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<p>LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Aveva Group said on Tuesday it had agreed to combine with Schneider Electric’s software business to create a London-listed leader in industrial software worth more than 3 billion pounds ($3.88 billion).</p>
<p>France’s Schneider will take a 60 percent stake in the enlarged group under the terms of the deal, which is structured as a reverse takeover, the companies said.</p>
<p>The tie-up comes after two abandoned attempts to agree a deal in 2015 and last year.</p>
<p>Chief Executive James Kidd said the deal would give Aveva a bigger presence in sectors such as food and beverages and pharmaceuticals as well as in its strongholds in oil and gas, mining and marine.</p>
<p>It will also benefits from Schneider’s bigger position in North America, he said.</p>
<p>The collapse of the first tie-up attempt was blamed by Aveva on the “highly complex structure of the proposed transaction” and worries about “significant integration challenges”.</p>
<p>Kidd said on Tuesday that the agreement was “much more advanced” this time and he was sure it would get over the line.</p>
<p>He said Schneider had done more work to separate its software assets ahead of the deal.</p>
<p>Under the terms of the deal, Aveva shareholders will receive 550 million pounds in cash, worth around 858 pence per share, from Schneider and another 100 million pounds, worth around 156 pence per share, from cash on Aveva’s balance sheet.</p>
<p>Shares in Aveva jumped 24 percent to 23.78 pounds while Schneider Electric (PA:) was up 1.2 percent at 69.75 euros.</p>
<p>Details of the deal were reported late on Monday.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Britain's Aveva in 3 biilion pound software tie-up with Schneider | false | https://newsline.com/britain039s-aveva-in-3-biilion-pound-software-tie-up-with-schneider/ | 2017-09-05 | 1 |
<p />
<p>The Congressional Budget Office released a <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/86xx/doc8690/10-24-CostOfWar_Testimony.pdf" type="external">report</a> yesterday estimating that by 2017, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may have cost us up to $2.4 trillion. More than a quarter of that money will go to paying interest on the money we’ve borrowed to finance the conflict.</p>
<p>The White House, predictably, dismissed the numbers as “speculative.” But if you look at what we have already spent, the numbers seem right on target—maybe even low. According to the CBO’S report, the country has spent $604 billion since 2001. The total amount of money requested for 2008 alone is up to $196 billion, nearly a quarter of what’s been spent over the past five years. At that rate, we’ll sail past $2 trillion by 2014. And that’s not counting interest.</p>
<p>The report contains some other interesting reminders as well. Of the $604 billion spent since 2001, only $1.6 billion has been allocated to medical care, disability compensation, and survivor benefits. Only $30 billion has gone to training Iraqi and Afghan security forces. The Army estimates that it will need $12-$13 billion a year from now until at least two years after we leave just to repair its equipment. That’s a lot of money, and it seems like even more when you place it <a href="/news/feature/2007/11/iraq-war-index.html" type="external">in the context</a> of other major wars.</p>
<p>The result of all this vanishing cash, of course, is a severely depleted Army that continues to fight amidst ever-worsening conditions. See our <a href="/news/feature/2007/11/iraq-war-index.html" type="external">current issue</a> for thoughts on how to break this cycle.</p>
<p>—Casey Miner</p>
<p /> | New CBO Report: War Still Really Expensive | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2007/10/new-cbo-report-war-still-really-expensive/ | 2007-10-25 | 4 |
<p>To assist with Kansas high school sports coverage, the AP Prep Score Center will be compiling Kansas high school basketball scores.</p>
<p>AP has gone to a uniform keyboard line of BC-KS-BKH--Prep Scores, Please update your search for High School scores.</p>
<p>Please report any cancellations and/or postponements from your area (with makeup dates if known).</p>
<p>If you have a scorelist from your area tonight, please send it to:</p>
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<p>If you notice an incorrect score on the wire, please report it as soon as possible so it may be corrected.</p>
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<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>AP Prep Score Center</p>
<p>To assist with Kansas high school sports coverage, the AP Prep Score Center will be compiling Kansas high school basketball scores.</p>
<p>AP has gone to a uniform keyboard line of BC-KS-BKH--Prep Scores, Please update your search for High School scores.</p>
<p>Please report any cancellations and/or postponements from your area (with makeup dates if known).</p>
<p>If you have a scorelist from your area tonight, please send it to:</p>
<p>e-mail: apscores@ap.org (Please add KS scores in subject line)</p>
<p>Fax: 1-888-832-0338</p>
<p>Phone: 1-800-300-8340</p>
<p>If you notice an incorrect score on the wire, please report it as soon as possible so it may be corrected.</p>
<p>Please provide your scorelist to the AP by 10:45 p.m. if possible.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>AP Prep Score Center</p> | Thursday’s Scores | false | https://apnews.com/0cd5121d49b227e43141d1499bf2b194 | 2018-01-11 | 2 |
<p>Researchers in the U.K. will begin an experiment next month that, by imitating a volcanic eruption, could eventually lead to a climate-cooling method that would work by putting sun-reflective particles into the stratosphere.</p>
<p>The geoengineering experiment, which during its first phase of testing will shoot water into the air through a kilometer-long hose suspended in the air with a hydrogen balloon, was inspired by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. That volcano shot 20 million tons of sulfate particles into the atmosphere, ultimately cooling Earth by 0.5 degrees Celsius for 18 months.</p>
<p>But scientists believe it will be decades before they can safely implement such a cooling strategy, and even then, they warned, it should not be used as an excuse to avoid cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Rather, geoengineering should be considered a short-term emergency remedy. –BF</p>
<p>Scientific American:</p>
<p />
<p>The water tests are expected to be harmless, but several environmental groups have criticized the plan—and geoengineering in general. Last year, the United Nation’s Convention on Biological Diversity issued a statement forbidding geoengineering research that may impact biodiversity. The U.K. accepted that statement, but the SPICE [Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering] experiment does not violate any international agreements due to its small scale, says Jason Blackstock, a physicist at Canada’s Center for International Governance Innovation.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the Canada-based Action Group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration (ETC) is calling the tests internationally irresponsible. In a written statement, they called on the British government to shut down the project, adding: “This experiment is only phase one of a much bigger plan that could have devastating consequences, including large changes in weather patterns such as deadly droughts.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=uk-researchers-to-test-artificial-volcano-for-geoengineering-the-climate" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Scientists to Begin Testing Artificial Volcano to Curb Climate Change | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/scientists-to-begin-testing-artificial-volcano-to-curb-climate-change/ | 2011-09-15 | 4 |
<p>Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has asked FBI Director Christopher Wray whether the agency had warned of Russian operatives trying to “infiltrate” the Trump campaign.</p>
<p>Grassley, the Iowa Republican, wrote Wray on Wednesday asking if agency officials gave “defensive briefings” or otherwise alerted the Trump operation about “potential connections between campaign officials and the Russian government,” <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/351839-grassley-did-fbi-brief-trump-campaign-on-manafort-russia" type="external">The Hill reported.</a></p>
<p>“If the FBI did provide a defensive briefing or similar warning to the campaign, then that would raise important questions about how the Trump campaign responded,” Grassley wrote.</p>
<p>If the FBI did not brief Trump officials, Grassley asked Wray why not and whether any such decision was influenced by an unsubstantiated dossier that surfaced during the campaign, The Hill reported.</p>
<p>Grassley asked Wray for a response by Oct. 4.</p> | Grassley Asks FBI on Trump Campaign, Russian Operatives | false | https://newsline.com/grassley-asks-fbi-on-trump-campaign-russian-operatives/ | 2017-09-21 | 1 |
<p>Dec. 15 (UPI) — A commuter on a Philippine train captured video of a dangerous situation when the vehicle went speeding down the tracks with the doors open.</p>
<p>Jason Ibe posted video to Facebook showing passengers holding on tight inside the Manila Light Rail Transit System train car as it speeds along with its doors wide open.</p>
<p>Ibe compared the experience to a ride at the Star City amusement park.</p>
<p>He said the door had appeared to be working normally until it failed to close after leaving the previous station.</p> | Commuter train speeds along with doors wide open | false | https://newsline.com/commuter-train-speeds-along-with-doors-wide-open/ | 2017-12-15 | 1 |
<p />
<p>Thinking about dropping the collision coverage on your trusty but aging jalopy? You're most likely to do so after the car's eighth birthday, according to a new analysis from Insurance.com.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Based on data from more than half a million car insurance quotes, the study indicates more drivers opt to drop at year eight than any other time. Nine out of 10 owners of seven-year-old vehicles have collision coverage, but only 75% of eight-year owners still do.</p>
<p>"When you drop collision coverage, you're essentially saying that you can do without that car or have a way to replace it without the help of insurance coverage," says Insurance.com Managing Editor Des Toups. (You can see how much coverage people with cars the same age as yours have in the " <a href="http://www.insurance.com/auto-insurance/coverage/how-much-to-buy.aspx?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-188397010" type="external">What Drivers Like You Buy Opens a New Window.</a>" tool.)</p>
<p>Collision coverage pays to repair or replace your vehicle when you are at fault or the guy who hit you is uninsured. It's required while you're still paying off an auto loan (along with comprehensive, which pays for things like theft and vandalism) and is a good idea for some years after that.</p>
<p>How many years? That depends. We asked some people who think about money a lot how they decided to keep collision or drop it.</p>
<p>The 10% Rule</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>Personal finance writer Kathy Kristof suggests weighing coverage vs. replacement costs. A good rule is 10%: If collision coverage costs $200 a year on a $2,000 car, you should consider dropping it and banking the premium toward your next vehicle purchase. (You can find the premium for your collision coverage itemized on the declarations page of your last renewal notice.)</p>
<p>Her own household's two vehicles are both 12 years old but still worth between $5,000 and $7,000 each. Collision insurance is relatively cheap, so she carries it.</p>
<p>"I would rather not have to eat that loss if they were totaled (just) to save less than $100 a year on insurance costs," Kristof says.</p>
<p>Some cars hold their value for a long time. Andrew Schrage of <a href="http://www.moneycrashers.com/?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-188397010" type="external">Money Crashers Opens a New Window.</a> is insuring a 16-year-old car -- one with 200,000 miles on it. But it's a Lexus, not a 1998 Chevy Cavalier.</p>
<p>"The Blue Book value of the car is still high enough that paying out the (collision) premium is a good investment," Schrage says. From time to time he does a cost analysis to make sure coverage is still worth it.</p>
<p>However, age and infirmity sometimes make it pointless to insure your hoopty against hurt. J. Money, who blogs at <a href="http://www.budgetsaresexy.com?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-188397010" type="external">Budgets Are Sexy Opens a New Window.</a>, drives a 1993 Cadillac DeVille that's been hit by a trio of other drivers in the past year.</p>
<p>All three insurance companies considered the car "totaled" and wrote him checks for the Blue Book value (about $2,000 in all). The blogger dropped collision coverage, "since I don't care about its looks and condition anymore." This saves him about $20 a month, he says.</p>
<p>The Paycheck-to-Paycheck Tax</p>
<p>Not all drivers can afford to drop collision once they meet the 10% guideline noted above. Continued coverage might be necessary (albeit frustrating) for those living from paycheck to paycheck.</p>
<p>Suppose you swerved to avoid a deer and wound up hitting a tree instead. How would you get to work after that? Sure, the car might be worth only $1,500, which means just a grand after a $500 deductible. But that's at least a start toward replacement wheels; drop the coverage and you'll get nothing.</p>
<p>The premiums you pay over the years could wind up equaling or exceeding what you'd get in the event of an accident. But if you can't afford to replace the vehicle you probably shouldn't drop collision right away. You should, however, find a way to start saving even a small amount each month toward the inevitable replacement.</p>
<p>(And one more tip: Almost all insurance companies will insist that you buy comprehensive coverage along with collision. But you usually can buy comprehensive all by itself, Toups says.)</p>
<p>Worth the Savings?</p>
<p>A driver's personal risk tolerance also plays an important role in deciding what insurance to carry. Personal finance author Gerri Detweiler chose "some of the highest limits" for her 2012 Kia Forte's insurance and bought an umbrella policy to boot. Given all that, "the relatively small amount of money" that collision costs is worth it to her.</p>
<p>"Even the littlest fender-bender can result in expensive repairs," Detweiler says.</p>
<p>At the other extreme are people who don't feel at risk, i.e., they're such good drivers that coverage is unnecessary. However, wet or icy conditions can send even the most cautious motorist into the nearest guardrail. Without collision, you won't get squat toward repairing or replacing your vehicle.</p>
<p>The decision to keep or ditch collision is clearly very personal. Don't let others push you in either direction. Instead, take a clear-eyed look at your finances and run the numbers, asking yourself: If that car in the driveway disappeared and you were uninsured, what would you do?</p>
<p>Crunch the Numbers on Several Options</p>
<p>There's no better time to shop around for a better deal on car insurance. The company that gave you the best price on full coverage may not be the cheapest when you drop to liability only; you may even save enough so that keeping collision seems like a viable option.</p>
<p>Run other scenarios as well, like keeping collision and increasing your deductible. The math will look very different depending on where you live and what kind of car you drive.</p>
<p>For example, for a driver in Oakland, California, with a 2006 Chevrolet Aveo LT worth about $3,500, the additional cost of collision and comprehensive is at least $720 a year even with a $1,000 deductible, assuming the driver shopped around and chose the cheapest quotes available. The maximum payout in return for that $ 720 would be $2,500.</p>
<p>Coverage on 2006 Chevrolet Aveo</p>
<p>The math looks better for keeping collision if the car is a 2006 Acura TSX worth $9,500; here you'd pay a minimum of $1,064 more (with a $1,000 deductible) against a payout of $8,500.</p>
<p>Coverage on 2006 Acura TSX</p>
<p>But if you're doing your calculations from Canton, Ohio, the cost of protecting yourself against a $2,500 or $3,000 loss on that Aveo is much more reasonable:</p>
<p>Coverage on 2006 Chevrolet Aveo</p>
<p>Your agent should be happy to answer questions, or you can run quotes at insurance company websites, or you can use Insurance.com's <a href="http://www.insurance.com/?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-188397010" type="external">quote comparison tool Opens a New Window.</a> to see side-by-side rates in under 10 minutes.</p>
<p>If you can truly afford to drop the coverage, do so. Then immediately set up an automatic debit of the annual collision premium to create a someday fund for a new (or new to you) vehicle. That may be necessary sooner than you think: Even the best drivers in the world can't see black ice until it's too late.</p>
<p>Donna Freedman is a staff writer for Money Talks News, and blogs about midlife and money at <a href="http://www.donnafreedman.com?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-188397010" type="external">DonnaFreedman.com Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The original article can be found at Insurance.com: <a href="http://www.insurance.com/auto-insurance/coverage/when-to-drop-collision-coverage.html?WT.qs_osrc=fxb-188397010" type="external">When to drop collision coverage -- and risk it all Opens a New Window.</a></p> | When to Drop Collision -- and Risk it All | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/09/09/when-to-drop-collision-and-risk-it-all.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p>In 1967, <a href="http://variety.com/t/carol-burnett/" type="external">Carol Burnett</a> was under a contract with CBS that included a clause allowing her to “push the button” within the first five years of her 10 year deal and be given 30 episodes of one-hour variety programming. It was a unique situation, given that at the time many in the industry, including the then-head of the network who gave her the contract, thought variety shows were made for men. Yet, Burnett, whose main goal when she first graduated from UCLA and moved to New York to embark upon a career in entertainment was to be a “musical comedy person,” saw an opportunity to do what she loved without any strings or concerns.</p>
<p>So she pushed that button, so to speak. “ <a href="http://variety.com/t/the-carol-burnett-show/" type="external">The Carol Burnett Show</a>” was born, and 50 years later she is celebrating its decade-long legacy and the future performers it inspired with a new special airing on CBS Dec. 3.</p>
<p>“Just before the curtain went up and I was going to come out and do Q&amp;A for the first time, on our very first show, Harvey [Korman] and Vicki [Lawrence] and Lyle [Waggoner] and I did a group hug, and I said, ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen, but let’s just go out there and have fun.’ That’s all it was about,” Burnett tells&#160;Variety. “For those 30 shows we were just going to have a ball. That was the idea. We didn’t know if we’d ever get to do any more than those, but we knew we had 30 shows, and we were going to make the most of them.”</p>
<p>Prior to getting her own show, Burnett was a regular for three years on another CBS variety show, “The Garry Moore Show.” It was there that she realized what she would want for her own show, were she to get one. “Garry, who was the kindest, most wonderful gentleman in the world, would sit around on Monday at the table read and he might have a joke or a funny line or something, and he’d say ‘Let’s give that to’ someone else who could say it funnier. And that’s what I always wanted, too. It could be anybody’s sketch, and we’d all support each other,” Burnett says. Five years after leaving “The Garry Moore” show, she got her chance.</p>
<p>“The <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/season-8-the-talk-premiere-september-1202549024/" type="external">Carol Burnett</a> Show” first premiered on Sept. 11, 1967 with regulars Korman, Lawrence and Waggoner alongside Burnett. Tim Conway was a frequent guest and went on to become a regular in later seasons. Each week, the cast was supported by a 28-piece orchestra, 12 dancers, two guest stars and a repertory company, performing original live sketches and song and dance numbers. “You can’t do what we did today,” Burnett says, noting “the talent is there” for such a production, but times have changed too much to allow for the scope of show that “ <a href="http://variety.com/2015/film/news/carol-burnett-texas-film-hall-of-fame-1201661612/" type="external">The Carol Burnett Show</a>” delivered, let alone the length of individual segments.</p>
