the (Indian Intelligence agency) Research and Analysis Wing, is meant for the Prime Minister, members of the cabinet committee on security and the national security adviser.
The report says China is keen to build military bases in FATA or the Northern areas while Pakistan wants to counterbalance Indian naval forces by having a naval base in Gwadar. But it does not spell out the exact location of these bases. "China's deepening strategic penetration of Pakistan and joint plans to set up oil pipelines/ rail/ roads and naval and military bases are a matter of concern," the report says.
India Today report says that it may not be politically feasible for Pakistan to openly allow China to set up military bases on its soil. But it might allow China to use its military facilities without any public announcement. According to the Indian intelligence assessment, Chinese presence in these areas might enable the People's Liberation Army to counter the Muslim separatists operating |
Sentenced to death, Dylann Roof stared down blankly as U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel read the jury's verdict | . The 22-year-old white supremacist kept his eyes on the desk in front of him, as he has through most of the trial, and slowly sorted through a stack of paper. As part of their decision that Roof deserved the death penalty, jurors were asked to consider his ability to change if sentenced to life in prison. The 12 jurors were unanimous in their belief that Roof could find redemption.
The final verdict came after just three hours of deliberation. Before jurors were given the chance to discuss Roof's fate, the man who killed nine parishioners at Emanuel AME Church was given the opportunity to deliver a closing statement. He asked for no forgiveness, offered no apologies. Instead, he told the jury that he still felt he had to kill those people in the church that night.
Federal prosecutor Jay Richardson delivered his closing arguments earlier in the day. He reminded the jury that the death penalty is reserved as punishment for only a small set of murders. And then he called for Roof |
Q: When I purchased my home, the home inspector’s report mentioned that the basement crawl space "soil is wet and includes a | moisture barrier that should be removed."
The termite inspector’s report said the moisture barrier is necessary because the moisture in the soil could entice termites. What is your experience with moisture barriers? Is it best to leave it in place or should I remove it?
The term "vapor barrier" is a misnomer because it implies that all water vapor is stopped from migrating out of the soil. The term "vapor retarder" is more accurate because the diffusion of water vapor is slowed by the barrier, not stopped.
We’re not surprised that the soil beneath the plastic is damp. That’s supposed to happen. Even if the dirt in the crawl space appears dry, lurking beneath the surface is a large amount of water that’s constantly being pulled to the surface. This water turns into water vapor. Water vapor is attracted to warm air.
The air in the house is almost always warmer than the air in the crawl space. |
Criminal justice reforms will depend on healing this population group too frequently left out of the equation.
Violent offenders, more often than not, | are victims long before they commit their first crime: A former inmate who spent two years in a Boston prison for robbery was given away by his mother, a heroin addict, by the time he was 5 — the same year her boyfriends began beating him up; when he was 8, he watched another kid get shot in the head in his housing project.
Another man, in and out of prison from age 18 to 33 for assaults and drug crimes, grew up getting routinely beaten by his mother and frequently saw neighbors get stabbed and shot in the New York community of his childhood.
Each man, unlike many of the perpetrators who victimized them, faced harsh punishment.
The complex reality of their lives — and the lives of so many other men and women like them — as both violent perpetrator and violence victim is one the U.S. justice system is ill-prepared to acknowledge or treat. This is a mistake that has put limits on criminal justice reforms designed to reduce the prison population.
|
The op-ed and following criticism comes as Trump has ramped up his efforts to campaign on the behalf of Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections. |
USA Today is under fire for publishing an op-ed article from President Donald Trump on the Democratic party's efforts to push for "Medicare for All" that many allege contains factual inaccuracies.
The article, published Wednesday morning, claims that the Democratic plan would hurt seniors and effectively eliminate the Medicare program, which provides health care to Americans older than 65 and those with disabilities, among other dubious statements.
Others pointed out that the op-ed contained links that included information directly refuting its claims.
"Pretty amazing," tweeted Matthew Gertz, a senior fellow at the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America. "USA Today lets Trump lie about his position on pre-existing conditions, but if you click through the link you get a WaPo fact-checker piece pointing out that his administration is trying to gut those protections in court."
"USA Today not only published a White House press release disguised as an 'op-ed by Donald Trump,' it is using its Twitter |
Outside powers should stop military involvement and support new diplomatic initiative.