<p>“They can do variety shows, but&#160;it couldn’t be the same extravaganza that we did,” she says. “We really went all out. We did a musical comedy revue every week.”</p>
<p>The show got renewed, and went on to run for a decade; in 1977, while the original format was still airing in primetime, episodes were also recut for a syndicated series called “Carol and Friends.” Though the syndicated version lost many of the musical numbers, due to time constraints as well as cost, sketches like the movie homages of “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” “The African Queen,” “Gone With The Wind” and “Double Indemnity,” as well as recurring characters like those in “The Family” and Mrs. Wiggins, were given a second life.</p>
<p>“We didn’t do topical humor that much,” Burnett points out. “We were more character-driven than worried about referring to Nixon or whatever was going on at the time, so it holds up.&#160;Funny is funny. You look at the dentist sketch. That’s 45 years old, and I dare anybody to watch that and not get hysterical.”</p>
<p>While Burnett can’t think of any topic or type of character she outright nixed through the years, she does note that she always tried to be mindful of not doing a character too often. Her whiny, nagging wife character of Zelda to Korman’s George, for example, was one she liked in the beginning but felt could become overbearing if performed in too many episodes.</p>
<p>Still, some of Burnett’s personal favorite characters are ones that were repeat visitors. Eunice, who she calls a “pitiful person [that I] just loved playing,” Stella Toddler (“a cartoon, always getting beaten up, and I enjoyed doing the physical stuff”), and the aforementioned Mrs. Wiggins (“who, I like to say, the IQ fairy never visited!”) are all examples of characters near and dear to her heart.</p>
<p>But Burnett also has a soft spot for some of the lesser-known moments, many of which are now those musical numbers, like takes on Gershwin, Jule Styne and Cole Porter, as well. “They were just unbelievable, worthy of a Broadway show,” she says.</p>
<p>She also got great personal satisfaction by parodying movies because she was “a real movie nut” growing up, and she takes great pride in the long list of talented performers who kept coming back year after year. “The Carol Burnett Show” boasted such legends as Lucille Ball, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gormé, Betty White, Diahann Carroll, Bing Crosby and Alan Alda.</p>
<p>After the show came to an end in 1978, Burnett and her own unique theater troupe would reunite for specials designed to celebrate classic moments from the show. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the show’s premiere, they are doing that again, reminiscing with everyone from costume designer Bob Mackie (who created an average of 65 costumes per show during its run), to guest star Bernadette Peters, to the next generation of comedians Burnett has inspired, including Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph and Jim Carrey, who, as a young boy, wrote Burnett a letter asking to become a regular on her show. “It was just a plethora of goodies. I was overwhelmed,” Burnett says of the anniversary celebration.</p>
<p>And although there have been things through the years that Burnett has seen as inspiration for potential sketches (“The Kardashians, of course!”), she doesn’t have a desire to try to recreate the magic of “The Carol Burnett Show” because she knows just how special that experience was. Burnett says that the network “pretty much left us alone” and trusted them to make something entertaining.</p>
<p>“Artists need to do what artists do,” she says. “And CBS, in all of the years the show was on, understood that.”</p>
<p>This meant that even when a horse on-stage for a production number started to go to the bathroom during Burnett’s song, no one stepped in with a “technical difficulties” card. Instead, the show rolled with the moment that became one of the most famous bloopers in television history. just as it would with any time a cast member’s improv (usually Conway’s, per Burnett) would cause another performer to break.</p>
<p>In fact, Burnett can only recall one time that the network stepped in. She was scheduled to play a nudist being interviewed from behind a fence —&#160; and, when asked what nudists do for fun, reply that they have dances. This was going to prompt the follow up question of how nudists dance, to which Burnett was originally supposed to reply “carefully.” But, she says, the network thought that might be too risqué. So they changed the joke to “How do nudists dance?” Answer: “Cheek to cheek.” Though Burnett still isn’t quite sure how that snuck through, she acknowledges it’s a more memorable line.</p>
<p>“My goal, when I went to New York, was to be on Broadway, but I got sidetracked by this little thing called television, and I realized I liked it even better than doing the same thing eight times a week. It was like summer stock,” she says. “I could do different characters every week, and that appealed to me. I had the best of times, and I’m so happy I was around then at the age I was then at the time when television was not as nitpicky as it is today.”</p> | Carol Burnett Reflects on the Character-Driven, Extravagant Style of ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ | false | https://newsline.com/carol-burnett-reflects-on-the-character-driven-extravagant-style-of-the-carol-burnett-show/ | 2017-12-01 | 1 |
<p><a href="" type="internal" />The media spotlight is on corporate CEOs this week, whether it’s the <a href="http://blogs.marketwatch.com/election/2012/11/19/obama-continues-cliff-diplomacy-with-dimon-business-leaders/" type="external">fiscal showdown</a>, <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/191459" type="external">Black Friday</a> protests, or the mismanagement of <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/2012/11/16/fox-ignores-hostess-array-of-troubles-to-scapeg/191440" type="external">Hostess</a>, the maker of Twinkies and Ho-Hos. Here's how to expose the common thread in their actions -- and stand up for our values.</p>
<p>Of course corporate CEOs are in it for the money -- looking out for the American people is someone else's job.It's common sense -- of course businesses want to succeed financially and look out for their bottom line. When business and government leaders take the long view of the economy's best interests, we get companies that create good jobs with decent benefits and Patriotic Millionaires who advocate for shared prosperity that benefits us all.</p>
<p>When they're just looking out for their own short-term interests, they get soaring CEO pay and massive tax breaks -- while we get layoffs and low-wage dead-end jobs. The Twinkies executives padded their own pockets and forced their workers to take less pay. This Friday, Walmart workers who've been working harder and harder for less and less are protesting the same thing.</p>
<p>Now the corporate CEOs whose jobs are to make money for themselves and their investors are pushing for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid -- and more tax cuts for themselves. There's a reason the American people just rejected a self-interested CEO for president. We need leaders who look out for all of us and understand that ultimately we're all in it together.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/EgbertoWilliescom/181893712536" type="external">LIKE My Facebook Page</a></p>
<p>ATTACK: "Labor unions are killing Twinkies and Ho-Hos." RESPONSE:</p>
<p>CLAIM: "Corporate CEOs just want to help the country fix the debt." RESPONSE:</p>
<p>ATTACK: "Obamacare is driving up the price of my pizza." RESPONSE:</p> | Corporate CEOs Show Looking Out For The American People Is Someone Else’s Job | true | http://egbertowillies.com/2012/11/21/corporate-ceos-show-looking-out-for-the-american-people-is-someone-elses-job/ | 2012-11-21 | 4 |
<p />
<p>German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday she was confident that the European Union would complete its Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"(Being an) open society also means being open for global trade .. we have made good progress on CETA now and in the European context you can expect that we will get the signing and ratification," Merkel told an industry event in Berlin.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Michael Nienaber and Joseph Nasr; Writing by Madeline Chambers)</p> | Merkel confident EU will conclude free trade deal with Canada | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2016/10/06/merkel-confident-eu-will-conclude-free-trade-deal-with-canada.html | 2016-10-06 | 0 |
<p>Britain's <a href="http://ufos.nationalarchives.gov.uk/" type="external">National Archives have released</a> 25 files detailing government briefings on unidentified flying objects or UFOs.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jul/12/ufo-national-archive?newsfeed=true" type="external">The Guardian says</a> the archive includes thousands of pages of highly-classified documents and shows the country's Ministry of Defense took the threat of aliens seriously.&#160; It is the ninth set of the government's "X-files" to be made public since the government decided in 2008 that keeping them secret was no longer justified, the newspaper explains.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/uk-reveals-ufo-sighting-over-chealsea/story-e6frf7k6-1226424278510" type="external">Associated Press reports</a> that one file describes the post of UFO desk officer, whose daily duties included providing briefings on the Ministry of Defense's position on UFOs, undertaking UFO investigations, handling freedom of information requests and managing UFO experts or "UFOlogists."&#160; The UFO desk was closed in 2009.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/end-the-world-top-10-doomsday-predictions-didnt-happen-2012" type="external">End of the World - Top ten Doomsday predictions that didn't come true</a></p>
<p>Other documents show Ministry staff believed aliens could visit for "military reconnaissance", "scientific" research or "tourism", <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/ufo/9392888/The-UFO-Files-aliens-might-come-here-for-holidays.html" type="external">according to The Telegraph.&#160;</a>The newspaper says that during a 1995 official briefing an unnamed desk officer said the purpose of reported alien craft sightings "needs to be established as a matter of priority", adding there did not appear to be "hostile intent".</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gxF901ILsKiQ7IQWhlQlJP6b8m-Q?docId=CNG.091e29be84be3077ffe305ccb7e20d65.c11" type="external">The Daily Mail outlines</a> some of the "stranger" investigations mentioned, including a UFO sighting by a police officer at Chelsea Football Club during the 1999 FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester United.&#160; He said a "square to almond shape" yellow object with four lights floated above his horse.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/100709/top-ufo-sensations" type="external">Top ten UFO sensations</a></p>
<p>The release of the documents came after a Freedom of Information request by David Clarke, author of the book 'The UFO files' and a lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University, <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gxF901ILsKiQ7IQWhlQlJP6b8m-Q?docId=CNG.091e29be84be3077ffe305ccb7e20d65.c11" type="external">reports AFP.</a></p>
<p>"We now have a fascinating insight into some of the extraordinary reports and briefings which passed over the UFO Desk on a daily basis and how its officers used logic and science in their attempts to explain 'the unexplained'," Clarke is quoted as saying.</p>
<p>More from GlobalPost: <a href="http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/120214/academics-vote-shitstorm-germans-best-english-loanword" type="external">Academics vote 'shitstorm' German's best English loanword</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | British National Archives release government's UFO files | false | https://pri.org/stories/2012-07-12/british-national-archives-release-governments-ufo-files | 2012-07-12 | 3 |
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<p>AMARILLO, Texas - Amarillo police have charged a man in the death of a woman during an argument that left her dead under a car he allegedly was driving.</p>
<p>Potter County jail records show 28-year-old Ralph Owens was being held without bond Tuesday on charges of murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.</p>
<p>No attorney was listed to speak for Owens, who was arrested after officers responded to a call about a fight Monday afternoon near a house and a woman run over.</p>
<p>Investigators say the body of 27-year-old Kristen King was located under a car. Police say another woman was hit by the vehicle and has injuries not believed to be life-threatening.</p>
<p>Police didn't immediately say what prompted the disturbance or any relationship between the suspect and the victims.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Amarillo police charge man with murder, body found under car | false | https://abqjournal.com/740716/amarillo-police-charge-man-with-murder-body-found-under-car.html | 2 | |
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<p>Image source: NRG Energy.</p>
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<p>Don't look now, but corporate America may lead the next phase of the renewable energy revolution. And that's terrible news for utilities across the country.</p>
<p>Companies are looking at renewable energy as a way to save costs, lock in rates, and go green, and they may have more power to upset the utility business model than even a million homeowners installing solar panels. The defection of even a small number of large companies from the traditional grid could cause havoc in the utility industry.</p>
<p>If you look at energy from a company's perspective, there are a lot of advantages to looking into buying your own renewable energy and forgoing the utility's monopoly. Rates for solar energy in sunny states are now $0.05 per kWh, or less -- that is, less than half of what the average commercial customer pays today.</p>
<p>The simple fact of the matter is that utilities have little incentive to provide electricity at lower prices to commercial customers. Their incentive is to build more and more assets and then spread those costs among customers, which they've done for a hundred years.</p>
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<p>Image source: SunPower.</p>
<p>Then think about the incentives for utilities and customers in the long term. A utility has no ability, or interest, to control commodity costs long-term. If natural gas prices rise, the utility will just pass the cost on to customers, as is its right as a monopoly. But commercial customers want stability and predictability in costs. If they can lock in long-term power purchase agreements from renewable energy, why not lock up the lower cost?</p>
<p>To put the finances of energy choice into perspective, leaving the grid was so valuable for MGM Resorts that it recently said it will pay $86.9 million to leave NV Energy and buy electricity on its own. Seriously, it's paying nearly $90 million just to cut the cord to the utility. Most customers, like Apple , which is buying energy from third-party plants and building some of its own plants, don't even have to pay fines, so the economics are even better.</p>
<p>If the economics didn't work, commercial customers wouldn't be looking to buy renewable energy today. But it does, and that's the biggest reason commercial customers are looking to go renewable.</p>
<p>While economics is the real driver of commercial renewable energy projects, the PR boost can't be bad for companies. They get to call themselves green or say they have a small environmental impact, something companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon have been pushing for years.</p>
<p>It's not clear exactly how this affects consumers' opinions about companies, but it can't hurt to appear green.</p>
<p>Unlike utility- or residential-scale solar, I think commercial solar projects will largely be won by a small handful of players. That's because commercial companies want to work with known counterparties with a track record of success building projects on time and on budget.</p>
<p>Two companies that are already winning in this space are First Solar and SunPower . First Solar signed a massive deal to supply Apple's headquarters with solar energy and was behind Switch's agreement to stay with NV Energy in Nevada (the data company was the first that tried to leave the grid). SunPower has built multiple projects for Apple around to world and has a pipeline of over $1 billionin commercial projects. Like First Solar, it's working primarily with larger commercial entities that can provide the scale it needs to make a dent on the income statement.</p>
<p>Recurrent Energy, which is owned by Canadian Solar , could also be a major player in the solar development side. The company has shown the ability to win competitive bids for utility-scale projects in North America and could develop projects that are competitive for commercial buyers. And NextEra Energy could be interesting to watch from the power producer side. It could offer a bigger suite of energy-generating options for commercial customers and has started to develop its own renewable energy projects as well.</p>
<p>However the commercial renewable energy market plays out, we know that companies have an appetite to buy more renewable energy and are willing to cut ties to the grid to get it. That's great news for renewable companies and <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/03/26/us-energy-industry-a-downward-spiral-might-be.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">terrifying for utilities Opens a New Window.</a>,which are already struggling with slow demand growth and rising costs. If commercial customers start to leave the grid en masse, it'll only raise costs further, causing more defections. That's something investors should keep in mind as they decide where to put energy investments in the future.</p>
<p>The article <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/06/05/why-corporate-americas-love-of-renewable-energy-sh.aspx" type="external">Why Corporate America's Love of Renewable Energy Should Terrify Traditional Utilities Opens a New Window.</a> originally appeared on Fool.com.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFFlushDraw/info.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">Travis Hoium Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Apple, First Solar, and SunPower. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Amazon.com and Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of Microsoft and NRG Energy, Inc. and has the following options: long January 2018 $90 calls on Apple and short January 2018 $95 calls on Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?source=eptfxblnk0000004" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Copyright 1995 - 2016 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/help/index.htm?display=about02" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Corporate America's Love of Renewable Energy Should Terrify Traditional Utilities | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/05/why-corporate-america-love-renewable-energy-should-terrify-traditional.html | 2016-06-05 | 0 |
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<p>Photo by thierry ehrmann | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
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<p>On December 5, former vice president Al Gore met with Donald and Ivanka Trump in an effort to convince the president-elect that he should not gut federal policies and agreements dealing with climate change. Three days later, actor Leonardo DiCaprio also paid the Trump duo a visit, urging them to help build a green, climate-friendly economy with lots of jobs.</p>
<p>The two men could not have had less impact on greenhouse warming if they had flown up to Alaska together and asked the glaciers to please stop melting.</p>
<p>In a conversation with Gore on December 6, the climate-hawk governor of California, Jerry Brown, urged optimism. He believes that other world leaders can convince Trump that his retrograde climate policy is not a good idea politically. (First, though, those leaders are planning to convince Syrian president Bashar Assad to adopt Scandinavian-style social democracy.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Scientific American and a whole slew of scientists <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/an-open-letter-from-scientists-to-president-elect-trump-on-climate-change/" type="external">want you to sign</a> a change.org petition calling on Trump to make the United States a leader in the climate struggle (and to be sure to use the hashtag #ActOnClimate.) I expect, though, that you’ll be at least as effective if you instead start your own petition urging Chevrolet to stop building SUVs and make bicycles instead.</p>
<p>Trump of course ignored these entreaties, instead demanding from the Energy Department the names of <a href="" type="internal">all personnel</a> who have been involved in efforts to reduce carbon emissions. We can assume that he didn’t make the request because he wants to give those employees raises.</p>
<p>Ambitions for federal action on greenhouse emissions have sunk to such depths that, according to a climate-conscious writer for The Hill, “ <a href="" type="internal">our best hope</a>” is, of all people, Ivanka. Even if she were to convince Donald not to scuttle the Paris Agreement on climate, we’d still be in the realm of futility, talking about global carbon-cutting pledges that would lead to a world-shattering global temperature increase of 2.7 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (and that’s in the unlikely event that all countries live up to their commitments under the agreement; it would likely be worse.)</p>
<p>Forget Trump. If saving civilization from an untimely heat death actually did depend on whether or not the U.S. president can be convinced to take appropriate action, then we would have already been doomed long before 2016. Policy steps taken by current and past presidents, as well as campaign promises made by Hillary Clinton, all fell far, far short of cutting emissions as much as is needed to avert disaster. They didn’t even get us to the starting line.</p>
<p>Will Donald make it easier to get radical?</p>
<p>Instead of begging our megalomaniac-elect to save the world, we all should follow the examples of the Standing Rock Sioux, the #ShutItDown activists, <a href="" type="internal">the city of San Francisco</a>, and others who are confronting the ecological crisis where it’s happening.</p>
<p>Arguing for that in an invigorating December 1 Portland Rising Tide <a href="https://portlandrisingtide.org/direct-action-trump-around/" type="external">essay</a>, Arnold Shroder noted that the opening for building a bigger, more radical, more effective movement may be wider now than it was before November 8. He wrote,</p>
<p>“Federal intransigence on climate is such that most plausible scenarios for significant near-term emissions reductions involve states, counties, and municipalities—who have managed [until now] to convince themselves that meaningful climate action is the job of someone with more power, like the federal government and the United Nations—to find diverse and creative ways to dismantle their fair share of the fossil fuel economy.”</p>
<p>However, Shroder continued, most local and state officials are still going to act only when pushed to act, so intense public pressure and bold actions will be needed: “Direct action can influence the behavior of political entities which are capable of significantly impeding Trump’s agenda. This is true in many respects. The fact that so much of the political establishment, even on the right, is averse to Trump likely creates unique opportunities. . . . [I]nstitutional collaboration at all levels is necessary for any of this madman’s visions to become reality, and in a way that has perhaps never been true of a US president, it isn’t at all clear where he will and will not receive that collaboration.”</p>
<p>He points to the defiant resolution passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors a month after the election (and huge street demonstrations), in which they declared that the city will “never back down” in its support of climate action, immigrant protection, Black Lives Matter, women’s rights, LBGTQ rights, workers’ rights, and universal health care, adding, “We will not be bullied by threats to revoke our federal funding.” Cities large and small across the country have declared similar intentions.</p>
<p>Shroder too urges that activists who are focused primarily on climate and the fossil-fuel menace join forces with those fighting back against racism, mass incarceration, and deportation; those resisting the growing impunity of police with their right to harass and shoot at will; those fighting for workers’ rights, and people carrying out many other struggles. We’re going to need demonstrations more frequent and even larger than those that helped stop Washington’s war on Vietnam.</p>
<p>Getting Over Paris</p>
<p>This better path now open to the climate movement—that is, instead of asking Washington or corporations or the investor class, “Please do this,” to tell them, “We’re gonna do this and this and this, no matter what you say or do”—can energize people at a time when prospects are looking grimmest. But most people or groups, even climate-aware ones, won’t be roused to action unless prominent figures—not just celebrities like Gore and DiCaprio, but all national and local climate leaders—make clear the scale of the emergency and stress that incremental emissions reductions are doomed to fail.</p>
<p>The need for quick, urgent action is not a hard case to make. Despite allowing the global temperature to rise by two and a half to three and a half degrees, the Paris agreement declares that its eventual goal is to hold the rise to a degree and a half. That’s because all of the realistic projections <a href="" type="internal">now show</a> that even the old goal, a two-degree rise, will mean catastrophe. Achieving the 1.5-degree goal will require eliminating all greenhouse emissions within the next 15 years, and sooner in the case of heavy emitters like the United States.</p>
<p>That’s a very tall order. But one benefit of 2017’s otherwise horrific alt-reality will be that activists and organizations won’t be bound by the political horse-trading that under a Clinton or Sanders administration would have meant settling for incremental, far-too-slow emissions reductions. Now they will be free to push hard, out there across America, for the immediate, steep drop in the use of fossil fuels and other greenhouse-gas sources that is so essential.</p>
<p>But they will also have to be publicly candid about a hard consequence of such deep cuts: that they will require America and other high-emissions nations get by on far less energy from all sources.</p>
<p>Why’s that? Well, suppose we overthrow this regime soon and get serious about climate. Building wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal infrastructure will be essential to sustaining civilization, but a rapid buildup will require huge energy inputs. And we will have to be rapidly abandoning fossil fuels at the same time we are constructing renewable energy infrastructure. The concurrence of those two crash campaigns will leave far less net energy to be consumed for doing everything else we need to do.</p>
<p>So the transition will be tough, but what about the long run? Can renewable sources eventually supply as much energy as we now consume, so that America can eventually return to today’s profligate lifestyle? Some research reaches <a href="" type="internal">optimistic</a> conclusions, but more hard-nosed <a href="" type="internal">studies</a> that take all limits and pitfalls into account find that once we start dealing with on-the-ground realities, we will have to accept that the energy abundance we’ve enjoyed in this short-lived fossil-fuel era won’t be repeated in a renewable-energy future.</p>
<p>The primary limitation we will face in building renewable energy capacity is its higher requirement for energy input per unit of energy generated. That can be ten to twenty times larger than was required for mining and pumping the coal, oil, and gas with which today’s world was built. That leaves much less net energy to be used by society at large.</p>
<p>Second, we will obtain less and less energy per unit of energy invested as time goes on. That’s because we are already exploiting the best locations for wind, solar, and biomass power; we’ll be moving on to successively less windy, sunny, productive places.</p>
<p>Furthermore, some of the wind and solar energy generated, maybe much of it, will have to be stored using batteries, hydrogen, compressed air, or other means. It will then have to be reconverted either to electricity or liquid fuels and transmitted from often remote regions to places where people and businesses are concentrated. All of those processes will severely shrink the net energy available to society, because much energy is expended during both conversion and transmission.</p>
<p>Finally, all production of wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass energy has an ecological impact on the landscapes where it occurs. So if we are to halt our degradation and destruction of the Earth’s natural ecosystems, it will be necessary to declare large areas off-limits to the energy sector.</p>
<p>Patrick Moriarty and Damon Honnery of Monash University in Australia have been examining scientists’ projections of global potential for renewable energy generation, and pointing out all of these limitations. They have concluded that future renewable output “could be <a href="" type="internal">far below</a> present energy use.”</p>
<p>The bottom line: we will have to redesign our economy and society to get by with a permanently lower input of energy and other resources. This will require a <a href="" type="internal">World War II-scale mobilization</a>, something that obviously isn’t going to happen in a Trump administration; however, if we mount emergency mobilizations in communities, counties, and states around the country, along with open political rebellion in defense of the Earth, we could start cutting emissions and blazing a trail for nationwide climate mobilization at the same time we are striving for rapid regime change.</p>
<p>A new nation conceived . . .</p>
<p>Slashing energy consumption will be a hard sell in America unless a majority of the country understands clearly the dreadful consequences of not doing it. But it’s just as important to emphasize that a life with lower energy consumption is not going to be one of gloom and misery. On this point, some international comparisons might be useful.</p>
<p>For example, consider scenarios in which we reduce the net energy available to run American society (total energy, from all sources) by 50, 75, or 85 percent. We then can ask which countries today have similar per-capita consumption of energy. (Since no one can really be sure how much we’ll have to reduce, I chose those percentages arbitrarily before looking at the data, in order to avoid any charges that I was cherry-picking percentages or countries.)</p>
<p>There are four countries that consume about half (45 to 55 percent) as much energy per capita as America does: France, Japan, Slovakia, and Slovenia. So clearly, a well-functioning society with good quality of life can easily run on that kind of energy input. (By the way, all four of those countries have much lower <a href="http://databank.worldbank.org/data/reports.aspx?source=2&amp;series=SI.POV.GINI&amp;country=" type="external">inequality</a> scores and higher <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-index-hdi" type="external">human development</a> indices than we do.)</p>
<p>But unfortunately, any realistic examination of our predicament tells us that we are going to have to cut energy use by <a href="" type="internal">a lot more</a> than half.</p>
<p>So let’s look at the group of countries that consume about a quarter (22 to 28 percent) as much energy per capita as the United States. That’s more of a mixed bag: Bosnia, Croatia, Cyprus, Mexico, Montenegro, and Thailand. (Hong Kong is within this range as well, but it’s not a country.) All but Mexico have better scores for income inequality than the United States. And among 150 nations, the ranks of these “25 percenters” on the human development scale run from around 30th best (Croatia and Cyprus; compare with USA at no. 28) to near 70th (Mexico and Thailand.)</p>
<p>Some of these countries would clearly be better places to live than others (based on my experience, I’d go for Croatia any day!), but the larger point is that consuming 75 percent less energy than Americans do doesn’t require adopting the lifestyle of the Neolithic.</p>
<p>If it turns out that we will have to go further and get by on about 85 percent less energy per capita, our present-day examples are Armenia, Botswana, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Georgia, Jamaica, Jordan, and Panama. Lower living standards for sure, but wide variation in quality of life. The main problem making some of these countries, and some of those listed above, less-than-desirable places to live is not that they are energy deprived. It’s that a large share of their populations endure material deprivation while a privileged few hoard much of the wealth and power. (Note that such conditions clearly exist in today’s United States.)</p>
<p>This is not to say that by going on a strict energy diet, the United States would come to resemble present-day France or Bosnia or Ecuador or any other country. We’d still be America, but a thoroughly transformed America—maybe better, maybe worse. Done right, the scaleback would force us to stop expending energy on all kinds of wasteful, socially harmful, or ecologically destructive activities. We would ensure that everyone has sufficient access to the shrinking energy pie, along with a good livelihood and good quality of life.</p>
<p>To achieve that transformation it will be necessary, in Marx and Engels’ terms, to expropriate the expropriators. The 99 percent will have to seize wealth and political/economic power from the 1 percent. But in a world with a ceiling on available energy, there will also need to be a <a href="" type="internal">shift of resources</a> from the top half to the bottom half of the population if there’s to be sufficiency for all.</p>
<p>No more soft pedaling</p>
<p>Up to this point, the mainstream climate movement has been highly allergic to talking about energy reductions of 75 percent or more, let alone the economic transformation that would entail. Some have refused to let go of the idea that the “American way of life” can be sustained; others have known all too well what was required, but soft pedaled their message for fear of scaring the wider public away from climate action—a maneuver writer Chris Shaw has <a href="" type="internal">decried</a> as the “not in front of the children” strategy.</p>
<p>I have heard that argument made ad nauseum in another, no less condescending form: “We have to let people have hope!” OK, fine. In the perilous years ahead, I’m going to respond to that nostrum this way: “I agree. So start asking your readers or audiences or neighbors this: “What gives you more hope: broiling ourselves on the High setting under Trump, cutting emissions gradually so as to broil ourselves on Medium under the Paris Agreement, or turning off the broiler and living with a lot less material abundance but in a more just, more fair country?”</p>
<p>We can let Washington decide between those first two choices for us, or we can choose the third.</p>
<p>This article was originally published by <a href="http://greensocialthought.org" type="external">GreenSocialThought.org</a>. &#160;</p> | The Ascendance of Trump Makes Broad-Based Climate Action Essential…and Achievable | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/12/13/the-ascendance-of-trump-makes-broad-based-climate-action-essential-and-achievable/ | 2016-12-13 | 4 |
<p>Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI.JO) expects a drop of between 43% and 57% in half-year earnings per share as a result of adverse currency effects and higher amortization.</p>
<p>The gold producer, with operating mines in Australia, Ghana, Peru and South Africa, said earnings per share for the six months ended June 30 are expected to be $0.06 to $0.08 lower than the $0.14 per share a year earlier.</p>
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<p>Normalized earnings for the period will fall 15% to 31% from the $0.13 per share reported a year earlier.</p>
<p>Gold Fields said the declines are mainly due to the impact of exchange rates when converting local currency costs to dollars and an increase in amortization.</p>
<p>Attributable gold equivalent production for the second quarter of 2017 is expected to be 550,000 ounces compared with 497,000 ounces during the first quarter.</p>
<p>Write to Razak Musah Baba at razak.baba@wsj.com; Twitter: @Raztweet</p>
<p>(END) Dow Jones Newswires</p>
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<p>July 27, 2017 03:44 ET (07:44 GMT)</p> | Gold Fields 1st Half Earnings to Fall on Exchange Rates | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2017/07/27/gold-fields-1st-half-earnings-to-fall-on-exchange-rates.html | 2017-07-27 | 0 |
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<p>After reading Deborah Nelson’s incredibly depressing <a href="" type="internal">piece</a> on circus elephant abuse, I’m pretty sure I’ll never enter the Ringling Bros. big top again. But it did get me wondering about other forms of animal entertainment.</p>
<p>Just a few weeks ago, some friends and I went to the Grand National Rodeo. Protesters outside the arena warned us that “rodeos are not fun for the animals.” Yet inside, the announcer assured us that the horses and cows were well cared for and healthy, and that they even enjoyed the “exercise” of shaking off hapless cowboys. And after watching one guy limp out of the ring after getting dragged by a bucking bronc, I had to admit that it did seem like the riders took more abuse than the animals. So are all animal shows really as cruel as Ringling Bros.? Or is there such thing as good old-fashioned performing-critter fun?</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, circuses that they adhere to rigorous standards of animal welfare. <a href="http://www.ringling.com/FlashSubContent.aspx?id=11654&amp;parentID=320&amp;assetFolderID=340" type="external">Ringling Bros</a>. says that its approach to animal training is “built on respect, trust, affection and uncompromising care.” Yet by law, circuses are really only required to follow one piece of legislation: the <a href="http://Animal%20Welfare%20Act" type="external">Animal Welfare Act</a>. Enacted in 1966, the law is meant to regulate “the treatment of animals in research, exhibition, transport, and by dealers.” But Delcianna Winders, PETA’s director of captive animal law enforcement, told me that the AWA has been criticized for its lack of species-specific rules—under the law, an elephant or a tiger is subject to the same confinement rules as, say, a monkey or a dog. And even when USDA inspectors find evidence of abuse, as Nelson shows in her piece, the animal keepers often get away scot-free.</p>
<p>The USDA lists 29 circuses that hold wild-animal licenses. But Will Travers, CEO of the animal advocacy group <a href="http://www.bornfreeusa.org/" type="external">Born Free USA</a>, estimates that “there are at least half a dozen more large-scale circuses featuring wild animals, and an unknowable number of small local circuses featuring animals, both licensed and unlicensed.” Both <a href="http://www.bornfreeusa.org/database/exo_incidents.php?facility=C" type="external">Born Free USA</a> and <a href="http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/circuses-USDA-citations-problems.aspx" type="external">PETA</a> have good listings of incidents of circus animal abuse and neglect. Courtesy of PETA, here are some of the USDA citations recently racked up by circuses, many of them small or regional acts:</p>
<p>I told Winders that I was having trouble finding a similar USDA listing for rodeo citations. “That’s because it doesn’t exist,” she said. That’s right: Even though the <a href="http://www.prorodeo.com/animal_welfare.aspx" type="external">Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association</a> says that “The PRCA and its members value their animals and staunchly protect them with specifically created rules,” rodeos are exempt from having to follow the Animal Welfare Act. <a href="#correction" type="external">*</a> (Also exempt are pet stores, state fairs, dog and cat shows, and “any other fairs or exhibitions intended to advance agricultural arts and sciences.” I&#160;bet it’d be interesting to look around for ag industry lobbying around the AWA.)</p>