Syria is close to full-scale civil war. If the conflict escalates further | , as former UN Secretary-General and current envoy of both the UN and the Arab League Kofi Annan noted: "Syria is not Libya, it will not implode, it will explode beyond its borders."
The human cost of this conflict is incalculably high. It's not surprising that the normal human reaction is "we've got to do something". But what is needed is serious diplomacy - not an army or air force action. US/NATO military intervention didn't bring stability, democracy or security to Libya, and it certainly is not going to do so in Syria.
Despite his government's history of brutal repression, Bashar al-Assad still enjoys support from parts of Syria's business elites, especially in Damascus and Aleppo, and some in minority communities (Christian, Shia and others) whom the regime had long cultivated. The opposition was divided from the beginning over whether massive reform or the end of the regime was their goal. It divided further when part of the opposition took |
Tyler McGladdery smashed a sparking unbeaten century to steer Rainhill to victory at St Annes in the Royal London National Club Championship on Sunday | .
The no.3 batsmen hit a near faultless 124 from 100 balls, which included 12 fours and five sixes. He was well supported by Matthew Fletcher (38) as the visitors reached 203-6 in reply to the Seasiders total of 199-6 from their 40 overs.
McGladdery was also among the wickets, claiming 4-37 and backed up by David Atkinson (1-30) and Ben Edmondson (1-52).
He had also been among the runs 24 hours earlier in Rainhill’s ECB premier division fixture against Wallasey, blasting 88 in the host’s total of 222-5 declared, but not sufficient to earn them outright victory. Wallasey dug deep and finished on 201-5 to earn a draw.
Rainford, who were promoted to the top division at the end of last season, are already finding the going tough. They are still seeking their first win and occupy second |
I’m pretty sure most of Apple’s loyal iOS base is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the third generation iOS slate, the Apple | iPad 3 as it is being called, and no doubt most are wondering just when the iPad 3 will come out to play. Well apparently a secret Apple iPad 3 shipping manifest has now come to light shedding a little info on the matter.
According to the guys over at Apple Insider, this weekend a secret shipping manifest for the Apple iPad 3 was revealed by the guys over at Apple Pro, which reveals that shipments have been scheduled for delivery in the good old US of A no later than the 9th of March.
Apparently the orders are under high security and are arriving from Chengdu in China and apparently an unnamed source at Foxconn’s Chengdu plant says that the shipment is for “Apple’s latest product,” and the manifesto is reportedly from major international cargo flights at Chengdu International Airport, which could mean that Apple is gearing up for a near immediate release of the iOS tablet.
In anticipation of the release of the Apple iPad 3, on Sunday retailer Best |
How old is Sally Phillips, who is the Bridget Jones and Miranda star’s husband and does she have kids?
Who is Sally | Phillips, who is the Bridget Jones star’s husband and when is she on Through The Keyhole?
SALLY Phillips is certainly no stranger to comedy fans.
Who is Sally Phillips? What's her background?
Sally Elizabeth Phillips was born in Hong Kong on May 10, 1970.
Her father, Tim Phillips, is the former chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club and was an executive for British Airways.
Although she was born abroad, Sally moved back to England aged 13 and attended Wycombe Abbey School, an independent boarding school in Bucks.
Sally later went on to study modern languages at Oxford University and graduated with a first class honours degree.
When is Sally Phillips on Through the Keyhole?
Sally will appear on Through the Keyhole tonight (January 12).
The episode will air on Channel 4 at 9.30pm.
She will be on the show alongside Danny Dyer and Chris Kamara.
When |
LAHORE, Feb 02 (APP):Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad has said that time duration of travelling by train between Lahore and | Rawalpindi will be reduced by half an hour in March.
within the next two days.
Thal Express train would run between Rawalpindi and Multan via Muzafargarh, Layyah, Bhakar, Kundian and Mianwali.
Sheikh Rashid said that the railways would also introduce a VIP non-stop train named Jinah Express from March 30, whereas, another VIP train Sir Syed Express would be introduced soon.
that a meeting on ML-1 had been scheduled for the next month and the masses would hear a good news about it.
appointed in every train and his cell number would be displayed in the train.
The minister also announced that he would listen complaints for one hour whenever he would present in Islamabad.