<p>So how do you know whether a performing animal is being treated well? In 2008, the artistic director of the Big Apple Circus told the <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/answers-about-the-big-apple-circus-part-2/" type="external">New York Times</a>, “By simply looking at the animals in our ring, you can see that they are healthy, interested in their surroundings and enjoying the bond with their trainers.” But Travers says it isn’t that simple. Even if it’s technically healthy, “a performing animal can’t tell you whether it’s happy or not,” he says. “You’re asked to suspend your disbelief and enter an imaginary world, so it’s easy to convince yourself that the animals are happy.” Chances are, says Travers, that an animal that is “swaying or rocking, or pacing in a specific pattern over and over” is not happy.</p>
<p>The good news is that a few areas have made their own rules to protect animal performers. Cities and towns that have banned acts with wild animals ( <a href="" type="internal">PDF</a>) include Boulder, Colorado, Stamford, Connecticut, and Pasadena, California; similar rodeo legislation by state is <a href="http://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/rodeo-ordinances-and-state-laws.aspx" type="external">here</a>. A <a href="" type="internal">bill</a> introduced just last week would forbid all exotic and wild animals from performing for 15 days if they have been traveling in mobile shelters.</p>
<p>My two cents: I probably won’t be going to the rodeo again, and I’ll stick to circuses sans critters. If your kid is clamoring for a trip to the big top, PETA has a good list of animal-free circuses <a href="http://www.peta.org/living/animal-friendly-fun/animal-free-circuses.aspx" type="external">here</a>. If you just can’t bring yourself to skip the animal entertainment, check out Born Free USA’s <a href="http://www.bornfreeusa.org/database/exo_incidents.php?facility=C" type="external">database</a> of incidents involving exotic animals by state or search <a href="http://acissearch.aphis.usda.gov/LPASearch/faces/Warning.jspx;jsessionid=7f00000130d9983de730121d46e1b3ffe6e2ad3ebfc4.e38Obx8Sb3yQby0LbN8SaxmQbx8Oe0" type="external">USDA citation reports</a>. If you suspect that a show animal is being mistreated, <a href="http://www.aphis.usda.gov/contact_us/ac.shtml" type="external">tell the USDA</a>.</p>
<p>Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that rodeos were only exempt from USDA inspections. They are actually entirely exempt from the Animal Welfare Act. The sentence has been corrected.</p>
<p /> | Should You Go to the Circus? How About the Rodeo? | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/circus-rodeo-animal-abuse/ | 2011-11-07 | 4 |
<p>The British decision to exit the European Union will have no immediate impact on neighbor Ireland's sovereign rating, but it will have a negative effect on the Irish economy in the near to medium term, Standard &amp; Poor's said Friday. The U.K. accounts for about 12.4% of Irish goods and 20% of Irish service exports, well below the 50% level seen when the two countries first joined the then European Community in 1973. "However, the sectors that serve the U.K. market are, on average, more labor intensive and any negative shocks could damage the mending Irish labor market," the agency said in a statement. Other risks include a weakening of the financial service sector, and the ripple effect of lower demand from the rest of the EU. "Furthermore, many aspects of Britain's relationship with the EU, and therefore the U.K.-Irish relationship, would be unclear, increasing uncertainties related to trade and investment between the two countries," said S&amp;P. "We do not believe the potential relocation of some U.K. businesses to Ireland would fully offset the overall negative impact of Brexit in the short to medium term."</p>
<p>Copyright © 2016 MarketWatch, Inc.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p> | Irish Economy To Be Hurt By Brexit In The Near Term, Says S&P | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/06/24/irish-economy-to-be-hurt-by-brexit-in-near-term-says-sp.html | 2016-06-24 | 0 |
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<p>FILE - This July 19, 1969 file photo shows U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's car being pulled from the water next to the Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick Island in Edgartown, Mass. on Martha's Vineyard. A new feature film is in the works about the tragedy on the small Massachusetts island nearly a half century ago that rocked the Kennedy political dynasty. Kennedy's passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, was trapped in the car after it went off the bridge and died. (AP Photo, File)</p>
<p>BOSTON - A new feature film is in the works about the tragedy on a small Massachusetts island nearly a half-century ago that rocked the Kennedy political dynasty.</p>
<p>Australian-born "Zero Dark Thirty" star Jason Clarke has been tapped to portray the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy in "Chappaquiddick" - the working title for the film.</p>
<p>Filming is slated to begin around Labor Day with a tentative release in late 2017.</p>
<p>Kennedy was driving a car that went off Dike Bridge on Chappaquiddick in July 1969. His passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, was trapped in the car and died.</p>
<p>Kennedy, who died in 2009, described his failure to report the incident to police for nine hours as "indefensible." He pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident and was given a two-month suspended sentence.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Hollywood film to revisit events on Chappaquiddick in 1969 | false | https://abqjournal.com/767215/hollywood-film-to-revisit-events-on-chappaquiddick-in-1969.html | 2 | |
<p>July 18 (UPI) — The relationship between speed and size among animals plots a bell curve on a graph. At a certain point, size becomes a liability, not an asset.</p>
<p>Such was the case for Tyrannosaurus rex. New research suggests the large dino species was a rather slower runner. In fact, he was mostly a walker.</p>
<p>For small and medium sized animals, the larger the species the faster it can move. A rabbit is faster than a beetle; a fox is faster than a rabbit; and a cheetah is faster than fox. But a giraffe isn’t faster than a fox. Nor is an elephant.</p>
<p>Scientists at the <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Friedrich_Schiller/" type="external">Friedrich Schiller</a> University Jena developed a model to formulate the relationship between speed and size and predict the pace of extinct species. The simple model can predict the top speeds of an animal with 90 percent accuracy using two inputs, the animal’s weight and the medium in which the animal travels.</p>
<p>“The best feature of our model is that it is universally applicable,” Myriam Hirt, a researcher at the University of Jena, <a href="https://www.uni-jena.de/en/Research+News/FM170717_Speed_en.html" type="external">said in a news release</a>. “It can be performed for all body sizes of animals, from mites to blue whales, with all means of locomotion, from running and swimming to flying, and can be applied in all habitats.”</p>
<p>The model suggests T. rex maxed out at 17 miles per hour.</p>
<p>To confirm the accuracy of their model, researchers compared their results to the predictions of more complex models that use sophisticated biomechanical algorithms to simulate an extinct species’ running speed.</p>
<p>The results of the more complicated models jived with predictions of the simpler formula, yielding similar top speeds for Triceratops, Tyrannosaurus, Brachiosaurus and other types of dinosaurs.</p>
<p>“This means that in future, our model will enable us to estimate, in a very simple way, how fast other extinct animals were able to run,” Hirt said.</p>
<p>The researches shared their new formula this week <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0241-4" type="external">in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution</a>.</p> | T. rex was probably pretty slow, scientists claim | false | https://newsline.com/t-rex-was-probably-pretty-slow-scientists-claim/ | 2017-07-18 | 1 |
<p>Rhinos with poison-infused horns are roaming the bush in South Africa, frightening&#160;away poachers who don’t want sell a toxic product to their clients in Asia. At least that’s what Lorina Hern hopes.</p>
<p>Hern,&#160;the co-founder of the <a href="http://rhinorescueproject.org/" type="external">Rhino Rescue Project</a>, has spent the last four years “devaluing” the horns of rhinos by infusing them with ectoparasiticides —&#160;or anti-parasite drugs —&#160;and pink dye. The dye isn't visble on the outside,&#160;and the ectoparasiticides are harmless to the rhinos when injected into their horns. But humans who handle or consume the horns&#160;may not be so lucky.</p>
<p>“At a minimum it would start with diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, severe headaches, all the way up to nervous symptoms, which could be permanent,” Hern says. “Some ectoparasiticides also precipitate the development of cancers later on in life.”</p>
<p>Lorinda Hern is the co-founder of the Rhino Rescue Project.</p>
<p>Bobby Bascomb</p>
<p>Rhino Rescue does its work on behalf of wildlife parks and game reserves looking to protect their rhinos from poachers. Wildlife tourism brings billions of dollars into the South African economy each year, and tourists expect to see rhinos on their safari tours.</p>
<p>That makes rhinos expensive: One animal can cost an owner more than $20,000. But the demand for rhino horns in Asia, where they are believed to have medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities, has made a single rhino horn worth 10 times that on the black market, making the animals tempting targets for poachers.</p>
<p>To protect their investments, more and more parks are&#160;buying insurance for their high-risk animals. The biggest wild life insurance company in South Africa, <a href="http://www.1com.co.za/" type="external">One Financial Services</a>,&#160;charges $700 a year to insure a rhino against poaching.</p>
<p>“The poaching risk is so horrendous that it is close to being uninsurable,” says Peter Darroll,&#160;a development manager for One Financial Services. The rhino insurance business doesn't make the company much money, he says, but it helps them attract business for more profitable policies on&#160;animals like buffaloes.</p>
<p>Profitable or not,&#160;One Financial Services&#160;still&#160;requires that&#160;rhinos undergo the horn posioning procedure before they can be covered under the company’s policy. It starts with&#160;Hern and her team&#160;tranquilizing&#160;the animals by darting them from a helicopter. As the rhinos&#160;begin to lose consciousness, they are laid on their side. Technicians drill three holes into the horn an&#160;inject the poison and the dye under high pressure.</p>
<p>The procedure has its risks. In 2012, a white male rhino named Spencer died while under anesthesia, but <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2013/05/09/dye-and-poison-stop-rhino-poachers/" type="external">a veterinarian</a> who was an independent observer believed he had an underlying medical condition.&#160;Horns also grow relatively quickly, so the toxins and dye are only effective for four years&#160;before the process has to be repeated.</p>
<p>This video from photographer Joey Skibel gives you an idea of what the process looks like in action:</p>
<p />
<p />
<p>The South African National Park Service has not been supportive of Rhino Rescue’s work. The government organization has&#160;co-authored a report&#160;critical of the horn-poisoning&#160;method and its effectiveness.</p>
<p>"This strategy will never help in quelling rhino poaching in the park because we have so many rhino such that we can't even manage to capture them,” park spokesperson William&#160;Mabasa <a href="http://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/poisoned-rhino-horn-wont-deter-poaching-kruger" type="external">told government news agency SANews</a>.&#160;But it's not a full condemnation.&#160;“I&#160;do think it will be a good thing for the individuals who own few rhinos," he added.</p>
<p>Hern maintains&#160;the government is biased against the horn poisoning technique because officials want to eventually legalize and regulate the trade;&#160;Rhino Rescue <a href="http://rhinorescueproject.org/faq/" type="external">vigorously contests the government report’s findings</a> on its website.</p>
<p>And the goal of the horn poisoning isn’t to poison every rhino’s horn, or even stop poaching all together:&#160;It’s meant to sow doubt in the minds of poachers and horn buyers. That's why a key step in the process has nothing to do with the rhinos themselves, but with community outreach.</p>
<p />
<p>A local takes a photo of Rhino after it has been treated by Rhino Rescue.&#160;</p>
<p>Courtsey of Rhino Rescue.&#160;</p>
<p>“The staff are invited to come out, local schools are invited to come out, community leaders, the chiefs of certain clans,” Hern says. “Everyone in South Africa has a cell phone,&#160;so they actively are encouraged to take as many pictures as they want on these treatment sites and to distribute the word.”</p>
<p>No matter the method,&#160;Hern sees defending the rhino&#160;as her life’s mission.</p>
<p>“I can much easier live with myself knowing that if rhinos still go extinct, it happened despite me and not because of me," she says. "I would hate to look future generations in the eye and have them ask me, ‘Well what were you doing while rhinos went extinct?’ And to have to answer, ‘Well, nothing. I thought someone else was taking care of it.’”</p>
<p>This story <a href="http://loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=15-P13-00011&amp;segmentID=3" type="external">originally aired</a> on PRI's <a href="http://www.loe.org" type="external">Living on Earth</a> with Steve Curwood</p> | Poisoning rhino horns doesn't hurt the rhinos, but it may keep poachers away | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-03-22/poisoning-rhino-horns-doesnt-hurt-rhinos-it-may-keep-poachers-away | 2015-03-22 | 3 |
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<p>KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Wildfires scorching hundreds of square miles of Kansas, Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma have been blamed in at least six deaths as of Wednesday. Thousands of people have been displaced by the wind-whipped flames.</p>
<p>Here’s a look at the situation:</p>
<p>WHAT’S BURNING?</p>
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<p>A two-county wildfire in Kansas has consumed an estimated 861 square miles of land, eclipsing last year’s record for the biggest single blaze in the state’s recorded history. Kansas Division of Emergency Management spokeswoman Katie Horner says the estimated 625 square miles charred in Clark County as of Wednesday is about 85 percent of that county’s total land, with an additional 236 square miles lost in Comanche County. Horner tells The Associated Press that that number in the two predominantly ranching-and-farming counties appears certain to grow. The previous record for the most-widespread Kansas blaze came last year, with the Anderson Creek fire in Barber and Comanche counties consuming 488 square miles of land.</p>
<p>Horner says that since last Saturday, large grassfires have been reported in 23 Kansas counties, consuming more than 1,000 square miles. At least 70 structures in Kansas have been damaged or destroyed.</p>
<p>In addition, three wildfires in the Texas Panhandle have burned nearly 750 square miles of rural land, while more than 540 square miles of property has been blackened in Oklahoma. Dozens of square miles also have been charred in northeastern Colorado.</p>
<p>WHAT CAUSES SUCH BLAZES?</p>
<p>It’s not yet clear what sparked the wildfires now raging.</p>
<p>But Bill Bunting, forecast operations chief at the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, said human activity causes most wildfires in the prairie — a cigarette thrown from a car or sometimes a spark from a catalytic converter. Bunting said lightning accounts for 25 percent of wildfires.</p>
<p>WHAT’S STOKING THE FLAMES?</p>
<p>Parched conditions amplified by strong winds and low humidity put the region at risk for wildfires. All of eastern Colorado is classified as either moderately or abnormally dry along with much of Kansas and Oklahoma, and some of northern Texas, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly tracker of dry conditions across the U.S.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Noting the abundance of vegetation fuel, drought conditions and windiness in the southern central Plains, Liz Leitman, a Storm Prediction Center meteorologist, said Wednesday that “everything has come together to overlap to create a pretty volatile situation.”</p>
<p>PROMISING WEATHER AHEAD</p>
<p>Firefighters in many of the affected states may catch a break within days.</p>
<p>Brian Fuchs, a climatologist with the Nebraska-based National Drought Mitigation Center, said the weekly drought report he put together for release Thursday will show an intensification of drought conditions in the fire-ravaged region.</p>
<p>But perhaps starting late Thursday and lingering into the weekend, a storm is forecast to drop an inch or more of rainfall from central Kansas through much of Oklahoma and Texas, Fuchs said. The Texas Panhandle, eastern Colorado and western Kansas may miss out on that.</p>
<p>“That will be enough precipitation to put the brakes on some of this (wildfire outbreak) right now,” he said.</p>
<p>COULD THE OUTBREAK BE CYCLICAL?</p>
<p>Leitman said the latest outbreak of wildfires “seems to be, at least in my experience, a naturally occurring cycle for this area” and “not unusual for this time of year.”</p>
<p>She said the last large outbreak came in late 2010 and into 2011, when similar conditions caused wildfires that scorched more than 4,000 square miles in Texas and Arizona.</p>
<p>COULD CLIMATE CHANGE BE IN PLAY?</p>
<p>In 2013, University of Illinois atmospheric sciences professor Don Wuebbles warned that the frequency and intensity of wildfires likely would increase in the coming years, given the confluence of such factors as higher temperatures, untamed underbrush and less rain.</p>
<p>Wuebbles, a co-author of a draft federal report linking climate change to an increase in severe weather trends, postulated then to National Geographic that “this probably is the new normal.”</p>
<p>“Thirty years from now, we may look upon this as being a much better period than what we may be facing then,” he said then.</p>
<p>WHAT’S THE COST?</p>
<p>Officials in the states affected by the ongoing wildfires haven’t released estimates of the economic losses from damaged or destroyed homes, businesses and livestock — or the expense of firefighters’ efforts to knock down the flames. But it’s expected those costs will run well into the millions of dollars.</p>
<p>During last year’s massive wildfire along the Kansas-Oklahoma border, for example, firefighting costs reached $1.5 million in Barber County — the Kansas county hardest hit by that blaze. That county’s emergency management chief, Jerry McNamar, said the county’s economic losses included 750 to 800 cattle that died in the county, along with at least 2,700 miles of fence, worth $27 million, that was destroyed.</p>
<p>GLASS HALF FULL</p>
<p>Wildfires can offer some ecological benefits.</p>
<p>Conservation experts, for instance, say that last year’s sprawling Oklahoma-Kansas blaze managed to clear out more eastern red cedars in a week than local efforts to eradicate that invasive species could have accomplished in decades.</p>
<p>Red cedars, also known as junipers, are fast-growing, drought-resistant trees that are useful for erosion control along canyon edges in the region’s Red Hills. But those trees — often the focus of prescribed burns — are a nuisance on prairie land because they crowd out native grasses, suck up moisture from the soil and reduce the amount of forage area for wildlife and livestock.</p> | Q&A: A look at questions about current US wildfires | false | https://abqjournal.com/964619/qa-a-look-at-questions-about-current-us-wildfires.html | 2017-03-08 | 2 |
<p>A rare but deadly fungal disease once occurring only in tropical climates has recently led to several deaths in the Pacific Northwest. Some researchers believe that climate change may be to blame for the disease’s emergence there.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://theclimatedesk.org/" type="external" /></p>