PR Chairman Sikandar Sultan Raja, CEO Aftab Akbar and other senior officers were also present.
Later, the minister visited the PR reservation office and issued directions |
Chinese authorities have blocked most domestic users from the main Google.com search engine, a media watchdog said.
Internet users in major Chinese cities faced | difficulties accessing Google's international site in the past week, Reporters Without Borders said.
But Google.cn, the controversial Chinese language version launched in January, has not been affected.
The site blocks politically sensitive material to comply with government censorship rules.
"It was only to be expected that Google.com would be gradually sidelined after the censored version was launched in January," Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.
"Google has just definitively joined the club of Western companies that comply with online censorship in China," the organisation said.
Google.com, the search engine's uncensored international site, had previously been available to Chinese web users, but problems accessing the site had been reported across the country recently. It was blocked nationwide on 31 May, the statement said.
The blocking was also being extended to Google News and Google Mail, Reporters Without Borders said.
A spokeswoman for Google in Beijing said that the problem was under investigation.
The spokeswoman, Cui Jin |
Many recent studies and reports have lamented the relatively meager job market open to graduates, especially those outside of rapidly growing fields.
In an exhaustive research | review of the return on investment of a college education, the University of Toronto's Philip Oreopoulos and Uros Petronijevic find that not only college is as good an investment as ever, even as the supply of graduates has exploded.
The most convincing argument as to why that's happened? Technology. As computers and information technology get adopted, there are more jobs that require non-routine, abstract thinking — exactly what colleges hope to develop. In about 1980, the demand for college-related skills started to beat supply, and that's never stopped.
The following chart highlights that despite a massive increase in the supply of college graduates, the premium in wages for college graduates has continued to rise.
There's also a huge gap between those who finish college, and those that finish just a little, giving new life to the phrase "stay in school."
Even with the soaring supply of college graduates, McKinsey predicts an 18-million-person shortage of college-educated workers |
London, April 19 (IANS) Slain Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's youngest widow wishes to spend her life in Britain with her five | children and meet the Royal Family, The Sun reported Thursday.
Berlin, April 18 (IANS) The seas are littered with large quantities of microplastic particles -- plastics in small bits and pieces -- endangering the lives of marine creatures, says a report.
Sydney, April 17 (IANS) Marine scientists in Australia undertaking the world's first large-scale investigation of the impact of climate change on coral reefs suggest that many of them would survive the ravages of warming.
London, Apr 6 (ANI): Nicolas Sarkozy has done away with cheese after meals at his official residence at the Elysee Palace, according to the presidential chef.
Washington, Mar 31 (ANI): Corals that have survived heat stress in the past are more likely to survive it in the future, a new study has claimed.
London, Mar 23 (ANI): Katy Perry has undergone major transformation for her video 'Part of Me' which is the lead single of her 'Teenage |
EDO State governor, Adams Oshiomhole, has said that 80 per cent of governors, National Assembly members and other public office holders in Nigeria | cannot swear they were elected by popular demand in 2007, and so, it was the political elite and not the people that should be enlightened on the true canon of democracy.
For a credible election in 2011, he suggested that all public office holders, including himself, should allow themselves to be defeated if that is the will of the people, adding that this could only be achieved if the system of one man, one vote was institutionalized by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
He spoke, yesterday, at Effurun, Delta State on the occasion of the late Chief Umukoro Mowoe memorial lecture series, entitled, “The Benefits of Credible Elections in Nigeriaâ€, organized by the Urhobo Social Club, Lagos, where the chairman of INEC, Prof Maurice Iwu, represented by the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Lagos, Mr. Moses Ogbe, appealed to Nigerians “to actively participate in |
This January, as was announced a month ago in a press conference by a plaintiff's lawyer, documents relating to the sexual misconduct of 30 priests of | the archdiocese will be released as part of settlement agreements over the past years. All these incidents were reported over the years to the civil authorities and claims have been mediated civilly. Almost all of the incidents happened decades ago, perpetrated by priests whom neither I nor many younger clergy have ever met or talked to, because the priests were either dead or out of ministry before I came to Chicago as archbishop.