<p>When Trudy Rosler first got sick after a visit to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, doctors were stumped. Eventually they discovered that she had fungus growing in her brain stem—one that was previously only known to exist in the tropics. Researchers say that subtle changes in climate over the last 40 years may be the reason it’s infecting people much farther north. Here in the US, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is already treating climate change as a serious health threat.</p>
<p>Need to Know’s medical correspondent Dr. Emily Senay examines how a warming climate is already affecting our health, from making allergies worse to affecting the spread of infectious diseases and pushing the extremes of killer weather.</p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/environment/video-from-allergies-to-deadly-disease-feeling-the-effects-of-climate-change/9457/" type="external">video</a> was produced by <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/" type="external">Need to Know</a> for the <a href="http://theclimatedesk.org/" type="external">Climate Desk</a> collaboration.</p> | Video: From Allergies to Deadly Disease, Feeling the Effects of Climate Change | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/cryptococcus-gattii-pacific-northwest-fungal-disease/ | 2011-05-27 | 4 |
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<p />
<p>The proposal released Thursday calls for a slower phase-out of the Medicaid expansion than a bill adopted earlier by the House. Yet it still would force those states to figure out what to do about the millions of lower-income Americans who used it to gain health coverage.</p>
<p>The doubts about the latest plan from Washington came from Republicans, Democrats and the nation’s one independent governor.</p>
<p>“I have deep concerns with details in the U.S. Senate’s plan to fix America’s health care system and the resources needed to help our most vulnerable, including those who are dealing with drug addiction, mental illness and chronic health problems and have nowhere else to turn,” Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, said in a Twitter message.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Kasich was part of a group of Republican and Democratic governors who wrote a letter last week to Senate leaders calling for them to work in a bipartisan way to revamp the nation’s complex health insurance policies.</p>
<p>Another was Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, also a Republican. His decision to expand Medicaid has provided health coverage to more than 210,000 Nevada residents.</p>
<p>“It appears that the proposed bill will dramatically reduce coverage and will negatively impact our future state budgets,” he said in an emailed statement.</p>
<p>Part of the Obama law was an offer to the states: If they would expand Medicaid, a joint federal-state insurance program for low-income people, to able-bodied adults without children at home, the federal government would pick up the entire tab in the initial years. The federal share drops to 90 percent after 2020.</p>
<p>The expansion has provided coverage to 11 million people in the 31 states that accepted it.</p>
<p>The Senate bill calls for phasing out the enhanced federal support for the expansion by 2024. The House calls for doing it by 2020.</p>
<p>In both plans, states could keep coverage for the newly eligible adults, but federal taxpayers would not continue to pay a larger share of the bill. The Senate bill also calls for a tighter cap on federal spending in Medicaid overall than the House bill did. Currently, there is no limit on how much the program will pay for care for those enrolled.</p>
<p>In addition, it calls for extra federal funding to be awarded to states for addiction and mental health treatment, services covered by Medicaid. Both chambers would have to agree on details for the bill to be sent to President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Trying to keep the expansion without added federal help could blow a hole in state budgets.</p>
<p>In Oregon, lawmakers this week passed a health care tax intended to fix a $1.4 billion, two-year budget deficit attributed largely to Medicaid expansion costs. Those costs are rising there and elsewhere even with the federal government paying for most of the expansion, largely because more people signed up than originally expected.</p>
<p>“We anticipate it will be hundreds of thousands of Oregonians that will be stripped of health care under this proposal in order to get a tax break for wealthy Americans,” said Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat.</p>
<p>That was a reference to other provisions of the Republican plan that would cut taxes by nearly $1 trillion over the next decade, mostly for corporations and America’s wealthiest families.</p>
<p>In Montana, 20 percent of residents didn’t have medical insurance in 2013. By last year, that was down to 7 percent. Gov. Steve Bullock, a Democrat, attributes the higher coverage rates to the Medicaid expansion and said the Senate bill would undo that.</p>
<p>Charlie Baker, the Republican governor in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, and Tom Wolf, a Democratic governor in Pennsylvania, had similar concerns. Governors also said the bill could hurt rural hospitals and senior citizens who have nursing home care covered by Medicaid.</p>
<p>Former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who surprised her party when she decided to expand Medicaid four years ago, is urging Congress to save the expansion, which has provided coverage to 400,000 Arizonans.</p>
<p>Brewer said cutting Medicaid eventually will cause private insurance premiums to rise because people losing coverage will seek treatment in hospital emergency rooms.</p>
<p>“We’re going to pay for it one way or another; there are no free lunches,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press.</p>
<p>A spokesman for Arizona’s current governor, Republican Doug Ducey, said the governor was studying the GOP bill.</p>
<p>Alaska Gov. Bill Walker, a Republican-turned-independent, said in a statement Thursday that he is still reviewing the Senate plan, but had some worries about how it might affect his vast and sparsely populated state, where health care costs are high.</p>
<p>“I am deeply concerned about the potential effects of a one-size-fits-all approach,” he said.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Mulvihill reported from New Jersey. Contributing were AP reporters Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Bobby Caina Calvan in Helena, Montana; Bob Christie in Phoenix; Kristena Hansen in Salem, Oregon; Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Alison Noon in Carson City, Nevada; Bob Salsberg in Boston; Sophia Tareen in Springfield, Illinois; and Kristen Wyatt in Denver.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>This story has been updated to clarify that the expansion was aimed primarily at adults without children at home.</p> | Governors wary of Medicaid cost shift in Senate health bill | false | https://abqjournal.com/1022592/governors-wary-of-medicaid-cost-shift-in-senate-health-bill.html | 2017-06-23 | 2 |
<p>May 2, 2012</p>
<p>By Katy Grimes</p>
<p>SACRAMENTO — Faced with&#160;a growing state deficit,&#160;instead of cutting the size of California’s government programs, lawmakers have squeezed higher education. With dramatically higher tuition in just a few years, it’s the the middle class which has suffered the most. Low-income college students qualify for aid programs, and the wealthy can afford the higher tuition costs. But middle class students have been forced to pay the higher fees, most of which have been done through sizable student loans.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal" /></p>
<p>Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, authored AB 1500 and <a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/billtrack/analysis.html?aid=242731" type="external">AB 1501</a>to help pay college tuition for middle class students, but his funding solution is higher taxes.&#160;Perez’s claims that&#160; <a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/Bills/AB_1500/20112012/" type="external">AB 1500</a>&#160;and <a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/billtrack/analysis.html?aid=242731" type="external">AB 1501</a>, which will “end tax loopholes for billionaires,” will fund a “two-thirds savings” on college tuition for middle-class students.</p>
<p>Someone has to pay for the college tuition scholarships.</p>
<p>At a hearing in the Assembly Higher Education Committee Tuesday, Perez presented <a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/billtrack/analysis.html?aid=242731" type="external">AB 1501</a>, which&#160;would establish the Middle Class Scholarship Program under the administration of the Student Aid Commission.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.aroundthecapitol.com/billtrack/analysis.html?aid=242731" type="external">AB 1501</a>&#160;would provide a grant for students&#160;at the University of California and California State&#160;University with family incomes below $160,000. “Students currently take out debt or parents forgo other expenses,” Perez said at the hearing.</p>
<p>Perez said a tax loophole which benefits out-of-state corporations needs to be closed in order to fund the middle-class scholarship for earners making less than $150,000.</p>
<p>Perez had five college students with him who testified about the hardships they suffer under the current college system.</p>
<p>“I work two jobs. This bill would help people like me. I deserve to go to college,” said Kevin Feliciano, a community college student. Feliciano said AB 1500 would help him go to a university while adding little debt.</p>
<p>Each of the other students testified about working&#160;two to four&#160;jobs. “I’d like to be able to party and study in the same day,” Tatianna Bush said. Bush, who works four jobs, said she used to be on honor roll, but was unable to stay on honor roll once she added the third and fourth jobs. “We are underworked and underpaid,” Bush said.</p>
<p>After a 10 minute lineup of community college and state university college students, as well as many labor unions in support of the bill, the only opposition came from the <a href="" type="external">California Manufacturers and Technology Association</a>.</p>
<p>“We do not oppose the bill, but disagree with the characterization of the funding mechanism of the bill,” said Dorothy Rothrock, with the CMTA. Rothrock challenged the notion of “out-of-state businesses” in California, and said many of these businesses run large distribution centers, and have large payrolls in the state.”It’s not a loophole,” Rothrock said.</p>
<p>AB 1500 would fund the scholarship “through increased taxes by requiring most corporate tax filers to use the Single Sales Apportionment Factor to calculate their tax liability,” the CMTA explains in its opposition to AB 1500. “In 2009, as part of the budget deal at the time, the Legislature adopted an elective Single Sales Factor that went into effect last January and provides corporations the option to pay state taxes based solely on the amount of sales they have in California — rather than a percentage of business conducted within the state.”</p>
<p>The CMTA opposes AB 1500 and calls the funding scheme “an unjustified $1 billion tax increase on companies that create jobs, pay taxes on their property, sales and payroll receipts, and have employees in California.”</p>
<p>Assemblyman Marty Block, D-San Diego, the committee chairman, told the committee to disregard Rothrock’s comments. “This is just the policy portion of the bill,” Block said. However, it cannot be ignored that AB 1500 is the funding mechanism for AB 1501.</p>
<p>“The Middle Class Scholarship will be&#160;paid for entirely by closing a wasteful out-of-state corporate loophole.&#160;This win-win opportunity for middle class families and California’s future economy needs your help to make it a reality,”&#160; <a href="" type="internal">the website Perez set up to promote the bills states</a>&#160;(bold emphasis in original).</p>
<p>According to Perez, eliminating the option and thus forcing companies to use Single Sales Factor would generate an estimated $1 billion. But the funding for AB 1500 and AB 1501 would come on the backs of businesses already struggling under California’s heavy regulatory burden and near-record high taxes.</p>
<p>The Legislature is responsible for the out-of-control tuition hikes, which they have imposed knowing that students would instead just turn to student loans, financial aid and grants to fund higher education.</p>
<p>Assemblywoman Kristen Olsen, R-Modesto, asked Perez if there were any academic requirements in the scholarship program as there are with Cal Grants. Perez said there were not,&#160;that just the entrance requirements imposed by the UC and CSU schools were enough.</p>
<p>However, more than 50 percent of California college students not only&#160; <a href="http://www.lao.ca.gov/sections/higher_ed/FAQs/Higher_Education_Issue_05.pdf" type="external">do not pay for school</a>&#160;at the state’s public colleges and universities. And the dropout rate is also about 50 percent. This is because, along with all of the free money for school, there are very few academic requirements.</p>
<p>Low and middle-low income students receive state-funded grants and fee waivers to cover education fees. It’s not difficult to imagine the Middle Class Scholarship Program also turning into just another free money program, with no accountability.</p>
<p>“One of the companies affected by this in my district provides hundreds of really good paying jobs,” Olsen said. “This would pit college students against job creators.”</p> | Free college tax bill would cost CA businesses | false | https://calwatchdog.com/2012/05/02/free-college-will-cost-ca-businesses/ | 2018-05-20 | 3 |
<p>Journal Article - Intelligence and National Security</p>
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<p>Recently declassified materials have revealed the existence of a previously unknown network of Austrian communists in pre-war England. The group of young well-educated Viennese used unsuspecting social contacts and marriages of convenience to establish itself. Analysis of this network reveals some previously overlooked similarities between the 'Cambridge' spies Kim Philby and Alan Nunn May, as well as the emergence of a new nuclear spy, Engelbert Broda. Their wartime espionage as individuals took place at a time when non-communist British scientists were promoting the international sharing of atomic knowledge through unofficial channels. The newly released files reflect a characteristic preference of the British secret services for intelligence gathering rather than intervention and illustrate how vital leads follow from apparently trivial observations.</p>
<p /> | The Viennese Connection: Engelbert Broda, Alan Nunn May and Atomic Espionage | false | http://belfercenter.org/publication/viennese-connection-engelbert-broda-alan-nunn-may-and-atomic-espionage | 2009-04-01 | 2 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — Los Alamos gadfly Ed Grothus’ salvage yard was a town institution for well over half a century. It was a place full of specialized and often one-off scientific pieces and parts and equipment. Depending on who you were, these were either useful in ways for which they originally had been intended, or were a cheap source of otherwise rare and elsewhere expensive materials — large scraps of stainless steel or copper, for example, or aluminum fashioned into all kinds of shapes.</p>
<p>Consequently, in the beginning, the salvage yard drew mostly scientists and garage tinkerers — legion in Los Alamos. Later, after the salvage yard moved into a former grocery story and adjacent church and renamed itself the Black Hole, the business became, to quote Grothus’ obituary, well-known “to set-decorators, artists, inventors, tinkerers and tourists from around the world.”</p>
<p>To Los Alamos County officials, it was an eyesore. They tried to get Grothus to clean up at least the outside of the place. He didn’t, and today his children are trying to cope with what they estimate is 500,000 pounds of, well, stuff. What that stuff is nobody knows in the aftermath of Grothus’ death in 2009 — he kept the inventory in his head.</p>
<p>One thing is certain: some of the stuff might be valuable. Grothus was always an astute businessman, dabbling in real estate and commerce even before he left Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1969 for, he said, reasons of conscience. In 2006, for example, he sold a copy of the first public account of the Manhattan Project, the Smyth Report, signed by 47 project scientists and associates, for $23,000. He had bought it for $25.</p>
<p>The demise of the Black Hole — in the form of a closeout sale — takes place Sept. 21-23. That weekend, his children hope to clear out seven or eight semi-truckloads of stuff from the property. “We want people to take away truckloads, as much as they can carry, for cheap,” said his daughter.</p>
<p>What will become of the place then is uncertain — a museum might have been fitting, but may be too expensive for the family to maintain. Ultimately, no doubt, the site will be sold. And another piece of Los Alamos history will be gone.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Black Day For Black Hole | false | https://abqjournal.com/130183/black-day-for-black-hole.html | 2012-09-12 | 2 |
<p>We always knew liberals and conservatives had a different way of thinking, and this infographic does a great job mirroring left versus right thinking, showing voting patterns and trends. What do you think? (Click to enlarge)</p>
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<p>Credit:&#160; <a href="http://www.infographicsblog.com/left-vs-right-david-mccandless-stefanie-posavec/" type="external">Infographic Blogs</a></p> | [Infographic] Left vs. Right Voting Patterns | false | https://ivn.us/2012/07/07/infographic-left-vs-right-voting-patterns/ | 2012-07-07 | 2 |
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<p>Daimler AG (NASDAQOTH: DDAIF), the German maker of Mercedes-Benz vehicles and Freightliner heavy trucks, is teaming up with giant auto-industry supplier Robert Bosch GmbH to create software for self-driving vehicles, the companies announced on Tuesday.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The partners plan to have a system available for self-driving taxis in urban areas by "the beginning of the next decade."</p>
<p>Bosch and Daimler said that the primary objective of their new partnership is to create a self-driving system for automated vehicles working in urban areas, whether with car-sharing or ride-hailing services.</p>
<p>Specifically, it appears that the two will focus their joint efforts on creating the software "brain" for that self-driving system. Here's the key bit from the companies' joint press release (emphasis added):</p>
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<p>(Level 4 vehicles are fully self-driving with no human intervention needed under certain circumstances -- generally, they're limited to carefully mapped areas. Level 5 vehicles can operate anywhere a human driver could operate. Most experts think that viable Level 5 technology is still many years away.)</p>
<p>This Mercedes-Benz concept vehicle is meant to show what a fully self-driving car might be like. Will it be the taxi of the not-too-distant future? Image source: Daimler AG.</p>
<p>Back in January, Daimler and ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies announced a deal to cooperate on the creation of self-driving vehicles for use in Uber's service. That might have been the impetus for the deal with Bosch. It's possible that Daimler looked at Uber's desired timeline, looked at the state of its own self-driving effort -- and decided to team up with Bosch, long a key Daimler supplier, to get things moving more quickly.</p>
<p>What's interesting is that Uber has its own autonomous-vehicle research program, built around experts recruited from Carnegie Mellon University's robotics program. Uber itself has plenty of self-driving software expertise, at least in theory.</p>
<p>Bosch may well bring something else to the table. Bosch and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) announced in February that they will collaborate on bringing a hardware "brain" for autonomous vehicles to market. Daimler is already working with NVIDIA on some aspects of its self-driving efforts.</p>
<p>It's also possible that Daimler has decided to work independently of Uber so that it can use the resulting system in its own luxury vehicles and trucks.</p>