Nevertheless, the publication puts the actions of these men and the archdiocese itself in the spotlight. Painful though publicly reviewing the past can be, it is part of the accountability and transparency to which the archdiocese is committed. For more than 20 years, the archdiocese has reported all allegations of sexual abuse to the civil authorities and to DCFS. Records of priests have been shared with civil authorities when asked for. Accountability to the civil authorities constitutionally responsible for the protection of children is part of the life of the church here.
The names of priests known to have abused |
Many employers still have more questions than answers about legal recreational cannabis and the impact it could have on the workplace, according to one business group.
| The Canadian Federation of Independent Business warned Tuesday that many small businesses are “not ready” for legalization and could inadvertently land in hot water if they don’t understand their rights and responsibilities. Richard Truscott, CFIB vice-president for Alberta and B.C., said the risk of a lawsuit is real for small business owners who don’t know how to differentiate between recreational and medicinal marijuana or don’t have proper procedures in place for dealing with workplace impairment.
For large companies with their own human resource and safety departments, putting workplace rules in place to reflect the new reality of legal marijuana is not that difficult, Truscott said. But for small employers without expertise in this area, there remains a lot of confusion. Common questions include whether cannabis can be consumed on workplace premises, what responsibility an employer bears if an impaired employee or customer has an accident on site, and whether employers can ask employees to submit to a drug test.
Employers are fearful of |
In the simplest terms, the scientific method is a set of principles designed around observation and reasoning which aims to ensure that our understanding of the world is | as accurate as possible. Scientists value verifiable and reproducible results more than anything else as the basis for knowledge. The scientific method (when done right) is a great way of getting opinions or preference out of the way of facts.
But it’s not only for scientists. The method is a more organized version of the same deduction processes we use in everyday problem-solving and can help you in your day to day life. It’s great for getting to the root of things and eliminating add-on (but irrelevant) factors through repeated tests and tweaks to the object of your interest. That being said, let’s look at how it’s done.
Predict according to the hypothesis.
Observe the result. Fix hypothesis.
Repeat 4 to 6 until your hypothesis matches results.
Observation is the basis of science as we understand it today and forms the first step in the scientific method. It can be something really simple and obvious, |
Thread: [ANN] Maya Preferred 223 (Gold & Silver backed) - Trading LIVE at $2,500! |
Maya Preferred 223 (MAPR) is U.K Financial Ltd.’s state-of-the-art ERC 23 token built on the Ethereum Classic blockchain, and is positioned to become the first cryptocurrency to be successfully used as a monetary instrument for individuals to transfer money worldwide.
Maya Preferred is also backed with precious metal assets of gold and silver mine reserves in Mexico, making it the new “gold and silver standard” and instantly providing the stabilization investors have been waiting for in the volatile realm of cryptocurrency. The tokens business plan involves adding more mining assets for backing and thus adding value to itself over time, increasing both stability and the ability to have real tangible assets backing its currency for investors.
Maya Preferred 223 is trading live on the FatBTC exchange as MARP/BTC pair at $2,500 per token. And for those who find this unrealistic, should understand that $18,500 worth of gold and silver backing each token which makes this value |
Makes sense that Kendrick Lamar would sample Janet Jackson on his critically acclaimed debut. During his formative years in the 1990s, Janet's reign | and influence were inescapable, so as the Compton MC readies his next good kid, m.A.A.d city single, the Drake-assisted "Poetic Justice" seems like a no-brainer.
The track borrows its title from Janet's 1993 film and lifts a vocal sampling from her hit record "Any Time, Any Place" from the same year. For the song's video, K-Dot figures that once he and Drizzy work out their schedules, getting the OVO MC on set will be no problem, but if Kendrick has his way he'll also have a cameo for Ms. Jackson as well. "That'll be a blessing," he told MTV News on Friday just moments before he took the stage to headline at Power 106's annual Cali Christmas concert.
Lamar even went as far to make a personal pitch to the icon, hoping to eliminate the difficult process that often comes with working with a star of Jackson's stature. "Jan |
We still don’t know the exact motivation of the Orlando shooter. What we do know is that when he tried to buy body armor from | a gun shop, the owner wisely turned him down.
The gunman, who later killed 49 people and wounded more than 50, went to another gun shop 10 miles away and bought what turned out to be the murder weapon.
Related: Is this proof that gun control is doomed?