<p>The trucks are a significant part of Daimler's self-driving plans. Whatever you think of the opportunity for self-driving cars, it's pretty clear that self-driving commercial trucks will be a huge market opportunity once the technology is perfected -- and Daimler has been clear that it <a href="https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/03/28/is-daimler-stock-a-good-way-to-invest-in-self-driv.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">plans to be a leader in that space Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>The Daimler-Bosch alliance is the latest is a growing list of tie-ups between auto-industry and technology companies working on autonomous-vehicle technology:</p>
<p>Alliances are still shifting and many of the details of these (and other) deals are not yet public. But slowly, the battleground for the autonomous-vehicle market is beginning to take shape.</p>
<p>And now we have a slightly better idea of how Daimler -- and Bosch -- plan to become significant players in the self-driving wars.</p>
<p>10 stocks we like better than DaimlerWhen investing geniuses David and Tom Gardner have a stock tip, it can pay to listen. After all, the newsletter they have run for over a decade, Motley Fool Stock Advisor, has tripled the market.*</p>
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<p>*Stock Advisor returns as of April 3, 2017</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFMarlowe/info.aspx" type="external">John Rosevear Opens a New Window.</a> owns shares of Ford and General Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Ford and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends BMW and Intel. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Why Daimler and Bosch Are Teaming Up on Self-Driving Taxis | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/04/04/why-daimler-and-bosch-are-teaming-up-on-self-driving-taxis.html | 2017-04-04 | 0 |
<p>Addison 55, Winston County 48</p>
<p>Cedar Bluff 90, Jacksonville Christian 56</p>
<p>Chilton County 60, Thorsby 49</p>
<p>Collinsville 60, Munford 35</p>
<p>Corner 58, Fultondale 44</p>
<p>Dallas County 80, Billingsley 46</p>
<p>Daphne 65, Gulf Shores 57</p>
<p>Georgiana 85, McKenzie 53</p>
<p>Guntersville 73, Scottsboro 51</p>
<p>Hubbertville 53, Brilliant 45</p>
<p>Lincoln 61, Ohatchee 58</p>
<p>Linden 63, Sweet Water 52</p>
<p>Lynn 54, Berry 29</p>
<p>Meek 57, Marion County 56</p>
<p>Mobile Christian 47, Clarke County 46</p>
<p>Monroe County 62, W.S. Neal 29</p>
<p>North Jackson 84, Ider 81</p>
<p>Phil Campbell 68, Phillips-Bear Creek 41</p>
<p>Pike County 48, Daleville 40</p>
<p>Pleasant Home 53, Houston County 45</p>
<p>Reeltown 73, Horseshoe Bend 66</p>
<p>Rehobeth 79, Graceville, Fla. 70</p>
<p>Rogers 52, Colbert Heights 30</p>
<p>Stanhope Elmore 72, Marbury 66</p>
<p>Sulligent 60, Red Bay 30</p>
<p>Westminster School at Oak Mountain 69, Jefferson Christian Academy 38</p>
<p>Wilson 66, Shoals Christian 29</p>
<p>Addison 55, Winston County 48</p>
<p>Cedar Bluff 90, Jacksonville Christian 56</p>
<p>Chilton County 60, Thorsby 49</p>
<p>Collinsville 60, Munford 35</p>
<p>Corner 58, Fultondale 44</p>
<p>Dallas County 80, Billingsley 46</p>
<p>Daphne 65, Gulf Shores 57</p>
<p>Georgiana 85, McKenzie 53</p>
<p>Guntersville 73, Scottsboro 51</p>
<p>Hubbertville 53, Brilliant 45</p>
<p>Lincoln 61, Ohatchee 58</p>
<p>Linden 63, Sweet Water 52</p>
<p>Lynn 54, Berry 29</p>
<p>Meek 57, Marion County 56</p>
<p>Mobile Christian 47, Clarke County 46</p>
<p>Monroe County 62, W.S. Neal 29</p>
<p>North Jackson 84, Ider 81</p>
<p>Phil Campbell 68, Phillips-Bear Creek 41</p>
<p>Pike County 48, Daleville 40</p>
<p>Pleasant Home 53, Houston County 45</p>
<p>Reeltown 73, Horseshoe Bend 66</p>
<p>Rehobeth 79, Graceville, Fla. 70</p>
<p>Rogers 52, Colbert Heights 30</p>
<p>Stanhope Elmore 72, Marbury 66</p>
<p>Sulligent 60, Red Bay 30</p>
<p>Westminster School at Oak Mountain 69, Jefferson Christian Academy 38</p>
<p>Wilson 66, Shoals Christian 29</p> | Thursday's Scores | false | https://apnews.com/03c80e477ced4efbb349a494c647e101 | 2018-01-05 | 2 |
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<p>KANEOHE BAY, Hawaii - A Marine who died after a recreational boat capsized off Hawaii over the weekend has been identified as Sg. Jaylon Walker.</p>
<p>The Marine Corps said Monday the 24-year-old from Garland, Texas served as an aviation electronics communications system technician. He was assigned to a Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 24 in Hawaii.</p>
<p>The Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Saturday a 17-foot boat overturned with three men onboard near the north side of the Marine Base at Kaneohe (kah-nay-oh-hay) Bay.</p>
<p>Two of the men were able to swim back to shore and notify authorities. The third was found unconscious. He wasn't breathing and didn't have a pulse.</p>
<p>Squadron commander Lt. Col. Robert Flannery says Walker was a fine Marine and will be truly missed by everyone in the squadron.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Texas Marine killed after Hawaii boat accident identified | false | https://abqjournal.com/736288/texas-marine-killed-after-hawaii-boat-accident-identified.html | 2 | |
<p>As Russia's stock market tanks to a 12-month low, investors could be forgiven for a crisis of faith in the country's investment climate. But business leaders were divided on why the market had sold off.</p>
<p>Russian equities fell to a 12-month low on Friday after US 10-year government bond yields rose above 2.5 percent for the first time since August 2011, on the back of nerves over when the <a href="/id/10000709" type="external">Federal Reserve</a> will begin tapering its bond-buying program.</p>
<p>Jochen Wermuth, founder and CIO of Wermuth Asset Management, said investors were losing faith in the Russian market, but that could present a good buying opportunity.</p>
<p>"Russia is at a record discount of 60 percent to BRICS and a record discount of 30 percent to its own P/E ratios, so what an opportunity," he said.</p>
<p>Read More: <a href="/id/100833483" type="external">Europe Shares Close at Lowest Since January</a></p>
<p>"I think that on liquid space, if the US has a cough; Russia has pneumonia so there is real risk of listed assets, liquid assets that will have a crash. The ruble is quite weak, it's good to be short the ruble, it's good to be short Russian liquid assets."</p>
<p>"Russian stocks are trading below five times because Russia's reputation and rule of law are absent. We've done an estimation that Russian assets could be worth $40 trillion more if only Russia adopted the acquis communautaire, if Russia had the rule of law that Norway and Turkey adopted and accepted the court of European law in Luxembourg as its key authority," Wermuth added. "That's $40 trillion by doing one decision."</p>
<p>His comments came as the chief executive of Russia's VTB Bank, Andrey Kostin, said Russian equities could come under further pressure. "If we see further changes from the Fed I think we can expect a worsening situation in the Russian stock market," Kostin told CNBC at the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.</p>
<p>"We're not going to see another crisis but there are still a lot of instabilities in the system … and learning from the crisis of 2008 and 2009, we would like to have a pillar of security always, so we want to be more resilient and more protected from any fluctuation in the market," he added.</p>
<p>With Fed Tapering on the horizon, Kostin said he was not alone in his concern over tightening within the credit markets.</p>
<p>"I think the Russian government now wants to take some measures to protect the domestic market," he said. "Still the situation when the market is volatile and the Russian market for stocks [is] decreasing, there are some discounts on stocks for cash," he said.</p>
<p>David Fass, the EMEA chief executive of Macquarie Group, which has already invested $400 million in Russia and plans to invest more, said he was, on the contrary, confident in it as a "growth market."</p>
<p>Read More: <a href="/id/100833899" type="external">Russia Needs to Spend Its Oil Wealth: Deputy PM</a></p>
<p>"The pitfalls about investing here really revolve around selecting the best and right partners," Fass told CNBC at SPIEF, saying that the "greatest opportunities" were presented by growth markets such as Russia.</p>
<p>"So it's really key when we come into a market like Russia that for each of the investments we make we've made sure that we have excellent local partners, that's how we've managed to avoid the pitfalls so far."</p>
<p>He said Macquarie Group's long-term investors were not worried either about Russia's reputation for poor market transparency or corruption, or macroeconomic risks presented by Russia's economic slowdown or Fed tapering.</p>
<p>"We view the industry we're in as a very long-term investment, the vagaries of what's going to happen after tapering is not [relevant to us]. But it's a big challenge for us bringing more private capital into markets like these. … The stability of return and the length of return is far more important to our investors," who were far more concerned with the stability, consistency and transparency of regulations in Russia, areas which President <a href="/id/10000510" type="external">Vladimir Putin</a> pledged to improve during a keynote speech at SPIEF.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnbc.com/" type="external" /></p>
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<p>OSLO (Reuters) - Budweiser said it has switched all its U.S. brewing to renewable electricity and is adding a clean energy logo to its labels as part of a global shift to green power by its parent Anheuser-Busch InBev.</p> FILE PHOTO: Bud Light and Budweiser beer is shown in a cooler at the Toluca Mart liquor store in Los Angeles, California. U.S., June 16, 2008. REUTERS/Fred Prouser/File Photo
<p>A “100 percent renewable electricity” symbol will be added to U.S. bottles and cans, Budweiser said, adding it expects to lift sales of one of America’s top beers, after a dip.</p>
<p>AB InBev, the world’s biggest brewer, is one of more than 100 multinational firms to have committed to use renewable power to combat pollution and climate change under the Paris accord.</p>
<p>“Beer has been around for 3,000 years - we would like that to continue for another 3,000 years,” Brian Perkins, global vice president of Budweiser, told Reuters by telephone.</p>
<p>Since the start of this year Budweiser has bought power equivalent to its U.S brewing demands from Enel Green Power’s 300 megawatt capacity Thunder Ranch Wind Farm in Oklahoma.</p>
<p>Tony Milikin, chief procurement and sustainability officer of AB InBev, told Reuters that consumers were often rightly sceptical about environmental pledges by big companies.</p>
<p>“Here you see it on the label. That adds confidence,” he said from the World Economic Forum in Davos, adding that the cost of the electricity was not more than from other sources.</p> FILE PHOTO: Anheuser Busch's Budweiser and Bud Light Beer can be seen on display at a new Wal-Mart store in Chicago, U.S., January 24, 2012. REUTERS/John Gress/File Photo
<p>AB InBev will widen the logo to other markets and offer it to other companies. It is also trying to cut emissions in areas ranging from growing hops to transporting beer to shops.</p>
<p>About 41 million Budweiser beers are sold every day worldwide and switching brewing to renewables from fossil fuels will correspond to taking 48,000 cars off the road every year.</p>
<p>Last March, AB InBev committed to obtain 100 percent of purchased electricity for brewing from renewables by 2025. It expects to reach a rate of 31 percent this year.</p>
<p>In the third quarter of 2017, Budweiser revenues dipped 2.2 percent worldwide, despite gains in non-U.S. markets, AB InBev said.</p>
<p>Budweiser, which calls itself the King of Beers, reckons consumers will embrace the logo despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to develop fossil fuels and his doubts that human activities are the prime cause of climate change.</p>
<p>“We’ve talked to beer drinkers in multiple countries - they roundly agree that climate change is a big issue,” Perkins said.</p>
<p>Microsoft, Starbucks and Marks &amp; Spencer were among major companies to have achieved 100 percent renewable energy by the end of 2016, according to The Climate Group, a non-profit which oversees pledges. It welcomed Budweiser’s shift.</p>
<p>(Refiles to remove “embargo” from headline)</p>
<p>Reporting by Alister Doyle; editing by Alexander Smith</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>BRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU lawmakers backed draft rules on Wednesday to extend the bloc’s internal energy market laws to offshore gas pipelines such as Russia’s planned Nord Stream 2 link to Germany.</p> FILE PHOTO: Gazprom chief Alexei Miller (L) poses with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (C) and Isabelle Kocher, Chief Executive Officer of French gas and power group Engie, pose in Paris, France, April 24, 2017, after western partners of gas giant Gazprom agreed on Monday on financing the 9.5-billion euro ($10.32 billion) Nord Stream 2 pipeline. REUTERS/Christian Hartmann/File Photo
<p>Lawmakers on the European Parliament’s industry committee voted 41 votes to 13 in favor of the European Commission’s proposal, with 9 abstentions.</p>
<p>The vote puts pressure on EU governments to also decide on a proposal on which they have so far failed to agree.</p>
<p>The Commission’s proposal is supported by east European and Baltic countries, which fear the 1,225 km (760 mile) pipeline will undercut EU efforts to reduce dependence on Moscow and EU support for Ukraine by depriving it of gas transit fees.</p>
<p>The pipeline’s backers, including Germany, oppose the rule change as an attempt to block what they see as a commercial project to pump 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year under the Baltic Sea.</p>
<p>In its current form, the Nord Stream 2 project, fully owned by Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom, does not comply with the EU’s so-called third energy package rules. “It’s too difficult to find a compromise,” one EU diplomat said of the last round of talks among EU nations last week. “It’s likely it won’t go anywhere.”</p>
<p>An EU legal opinion this month rejecting the proposal by the EU executive has fueled such doubts.</p>
<p>Jerzy Buzek, a Polish member of the European Parliament, who steered the file through the chamber, argued the rule change would create greater long-term investment predictability and improve competition.</p>
<p>“Far too often, gas supply has been used as a political weapon,” Buzek said in a statement. “We cannot disarm the impure intentions of others but we can arm ourselves with full legal clarity and consistency of existing legislation.”</p>
<p>The Commission last year proposed the changes to its gas directive to make all import pipelines subject to rules that require they not be owned directly by gas suppliers, apply non-discriminatory tariffs and make capacity available to third parties.</p>
<p>EU officials say negotiations with Moscow may be needed over the pipeline, which begins outside EU jurisdiction on Russia’s shores.</p>
<p>The draft endorsed by Parliament calls for European Union economic sanctions against third countries to be taken into account and any exemption for pipelines to be limited to five years and decided with the input of the Commission and affected member states.</p>
<p>Five European energy firms are financing Nord Stream 2: German energy groups Uniper and Wintershall, Anglo-Dutch group Shell, Austria’s OMV and France’s Engie.</p>
<p>Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel @AdeCar; Editing by Adrian Croft</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The number of coal-fired power plants built worldwide fell steeply over the past two years, but emissions are too high to keep global warming within relatively safe levels, campaigners said on Thursday.</p>
<p>The start of new builds dropped by 73 percent between 2015 and 2017, as China tightened restrictions on coal and a loss of private finance froze 17 construction sites in India, according to a report by Greenpeace, the Sierra Club and CoalSwarm.</p>
<p>Newly completed coal plants also fell 41 percent, and the number of plants in planning dropped by 59 percent, it said.</p>
<p>“From a climate and health perspective, the trend toward a declining coal power fleet is encouraging, but not happening fast enough,”&#160;said Ted Nace, the San Francisco-based director of CoalSwarm, a network of researchers on fossil fuels.</p>
<p>To meet the 2015 Paris climate agreement target of keeping global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, construction must end and existing plants must retire faster, the report said.</p>
<p>But global coal capacity is still growing, rising by 2 percent in the last 12 months, according to the World Coal Association, an industry network.</p>
<p>Ageing coal plants in Europe and the United States are being replaced by highly efficient plants in China and Asia, it said.</p>
<p>“In the last five years as China became the largest solar and wind market in the world, it also added 229 gigawatts of coal power, thus increasing coal generation by a third,” said Benjamin Sporton, head of the World Coal Association.&#160;</p>
<p>With continued global reliance on coal, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies must be developed to reduce fossil fuel emissions, he said.</p>
<p>“We ... need to be resolute in our efforts to accelerate the deployment of CCS technologies which will be critical to achieving global climate objectives,” he said.</p>
<p>CCS - which involves capturing carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and burying it underground so that it does not enter the atmosphere - is costly, controversial and still in the early phases of testing.</p>
<p>The campaign groups said global coal capacity is likely to start shrinking in 2022, when the number of plants retired is expected to outstrip those being built.</p>
<p>About 100 gigawatts of coal power - equivalent to double Germany’s coal capacity - needs to be retired every year between 2020 and 2040, Nace said.</p>
<p>“It’s a tall order... (but) it’s not out of the question,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, adding that mass production is cutting solar and wind power costs faster than expected, and markets and power planners “are taking notice”.</p>
<p>Reporting by Alex Whiting @Alexwhi, Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit <a href="http://news.trust.org/climate" type="external">news.trust.org/climate</a></p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain intends to remain in Europe’s emission trading system (ETS) until at least the end of its third trading phase running from 2013-2020, Britain’s energy minister said on Wednesday.</p> FILE PHOTO: Britain's Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth Claire Perry arrives In Downing Street in London, March 6, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
<p>The status of Britain’s participation in the scheme following the country’s exit from the European Union in March 2019 had been unclear until now.</p>
<p>Energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry said it had yet to be formally agreed with European lawmakers but the government wanted to provide certainty for companies covered by the scheme until at least the end of phase three.</p>
<p>She was speaking to members of the cross-party EU Energy and Environment Sub-Committee, in the upper house of parliament.</p>
<p>Britain is the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in Europe and as a result its utilities and industry are among the largest buyers of permits in ETS, which charges power plants and factories for every ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) they emit.</p>
<p>Companies from these sectors have urged Britain to stay in the scheme until the end of the current trading phase to avoid disruption, but are divided over Britain’s longer term participation in the scheme.</p>
<p>Perry said Britain is committed to using a price on carbon as a means to reduce emissions but would use the country’s exit from the European Union to “take the opportunity to see if there are other opportunities” to achieve this.</p>
<p>Rules of the ETS are set by the European Parliament, and enforced by the European Court of Justice, and industry experts have said it could be politically difficult to justify staying within the scheme.</p>
<p>Britain has a legally binding target to cut emissions of harmful greenhouse gases, such as those produced by fossil-fuel-based power plants, by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050.</p>
<p>Reporting by Susanna Twidale; Editing by Louise Heavens and Edmund Blair</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a>
<p>SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Chevron attorney said in court on Wednesday that the company supports scientific conclusions that humans are causing climate change, a response to a lawsuit that accuses five major energy producers of misleading the public for years about their role in global warming.</p> FILE PHOTO - The logo of Chevron (CVX) is seen in Los Angeles, California, United States, April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo
<p>At a hearing in San Francisco federal court, Chevron attorney Theodore Boutrous also said that the scientific consensus about greenhouse gas emissions did not fully form until the past decade.</p>
<p>The cities of San Francisco and Oakland, California sued Chevron Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">CVX.N</a>), Exxon Mobil Corp ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=XOM.N" type="external">XOM.N</a>), ConocoPhillips ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=COP.N" type="external">COP.N</a>), Royal Dutch Shell PLC ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=RDSa.L" type="external">RDSa.L</a>), and BP PLC ( <a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=BP.L" type="external">BP.L</a>) last year, seeking an abatement fund to help the cities address flooding they say is a result of climate change.</p>
<p>The companies argued in legal filings on Tuesday that the case should be dismissed, partly because Congress has given regulatory agencies, not the courts, authority over the production and emission of fossil fuels.</p>
<p>The lawsuits, filed by Democratic Party politicians, are part of a larger campaign to address climate change in the courts. Worldwide, there are almost 900 lawsuits on climate change in 25 countries, a U.N. study said last year.</p>
<p>U.S. District Judge William Alsup invited both sides to the hearing to describe their views on “the best science now available” on global warming and rising sea levels.</p> Slideshow (2 Images)
<p>Since U.S. President Donald Trump took office 14 months ago, domestic climate change policy has been turned on its head. Republican Trump has pushed to increase production of fossil fuels and said he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions but Washington has not disengaged from it completely.</p>
<p>In court on Wednesday, Boutrous said Chevron supports a 2013 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which concluded it was “extremely likely” humans contribute to warming. However, Boutrous also said earlier IPCC reports were not as certain.</p>
<a href="/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=CVX.N" type="external">Chevron Corp</a> 117.04 CVX.N New York Stock Exchange +2.54 (+2.22%) CVX.N XOM.N COP.N RDSa.L BP.L
<p>The judge asked Boutrous if the other four companies agreed with his presentation, and Boutrous said he was only speaking for Chevron.</p>
<p>No attorneys for the other four companies answered questions at the hearing, though all generally acknowledge the reality of climate change.</p>
<p>“I’m going to ask them at some point if they agree with everything you said,” Alsup said.</p>
<p>All five companies argued in court papers on Tuesday that they should not be held liable for warming, which is caused by “billions” of parties and “complex environmental phenomena occurring worldwide over many decades.”</p>
<p>Reporting by Dan Levine; editing by Grant McCool</p> Our Standards:
<a href="" type="internal">The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</a> | Green logo for Budweiser as brewer taps into U.S. wind power EU lawmakers back draft rules to regulate Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline New coal plants falling but not enough to meet Paris target: study Britain intends to stay in Europe's carbon market until at least 2020 Chevron says it will not dispute climate science in U.S. lawsuit | false | https://reuters.com/article/environment-budweiser/refile-green-logo-for-budweiser-as-brewer-taps-into-us-wind-power-idUSL8N1PI2PB | 2018-01-24 | 2 |
<p>Pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen is spending about $2.5 billion to expand its reach into veterinary medicine with the purchase of MWI Veterinary Supply.</p>
<p>AmerisourceBergen Corp. says it will pay $190 in cash for each share of MWI, a premium of 8 percent to the closing price of MWI shares on Friday, the last day before the deal was announced. The companies expect to close the deal early this year.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>MWI Veterinary Supply Inc. sells animal health products in the United States and United Kingdom.</p>
<p>AmerisourceBergen says the deal will add about 8 cents per share to its fiscal 2015 adjusted earnings. It expects to finance the purchase with cash and long-term debt.</p>
<p>Shares of both companies started climbing in early morning trading.</p> | AmerisourceBergen to spend $2.5 billion buying animal health product supplier MWI Veterinary | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/01/12/amerisourcebergen-to-spend-25-billion-buying-animal-health-product-supplier-mwi.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
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<p>BOSTON — Thousands of demonstrators chanting anti-Nazi slogans converged Saturday on downtown Boston in a boisterous repudiation of white nationalism, dwarfing a small group of conservatives who cut short their planned “free speech rally” a week after a gathering of hate groups led to bloodshed in Virginia.</p>
<p>Counterprotesters marched through the city to historic Boston Common, where many gathered near a bandstand abandoned early by conservatives who had planned to deliver a series of speeches. Police vans later escorted the conservatives out of the area, and angry counterprotesters scuffled with armed officers trying to maintain order.</p>
<p>Members of the Black Lives Matter movement later protested on the Common, where a Confederate flag was burned and protesters pounded on the sides of a police vehicle.</p>
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<p>Later Saturday afternoon, Boston’s police department tweeted that protesters were throwing bottles, urine and rocks at them and asked people publicly to refrain from doing so.</p>
<p>Boston Commissioner William Evans said 27 arrests were made — mostly for disorderly conduct while some were for assaulting police officers. Officials said the rallies drew about 40,000 people.</p>
<p>Trump applauded the people in Boston who he said were “speaking out” against bigotry and hate. Trump added in a Twitter message that “Our country will soon come together as one!”</p>
<p>Organizers of the event, which had been billed as a “Free Speech Rally,” had publicly distanced themselves from the neo-Nazis, white supremacists and others who fomented violence in Charlottesville on Aug. 12. A woman was killed at that Unite the Right rally, and many others were injured, when a car plowed into counterdemonstrators.</p>
<p>Opponents feared that white nationalists might show up in Boston anyway, raising the specter of ugly confrontations in the first potentially large and racially charged gathering in a major U.S. city since Charlottesville.</p>
<p>One of the planned speakers of the conservative activist rally said the event “fell apart.”</p>
<p>Congressional candidate Samson Racioppi, who was among several slated to speak, told WCVB-TV that he didn’t realize “how unplanned of an event it was going to be.”</p>
<p>Some counterprotesters dressed entirely in black and wore bandannas over their faces. They chanted anti-Nazi and anti-fascism slogans, and waved signs that said: “Make Nazis Afraid Again,” “Love your neighbor,” “Resist fascism” and “Hate never made U.S. great.” Others carried a large banner that read: “SMASH WHITE SUPREMACY.”</p>
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<p>Chris Hood, a free speech rally attendee from Dorchester, said people were unfairly making it seem like the rally was going to be “a white supremacist Klan rally.”</p>
<p>“That was never the intention,” he said. “We’ve only come here to promote free speech on college campuses, free speech on social media for conservative, right-wing speakers. And we have no intention of violence.”</p>
<p>Rockeem Robinson, a youth counselor from Cambridge, said he joined the counterprotest to “show support for the black community and for all minority communities.”</p>
<p>TV cameras showed a group of boisterous counterprotesters on the Common chasing a man with a Trump campaign banner and cap, shouting and swearing at him. But other counterprotesters intervened and helped the man safely over a fence into the area where the conservative rally was to be staged. Black-clad counterprotesters also grabbed an American flag out of an elderly woman’s hands, and she stumbled and fell to the ground.</p>
<p>Saturday’s showdown was mostly peaceable, and after demonstrators dispersed, a picnic atmosphere took over with stragglers tossing beach balls, banging on bongo drums and playing reggae music.</p>
<p>The Boston Free Speech Coalition, which organized the event, said it has nothing to do with white nationalism or racism and its group is not affiliated with the Charlottesville rally organizers in any way.</p>
<p>Rallies in other cities around the country each attracted hundreds of people showing their opposition to white supremacist groups.</p>
<p>Counterprotesters marched through New Orleans, some of them carrying signs that read “White People Against White Supremacy” and “Black Lives Matter.”</p>
<p>In Atlanta, a diverse crowd marched from the city’s downtown to the home of the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Meredith Dubé brought along her two daughters, 2-year-old Willow Dubé and 12-year-old Rai Chin. Dubé is white and her daughters are mixed race. She said it is essential to show children at an early age that love is more powerful than hate.</p>
<p>An anti-racism rally was held in Laguna Beach, California, one day before the group America First! planned to hold a demonstration in the same place that’s being billed as an “Electric Vigil for the Victims of Illegals and Refugees.”</p>
<p>Mayor Toni Iselman told the crowd that “Laguna Beach doesn’t tolerate diversity, we embrace diversity.”</p>
<p>In Dallas, a large crowd attending a rally against white supremacy on Saturday evening called for the city to take down the city’s Confederate statues.</p>
<p>“Now is the time to do what is right in the city of Dallas,” said the Rev. Michael W. Waters who addressed the group at City Hall Plaza, a short distance from the city’s Confederate War Memorial. “Now is the time to bring these monuments down.”</p>
<p>Police officers on horseback moved in to break up a scuffle between people at the rally and supporters of Confederate monuments.</p>
<p>Police officers on horseback monitored the situation, and a police helicopter circulated above.</p> | ‘Free speech rally’ cut short after massive counterprotest | false | https://abqjournal.com/1050434/boston-cradle-of-liberty-braces-for-spirited-protests.html | 2017-08-19 | 2 |
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) - City offices and schools around Philadelphia will be closed in an effort to keep drivers off icy roads as bone-chilling temperatures move in on the heels of a blustery snow storm.</p>
<p>Managing Director Mike DiBerardinis says government offices will be closed Friday in an effort to keep people at home. Philadelphia's public and parochial schools will also be closed.</p>
<p>The National Weather Service says Friday's high will be 15 degrees with wind chill values dropping as low as -6 degrees. Wind gusts could whip as high as 37 miles per hour.</p>
<p>On Thursday, about 3 - inches was measured in Center City, part of the winter storm that's blanketed the East Coast.</p>
<p>SEPTA will operate on a Saturday schedule on Friday, or at about 75 percent of weekday capacity.</p>
<p>Blowing snow and low temperatures created travel troubles throughout Thursday.</p>
<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) - City offices and schools around Philadelphia will be closed in an effort to keep drivers off icy roads as bone-chilling temperatures move in on the heels of a blustery snow storm.</p>
<p>Managing Director Mike DiBerardinis says government offices will be closed Friday in an effort to keep people at home. Philadelphia's public and parochial schools will also be closed.</p>
<p>The National Weather Service says Friday's high will be 15 degrees with wind chill values dropping as low as -6 degrees. Wind gusts could whip as high as 37 miles per hour.</p>
<p>On Thursday, about 3 - inches was measured in Center City, part of the winter storm that's blanketed the East Coast.</p>
<p>SEPTA will operate on a Saturday schedule on Friday, or at about 75 percent of weekday capacity.</p>
<p>Blowing snow and low temperatures created travel troubles throughout Thursday.</p> | Bone-chilling temps lead to school, city office closures | false | https://apnews.com/amp/8bbe00c730c646859af2ba72bcf34b23 | 2018-01-04 | 2 |
<p>Jim Cramer is best known as the host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” show, but he’s also a personal friend of Eliot Spitzer. Here, Cramer becomes emotional as he describes losing the “ammo” to take on Spitzer’s Wall Street critics.</p>
<p>Related: Truthdig Editor in Chief Robert Scheer writes that <a href="" type="internal">Spitzer’s Shame is Wall Street’s Gain</a>.</p>
<p>Watch it:</p>
<p /> | 'Mad Money' Host Tears Over Spitzer | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/mad-money-host-tears-over-spitzer/ | 2008-03-13 | 4 |
<p>(Photo by Daniel Schwen; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)</p>
<p>On Dec. 12, the Empire State Pride Agenda abruptly announced it would shut down along with its foundation (though not its political action committee), something of a George W. Bush ‘mission accomplished’ moment because New York’s only statewide LGBT advocacy organization is closing its doors claiming having fulfilled its mission but without having secured enactment of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act as it had promised the transgender community. At its Oct. 22 fall dinner, ESPA touted regulations announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that would prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and expression, but they do not have the force of statute law and could be rescinded by his successor and will undermine efforts to push GENDA through the Senate. Many New York activists have disputed the notion that the state’s LGBT community has achieved full equality, which still faces myriad issues such as homelessness, health care access and police brutality.</p>
<p>It is obvious that the ESPA and Foundation boards voted to shut down for the simple reason that the organizations were no longer financially viable. The campaign for the marriage equality bill enabled ESPA to solicit unprecedented donations, but donations predictably dried up when the bill passed the Senate in 2011 and ESPA found itself in dire straits, borrowing heavily from its Foundation just to make payroll and putting itself deep into debt.</p>
<p>The Foundation itself was relying primarily on a big grant from the state Department of Health to run the New York State LGBT Health &amp; Human Services Network of over 60 LGBT social service providers. Rather than carefully plan for the predictable fall-off in donations after enactment of the marriage law, the ESPA board compounded the error by making an even bigger mistake: Co-chair Louis Bradbury and his cronies abruptly fired Ross Levi, using the fall-off in donations as a pretext to get rid of an executive director with sufficient standing in the community to give him a degree of independence from a board that wanted to micro-manage the staff and replace him with someone with little relevant experience who could be easily controlled.</p>
<p>The increasingly precarious fiscal situation pushed the board to cut a backroom deal with a governor who had not shown the slightest interest in using his influence with the Senate to push GENDA through so that ESPA could declare victory and go home; hence the need to avoid consultation even with the GENDA Coalition, because ESPA could not risk a negative response to the shoddy deal cut with Cuomo to secure the executive order. The deal represents a betrayal of the transgender community and the process through which the GENDA coalition was working to enact legislation to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity or expression in state law.</p>
<p>ESPA could have taken a different path and expanded its work to move beyond its relatively narrow policy agenda, which was in fact the direction the GENDA Coalition was moving in, having decided by consensus in 2014 that it would expand beyond GENDA to a broader agenda of social justice.</p>
<p>But the truth is that neither the boards nor the staffs of the Pride Agenda and its Foundation had any real interest in moving in that direction; the leadership was content to declare victory and go home after having helped secure enactment of the state hate crimes law (2000), the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (2002), the Dignity for All Students Act prohibiting bullying (2010) and the marriage equality law (2011).</p>
<p>No one could deny that the enactment of such legislation was not a significant achievement; but the shoddy deal that ESPA cut with Cuomo that effectively undercut the work of those attempting to advance GENDA cannot be forgotten and will not be forgiven by many; it was the final betrayal of the transgender community after the solemn vow in the wake of the SONDA debacle in 2002 to secure enactment of transgender non-discrimination legislation.</p>
<p />
<p><a href="http://paulinepark.com/" type="external">Pauline Park</a>&#160;is chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy and led the campaign for the trans rights law enacted by the New York City Council in 2002. She served on the steering committee of the coalition seeking to advance GENDA, still pending in the New York State Senate.</p>
<p><a href="" type="internal">Andrew Cuomo</a> <a href="" type="internal">Dignity for All Students Act</a> <a href="" type="internal">Empire State Pride Agenda</a> <a href="" type="internal">ESPA</a> <a href="" type="internal">GENDA</a> <a href="" type="internal">Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act</a> <a href="" type="internal">George W. Bush</a> <a href="" type="internal">Louis Bradbury</a> <a href="" type="internal">New York</a> <a href="" type="internal">Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act</a> <a href="" type="internal">trans</a> <a href="" type="internal">transgender</a></p> | In N.Y., a mission unfulfilled | false | http://washingtonblade.com/2016/01/07/in-n-y-a-mission-unfulfilled/ | 3 | |
<p>BRASÍLIA (Reuters) – Brazilian police raided the offices and homes of two members of Congress on Wednesday in the latest corruption probe as the government makes a last-ditch effort to vote on an overhaul of the country’s costly pension system.</p>
<p>Dubbed Operation Ápia, the probe centers on alleged bribery of civil servants and politicians in return for rigged bids on road work worth 850 million reais ($258 million) in the state of Tocantins.</p>
<p>Federal police said in a statement they were serving 16 search warrants and delivering subpoenas to eight people in connection with the probe.</p>
<p>Two lawmakers from Tocantins, Dulce Miranda and Carlos Gaguim, are implicated in the investigation, police said.</p>
<p>Reuters could not immediately contact Miranda and Gaguim for comment.</p>
<p>President Michel Temer has said the lower house of Congress would vote by Tuesday on his proposed pension reform, which many consider crucial to reining in Brazil’s surging public debt, or else the debate will have to wait until next year.</p>
<p />
<p>Fusion Media or anyone involved with Fusion Media will not accept any liability for loss or damage as a result of reliance on the information including data, quotes, charts and buy/sell signals contained within this website. Please be fully informed regarding the risks and costs associated with trading the financial markets, it is one of the riskiest investment forms possible.</p> | Brazil police raid homes of two members of Congress in bribery probe | false | https://newsline.com/brazil-police-raid-homes-of-two-members-of-congress-in-bribery-probe/ | 2017-12-13 | 1 |
<p>Today would have been Andrew Breitbart’s 44th birthday; he passed away last year on March 1, 2012.</p>
<p>I think there’s another facet of his experience that we ought to appreciate on his birthday.</p>
<p>Andrew spoke often of his conversion from living a life outside of the political world to one completely immersed in it. He wasn’t like some of us who have been grinding against the establishment left (and right) since the beginning. Rather, he had an “awakening,” much as many of the Tea Party activists did, and entered into the world of politics.</p>