When that story came out, I mentioned this idea: what if that first gun shop had been able to notify the second gun shop that this guy was bad news?
“I heard your discussion about it and I thought, ‘wow, here’s something that I can do with the skills that I have to contribute,'” Seth Banks explained.
Banks, a software developer, was listening on KCBS in San Francisco. And he liked the idea.
“I got sick of just talking about it and I said, ‘well, I’m just going to do something about it.’ So I did,” he said.
He wrote |
"To become unaddicted is like meeting myself for the very first time."
I attended the Unite to Face Addiction rally in Washington, | D.C., last month and learned that addiction is killing 350 of our beloveds every day in the U.S. It is a pressing social and mental health issue that affects everyone, whether we want to see it or not. It's killing our grandmas and grandpas; our moms and dads. Our sisters, our brothers, our sons and our daughters. It’s our children, our spouses, our significant others, our friends and our neighbors.
There are many who walk among us. I am one.
The first time I ever drank at 14, I blacked out. When I got introduced to cocaine at 19, it was instant love. One sip, snort or pill activated the insatiable beast inside me that would stop at nothing to get more, urgently. It was a mental obsession, a physical compulsion, and a death to my spirit. It gave me the illusion of safety and security and was a way to procrastinate my pain. My |
Is the U.S. Ready to Negotiate With the Taliban?
"Western diplomats, Taliban leaders and the Afghan government," The New | York Times recently explained, "have begun to take a hard look at what it would take to start a negotiation to end the fighting." The details of what they report -- about the demands of both sides, about preconditions for talks to happen, and about necessary outcomes once talks are concluded -- are the subject of much discussion in Washington's foreign policy circles this week, including a major report released by the Century Foundation. It may well be the only realistic option left for ever ending the war (even with the especially brutal Haqqani network). But, nearly a decade into this war, the prospect of even opening negotiations with the Taliban can still inspire in many Americans a sense of outrage, fear, and, at times, even betrayal. If negotiation is indeed the best or only way to end the war, there are many difficult and important questions to be answered: What will be the Taliban's role in governance? Do NATO forces remain, and how long? How will free and fair be guaranteed? |
The cohousing concept, seen as a way to cut housing costs, was popular in Denmark for decades. It was introduced to the United States through | a book published in 1988 by a husband-and-wife architectural team, Kathryn McCamant and Charles Durrett, in Berkeley. The idea was to create a sense of community by having residents share meals, chores and babysitting, as well as letting residents have a say in designing their homes and developing their neighborhood.
Ground was broken on the Southside Park project – then dubbed River City Cohousing – in 1992. It was the fourth co-housing community to be established in the United States and the first as urban infill. Now there are 198 such projects that have been completed or are in the process of being formed in the country, with 39 in California alone, according to the Cohousing Association of the United States.
David Mogavero, the architect for the Southside Park project, recalled that before the co-housing community was formed, the neighborhood was considered one of the worst in Sacramento, known for its crack houses and prostitutes. “The police were called here every |
It mimics the flying mammal and doesn't even need to be remotely controlled.
A team of scientists has just built the first robot that looks | and flies like a bat. They named it, of course, Bat Bot.
Bat Bot is nothing short of an engineering marvel. It weighs in at only 3.3 ounces—about as heavy of two golf balls. With a silicone membrane stretched over its carbon-fiber skeleton, a head crammed with an on-board computer and sensors, and five micro-sized motors strung along its backbone, Bat Bot is capable of autonomous, flapping flight. Designed by trio of roboticists led by Soon-Jo Chung at Caltech, it was unveiled today in the journal Science Robotics.
What makes Bat Bot so remarkable is just how damn hard it was to mimic a bat's natural flight. If flying was an art form, bats would make fixed wing-pilots looks like they're finger painting. That's because with each flap of their wings, "bats use more than 40 active and passive joints, [alongside] the flexible membranes of their wings," says Chung. In |
BRUSSELS — NATO will formally announce on Tuesday the launch of a new advisory mission for Afghanistan and a high-readiness reaction force for eastern | Europe, the alliance’s top official said.
Russia’s actions in Ukraine and the need to reassure nervous allies in eastern Europe have energized the 28-member alliance, which critics said had lost its sense of purpose after the end of the Cold War.
Regarding Afghanistan, Stoltenberg said the new mission, named Resolute Support, will commence on Jan. 1, 2015, the day the current NATO combat mission ends.
The alliance-led force in Afghanistan has already shrunk to just 13,300 troops, from a high of nearly 140,000 three years ago, according to the latest statistics.
NATO assumed responsibility for security in the country in August 2003. More than 3,400 NATO troops have died and more than 30,000 have been wounded during the ongoing war with Taliban insurgents.
For the new mission, Washington has already pledged nearly 10,000 troops — mainly trainers and advisers — along with a contingent of anti-terrorism forces. NATO allies |
HTC is going to have to fight for shelf space at carriers in the U.S. and Europe and may not have the smartphones to compete | .
HTC reported strong third quarter results, but the company's outlook for the fourth quarter was light on units---a sequential decline during the holiday shopping season---and analysts expect challenges to mount in the first quarter. The problem: HTC is going to have to fight for shelf space at carriers in the U.S. and Europe and may not have the smartphones to compete.
The company reported a solid third quarter with earnings of NT$18.68 billion ($625 million) on revenue of NT$135.82 billion ($4.54 billion), up 79 percent from a year ago. Handset units were 13.2 million, up 93 percent from a year ago, and average selling prices were steady at $344.
Sales in China powered HTC in the third quarter. Here's the rundown from HTC presentation to analysts.
So what's the problem? Notice the bottom of that slide above. For starters, HTC's fourth quarter shipment guidance was light. In a seasonally strong |
Your home garden requires fertilizer, weeding, watering and a watchful eye.
Now multiple that by, oh, at least 10,000 | and you have the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, now underway for the 23rd time at Walt Disney World.
This year's event runs 90 days, the longest in its history. But its planners don't plant and not look back.
"Most people think you put what's on the blueprint and you call it a day. That's not the case," said Eric Darden, horticulture manager for the festival.
Changes that occur during the Epcot event follow a couple of branches: making improvements and making replacements.
"We're walking this festival every single day and looking at what we put in," Darden said. "It's very common to say 'OK, I know this what we planned, and this is good … but how can we make it better?'"
For example, after planting the flowers for the sunburst design behind Spaceship Earth, the horticulture team decided to add taller plants for more dimension and "just to zing it up |
Social media has made a significant impact on every aspect of our lives. Healthcare is no exception. The increasing usage of social networks among both practitioners and | patients has proven to cast a positive impact on the overall healthcare quality.
Specifically, social media largely contributes to how we choose our healthcare providers. According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, 41% of patients said that social media content impacted their choice of hospital or physician.
Each of these use cases presents different effects on patients and, at the same time, affect their relationship with the healthcare provider in the following manner.
Social media has become a popular tool for patients to expand their knowledge about their condition and treatment options. For example, 29% of patients peruse social media to view other patients’ experience with their disease and 42% browse social media platforms to discover health-related consumer reviews according to PwC.
For instance, the Psoriasis Association has launched a massive awareness campaign on Instagram, encouraging users to share images of their condition using #getyourskinout and #psoriasiscommunity. Dominic Urmston, digital communications officer at the charity, |
West Liberty-Salem’s Athletic Department recently honored all of its spring athletes.
In baseball, the JV Hustle award went | to Jerett Meeker and the Varsity hustle award went to Cole Wilson. Scholar athlete, Batting title and Gold Glove award all went to Dusty Moell. Austin Secor, Trent Thomas and Cole Wilson were all given four-year participation awards.
In boys track, Alex Steiner received the scholar athlete award, Varsity hustle went to Micheal Lehman, Most Improved went to Nick Williams, Best Runner went to Kam Evans and Best Field Event athlete went to Brandon Wolfe.
In girls track, Bethany Painter received the scholar athlete, Most Improved went to Leah Cole, Varsity hustle went to Kaylee Karg, Most Valuable runner went to Morgan Freyhof, and Most Valuable field event athlete went to Lauren Godwin and Maddie Gantz. Gantz, Godwin and Michaela Rausch all received four-year participation awards and four-year letter plaques.
In softball, Kylie Gilroy received the scholar athlete |
Their activities had been suspended by Secretary Ryan Zinke for eight months.
Nine out of 12 members of the U.S. National Park Service | advisory board abruptly resigned on Monday night, citing a "profound concern that the mission of stewardship, protection, and advancement of our National Parks has been set aside."
In a letter to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, board member and former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles accuses Zinke and the Department of Interior (DOI) of refusing the meet with the advisory board as required by law.
As of this writing, the biographies of Knowles and his fellow resigning board members are still up on the NPS website. They describe a mixture of former politicians like Judy Burke, former mayor of Colorado Springs, academics focusing on healthy human/environment relationships like Carolyn Finney, and senior fellows at educational non-profits like Milton Chen. All board members were unpaid volunteers.
In May 2017, Zinke suspended the work of more than 200 National Parks advisory boards, committees and subcommittees, stating in a memo that the DOI needed to review "the charter and charge of each |
My Oculus avatar getting ready to head out into the metaverse.
When Mark Zuckerberg donned an Oculus Rift on stage at the Oculus Connect conference | last fall to show off a group of avatars playing cards in virtual reality, it was meant to be a peek at the future of social networking. But it turns out that future is already here: Even without Facebook's direct participation, social VR is quickly becoming a thing.
Facebook's own Oculus Rooms social VR app (previewed last year) has yet to come to the Rift headset, but a wide array of social VR apps have already taken off, fostering vibrant communities of people coming together from around the world to interact as simple yet surprisingly effective avatars, facilitated by high-end VR headsets like the Rift and HTC Vive.
Currently, most of the public's limited interest in VR is centered on where we know the money already is: gaming. But social VR is already beginning to deliver on VR's promise of an "empathy engine," using the medium to connect real people from around the world.
But what does this new universe of social VR look like? I decided to |
(Berlin) – A prominent Azerbaijani journalist was viciously attacked by police and security guards on the outskirts of Baku on April 18 | , 2012, demonstrating the government’s ugly disregard for media freedoms in the final weeks before the Eurovision song contest is to be held in the city, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch urged Azerbaijani authorities to conduct a prompt and effective investigation into the vicious attack against Idrak Abbasov, who was beaten by police and security personnel from the state energy company as he attempted to film house demolitions on the outskirts of Baku.
At about noon, Abbasov, a journalist with the newspaper Zerkalo and the Institute for Reporters’ Freedoms and Safety (IRFS), a media-monitoring group, was filming the demolition of houses illegally constructed in the Sulutepe settlement on the outskirts of the capital, Baku. The houses, located on land held by the state oil company SOCAR, were being demolished by SOCAR to reclaim its land. Residents were protesting the demolition.
Approximately 20 policemen and SOCAR security guards attacked Abbasov |
Eric Beatty throws the ball during Pomperaug High School football practice in Southbury on Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2012.
SOU | THBURY -- There are few high school football teams in the state as practiced as Pomperaug at the cruel math that cuts seasons off at Thanksgiving.
The Panthers have posted consecutive 8-2 campaigns, only to have their playoff hopes put out by tiebreaking measures. They've been trained to expect the worst when inputting their data into a convoluted equation, like anyone who's ever fumbled around with a TI-83.
"It's a game of inches," second-year coach Dave Roach said from practice Wednesday, "and also a game of decimals."
"Last year, just sitting around on the computer and seeing (the different scenarios), where people had a win against somebody else and that determined whether we got in our not -- we have to make it up to us this year, you know?" said senior captain Carl Gatzendorfer, who has emerged as a pass-catching running back in addition to his duties as a cornerback. "We can't |
An attorney for a pro-family organization says a school district in northeast Mississippi may have put itself in potential jeopardy in its attempt to "flee | a bully."
Gary Carnathan is attorney for the Lee County School Board. On March 8, he received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) expressing concern about two items at Saltillo Elementary School, which is part of Lee County Schools (LCS).
The scripture is a portion of Jeremiah 29:11 – and judging by the picture included in FFRF's letter to Carnathan, the partial verse is included in a piece of art that does not include the book, chapter, and full verse. Even so, Carnathan determined that the school should not have the items in the hallway and the school would take them down.
The legal counsel for Mississippi-based American Family Association has seen FFRF in action before. He describes this incident as "just the latest in the continued bullying efforts from this organization in Madison, Wisconsin."
"[FFRF] just fires off a letter and they use the heft of what appears to be their legal knowledge to intimidate small |
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