<p>One of my favorite memories was when I traveled with him in April 2011 in the “Bloggers Flotilla for Peace II,” as we called our caravan of cars driving up to Madison, Wisc., to a Tea Party rally held during the height of the anti-Walker protests. We picked Andrew up at the airport in Milwaukee and made our way to the Capitol building where he was due to introduce Sarah Palin.</p>
<p>While we were waiting for the rally to begin, Andrew came up to me with a twinkle in his eye, wondering if I thought a certain joke he had in mind was as funny as he thought it was, and if he should tell it to Governor Palin when he met her. It was the first time he would meet Palin in person, and he was excited and nervous. As I recall, Palin was wearing a particularly shiny silver suit ( <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/06/01/WI-Flashback-Sarah-Palin" type="external">see at 5:30 in this video</a>), and he had an astronaut joke in mind. He opted not to say it.</p>
<p>It was particularly freezing as he addressed the enormous crowd that had gathered on the Madison Capitol lawn. He told the people there that they were “the most peaceful, law-abiding, clean-up-after-themselves &#160;group in the history of the American protest.” He addressed the power of big labor and Trumka in particular, saying, “Go to Hell. No, serious. Go to hell. Go to hell.”</p>
<p>He introduced Palin, “The reason why they hate Sarah Palin isn’t because of her human flaws, it’s because of how effective she’s been at calling out the Community-Organizer-in-Chief Barack Obama.”</p>
<p>On the whole car ride down to Chicago, he kept turning to us and asking, “was that ok that I said ‘go to Hell?'” Then, he would smile and say, “I had to say it.” It seemed like a perfect example of the challenge he faced of&#160;maintaining&#160;his genial temperament whilst in the middle of a war.</p>
<p>Here was a charming,&#160;likable&#160;man faced with taking on the institutional left and the media that protects them. How does a wonderfully nice person go about fighting what he (I agree) thinks is the ultimate threat to freedom and justice not just in America but around the world?</p>
<p>So many more of our friends and family will be like him in the next 10, 20, or 30 years. People who are aren’t the typical political junkies, but (no offense to the rest of us), are the normal Americans who have been staying out of it, living their lives.</p>
<p>I spoke with a friend of mine, a sort of political historian, who believes that our country may be in for some of the darkest times it has seen since–and even surpassing–those of the Civil War. But, he thinks, what we’ll find is that the doctors, lawyers, stay-at-home-moms, mechanics, investment bankers, accountants–all those who have been living their lives, will reenter the political arena during these time, just as Andrew did.</p>
<p>The wealth-creators of today who are not involved in politics will enter into politics because they’ll have to. And with their help, we will be able to take on the myth that progressivism is the dominant culture in America.</p>
<p>Andrew sent a jolt of lightning into politics, partly because he wasn’t part of the Capitol Hill blue-blazered, <a href="http://www.senate.gov/reference/reference_item/bean_soup.htm" type="external">Senate-bean-soup</a>-eating professional political class. He never got much into the “game” of politics, who was next in line, etc., but took a more macro, fresh look. Because he trusted the American people to make the right decisions, he instead wanted to reform the way information gets to the American people: the media.</p>
<p>If you haven’t seen <a href="http://www.hatingbreitbart.com/" type="external">Hating Breitbart</a> yet, try to get your hands on a copy. It exceeded my expectations in showing not just Andrew the man, but describing his mission and the elements coalescing to exclude warriors like him.</p>
<p>It would be a fitting tribute to Andrew to incorporate his “happy warrior” disposition, which was essentially powered by an abiding hope in the American people, even as we fight on, as he did. If we have more Andrew Breitbarts entering the fray, then that is reason enough to look upon our fight and our future with a smile.</p> | Happy Birthday, Andrew Breitbart | true | http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/02/happy-birthday-andrew-breitbart/ | 2013-02-01 | 0 |
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<p />
<p>Last week, Israeli PM Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu met with President Barack (“The Jerk”) Obama.</p>
<p>This time, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/7521220/Obama-snubbed-Netanyahu-for-dinner-with-Michelle-and-the-girls-Israelis-claim.html" type="external">there were no hostile acts against Netanyahu.</a></p>
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<p>They really do not like each other very much.</p>
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<p />
<p>Via BattleCreek Enquirer — <a href="http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/10/02/dana-milbank-another-awkward-obama-netanyahu-meeting/16591451/" type="external">Dana Milbank: Another awkward Obama-Netanyahu meeting</a></p>
<p>The old frenemies sat in the Oval Office on Wednesday, their chair legs 18 inches apart, attempting some reasonable facsimile of personal chemistry….</p>
<p>President Obama leaned back, elegantly cross-legged. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his tie askew, planted both feet on the ground and leaned toward Obama, as if he might leap up at any moment.</p>
<p>Obama called his counterpart “Bibi.” Netanyahu called Obama “Mr. President.”</p>
<p>In their 12th meeting, and their first since this summer’s war in Gaza strained U.S.-Israeli relations, the two men exchanged the requisite pleasantries for all of six minutes. Obama renewed the “unbreakable bond” between the two countries. Netanyahu thanked Obama for his “unflinching support” of Israel.</p>
<p>Then came the handshake. Firm and grim, it lasted 2.2 seconds, and the two seated men looked into each other’s eyes and pumped their arms without smiling for the cameras….</p>
<p>The prime minister’s body language was that of a man suffering intestinal discomfort. Netanyahu uncrossed his legs and tugged at his lapels. He placed his left palm on his left leg and appeared to drum the fingers of his right hand on the chair….</p>
<p>In the Oval Office, Obama spoke delicately about making sure “Israeli citizens are safe in their own homes and schoolchildren in their schools from the possibility of rocket fire, but also that we don’t have the tragedy of Palestinian children being killed as well.”</p>
<p>After Obama’s three minutes, Netanyahu took his three, beginning with the de rigueur salute to “the continuous bond of friendship.” But then Netanyahu offered a politely worded warning to Obama not to go wobbly. “Iran seeks a deal that would lift the tough sanctions that you worked so hard to put in place and leave it as a threshold nuclear power, and I fervently hope that under your leadership that would not happen,” he said….</p>
<p>Related:</p>
<p>Katie Zezima: Washington Post — <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/10/01/a-short-history-of-awkward-encounters-between-obama-and-netanyahu/" type="external">A short history of awkward encounters between Obama and Netanyahu</a></p>
<p>Times of Israel: <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-obamas-positions-on-iran-did-not-encourage-me/" type="external">PM: Obama’s positions on Iran did not encourage me</a></p>
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<p>RealClearPolitics: <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/10/02/andrea_mitchell_obama_from_mars_netanyahu_from_venus_relationship_is_so_fraught.html" type="external">Andrea Mitchell: Obama From Mars, Netanyahu From Venus; “Relationship Is So Fraught”</a></p> | true | http://tammybruce.com/2014/10/bibi-and-baracks-not-so-excellent-wh-meeting.html | 0 | ||
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Morning" game were:</p>
<p>7-2-4, Sum It Up: 13</p>
<p>(seven, two, four; Sum It Up: thirteen)</p>
<p>AUSTIN, Texas (AP) _ The winning numbers in Tuesday morning's drawing of the Texas Lottery's "Pick 3 Morning" game were:</p>
<p>7-2-4, Sum It Up: 13</p>
<p>(seven, two, four; Sum It Up: thirteen)</p> | Winning numbers drawn in 'Pick 3 Morning' game | false | https://apnews.com/amp/14b9781bae6a486dbe75d8b4451f93f9 | 2018-01-16 | 2 |
<p>Image source: Ultimate Software Group.</p>
<p>Ultimate Software Group (NASDAQ: ULTI) released second-quarter results on Tuesday after the market close, and the stock is down a modest 4% in after-hours trading as of this writing as those results fell ever so slightly short of expectations. Let's take a closer look at what the cloud-based human capital management specialist achieved in its latest quarter:</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Data source: Ultimate Software Group.</p>
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<p>"We had a strong second quarter," addedUltimate Software Group founder and CEO, Scott Scherr. "We executed on all of our key financial objectives and delivered the best quarter in our history for new-business contracts, and our year-over-year customer retention rate again exceeded 97%."</p>
<p>For the current quarter, Ultimate Software anticipates total revenue of $197 million, recurring revenue of roughly $165 million, and quarterly adjusted operating margin of roughly 19%.For the full-year 2016, Ultimate Software reiterated guidance for 26% year-over-year growth from both recurring revenue and total revenue, with healthier full-year adjusted operating margin of 21%.</p>
<p>To be fair, the gravity of this quarterly top-line "miss" isn't exactly a huge concern. But on the heels of its <a href="http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2016/04/26/ultimate-software-keeps-up-its-record-pace.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">record Q1 report Opens a New Window.</a> three months ago, we should also note Ultimate Software Group shares briefly touched a fresh all-time high in the trading session prior to its Q2 release. Combined with its continued high customer retention and success pulling in new business, it's hard to blame Ultimate Software's CEO for remaining so optimistic regarding his company's compelling long-term story.</p>
<p>A secret billion-dollar stock opportunity The world's biggest tech company forgot to show you something, but a few Wall Street analysts and the Fool didn't miss a beat: There's a small company that's powering their brand-new gadgets and the coming revolution in technology. And we think its stock price has nearly unlimited room to run for early in-the-know investors! To be one of them, <a href="http://www.fool.com/mms/mark/ecap-foolcom-apple-wearable?aid=6965&amp;source=irbeditxt0000017&amp;ftm_cam=rb-wearable-d&amp;ftm_pit=2668&amp;ftm_veh=article_pitch&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">just click here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://my.fool.com/profile/TMFSymington/info.aspx" type="external">Steve Symington Opens a New Window.</a> has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Ultimate Software Group. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://wiki.fool.com/Motley" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | Ultimate Software Delivers Another Solid Quarter | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/07/27/ultimate-software-delivers-another-solid-quarter.html | 2016-07-27 | 0 |
<p>Two major figures in pop music, songwriter Diane Warren and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, could walk away with their first Academy Awards as a result of today’s nominations in the music categories. There were no major surprises in the original song race and only one minor surprise in the score category. Oscar’s music branch confirmed […]</p> | Oscar Nominations: Score and Song Surprises Include a Taylor Swift Snub | false | https://newsline.com/oscar-nominations-score-and-song-surprises-include-a-taylor-swift-snub/ | 2018-01-23 | 1 |
<p>Glow Images via AP Images</p>
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<p>The Supreme Court on Monday <a href="http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-940_ed9g.pdf" type="external">ruled against a challenge</a> to Texas’ redistricting methods in a case that could have dramatically tilted elections nationwide in favor of Republican candidates.</p>
<p>In Evenwel v. Abbott, Sue Evenwel and Ed Pfenninger had sued the state of Texas over its 2010 redistricting map, contending that it diluted their votes—i.e., those of largely white, rural residents—by basing legislative districts on total population as opposed to eligible voters. Such a method of drawing districts, they argued, meant that urban areas with large numbers of illegal immigrants or felons would have more representation in the state legislature than rural areas with fewer people but a higher percentage of eligible voters. They wanted the court to force a uniform national standard on states requiring them to draw districts based on eligible voters. This would have diminished the electoral clout of America’s cities, which tend to vote Democratic, and given an edge to the Republican Party by empowering the rural enclaves where the party has a large base of support.</p>
<p>Virtually every state calculates legislative districts based on total population. If Evenwel and Pfenninger had prevailed, states would have seen their legislative maps thrown into chaos. But the court ruled unanimously that total population was a reasonable way for states to design legislative districts.</p>
<p>Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg penned the majority opinion, noting that because of the “infirmity of the appellants’ claims,” the court didn’t need to address the question of whether it might be permissible for states to base legislative districts on eligible voters.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Liberal groups, who have been watching this case closely, cheered the ruling. Caroline Fredrickson, president of the American Constitution Society, said in a statement, “As states across the country implement new voting restrictions at breakneck speed, it is vital to reaffirm our commitment to equal representation for all people. We still have a long way to go to ensure that all Americans have a voice in our government, and today’s decision is an important start.”</p>
<p>The plaintiffs in Evenwel were recruited by <a href="" type="internal">Edward Blum</a>, a man who’s made a career out of trying to kill off affirmative action and the Voting Rights Act by way of the Supreme Court through his organization, Project on Fair Representation. (Blum is also behind another case before the court this term, Fisher v. University of Texas, which challenges the university’s use of race in admissions decisions.)</p>
<p>Evenwel is a tea party and GOP activist in Titus County, Texas. As Mother Jones <a href="" type="internal">reported in December</a>:</p>
<p>In 2012, the Evenwel-led Titus County GOP hosted a screening of Dreams From My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception, the docudrama that suggests Obama’s real father was Frank Marshall Davis, a man the film’s promotional material describe as a “Communist Party USA propagandist who likely shaped Obama’s world view during his formative years.” On her Facebook page, Evenwel has also approvingly touted a story from the conservative website WorldNetDaily questioning whether Obama was really born in America.</p>
<p>Evenwel is an outspoken critic of illegal immigrants, and she has claimed on the Titus County GOP’s website that the state’s present legislative boundary-drawing process has the primary objective of giving “equal representation to a block of undocumented people who are not eligible or registered to vote.” Evenwel has also lashed out at Muslims, warning in an op-ed that showing tolerance to them means that Shariah law could “usurp the US Constitution.” And she has claimed that all money donated to mosques funds jihad.</p>
<p>Pfenninger, her co-plaintiff, also has a colorful background. Mother Jones reported last year that Pfenninger held religious views far outside the mainstream and rejected modern scientific principles, including the basic notion that the Earth revolves around the sun:</p>
<p>A Christian fundamentalist who works as a security guard in Porter, Texas, Pfenninger operates a YouTube channel where he’s posted hours of videos of himself expounding on his beliefs. For instance, he’s described the Catholic Church as “the Mother of Harlots.” He’s also said that Jews are “enemies of the cross,” and that God created Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust because he “wanted the Jews back into the Land.” Pfenninger also cites the Bible to justify his belief that women with short hair are somehow shameful. In response to a commenter on one of his videos, he wrote:</p>
<p>Pfenninger has scorned science and claimed that “geocentricity”—the medieval belief that the Earth is the center of the universe—”is a Bible fact. It its not theory…the earth is standing still in the middle of the universe.” The notion that the Earth revolves around the sun, according to Pfenninger, “is part of the Copernican revolution, which is anti-Biblical, and in fact led to the acceptance of evolution. Christians will fight against evolution but you’ve got to go a little further back and fight against the root of evolution, which is the heliocentric movement.”</p>
<p>And then there’s the unicorn, which appears repeatedly in Pfenninger’s online posts. Arguing with a commenter to one of his YouTube videos, Pfenninger wrote in 2013 that the “unicorn was a real creature known for it’s [sic] great strength, and is also referred to in ancient literature.” Pfenninger did not respond to an email requesting comment.</p>
<p>Blum issued a statement criticizing the Supreme Court’s ruling. “We are disappointed that the justices were unwilling to reestablish the original principle of one-person, one vote for the citizens of Texas and elsewhere,” he said. “The issue of voter equality in the United States is not going to go away. Some Supreme Court cases grow in importance over time and Evenwel v. Abbott may likely be one of those cases.”</p>
<p /> | Supreme Court Rejects a Major Voting Rights Challenge | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2016/04/supreme-court-rejects-major-voting-rights-challenge-evenwel-abbott/ | 2016-04-04 | 4 |
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<p>Everyone is still trying to get a handle on what got cut from the stimulus bill as a small group of centrist senators worked toward the compromise bill that will likely be voted on this evening. CNN has a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/07/stimulus.cuts/index.html" type="external">pretty good list</a> supplied by a Democratic staffer, but while some of it is specific (“$1 billion for Head Start/Early Start,” “$200 million for National Science Foundation”), some of it is laughably not so (“$100 million for science”). What is clear is that emergency funding for states that are seeing looming budget crises got cut big time, a development that Paul Krugman calls <a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/what-the-centrists-have-wrought/" type="external">“really, really bad.”</a> Krugman estimates that the Senate compromise bill will create 600,000 fewer jobs than the House version. Firedoglake runs the numbers and comes up with their own estimate <a href="http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/07/senate-moderates-cut-1-14-million-job-from-stimulus-bill/" type="external">here</a>. Ryan Grim, writing in the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/09/is-stimulus-too-small_n_165076.html" type="external">Huffington Post</a>, checks win with a bunch of economists and figures out why the danger of not spending enough is far, far greater than the danger of spending too much.</p>
<p>As for that cut in state funding, I want to make sure everyone knows what it means in concrete terms. Here is the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-statecuts8-2009feb08,0,457898,full.story" type="external">LA Times</a>:</p>
<p>They have plundered reserves, enacted hiring freezes and engaged in all manner of budgetary voodoo to shield us from the pain.</p>
<p>But now state governments — reeling from a historic free fall in tax revenue — have run out of tricks. And Americans are about to feel it.</p>
<p>In some cases, they already have.</p>
<p>Nevada resident Margaret Frye-Jackman, 71, was diagnosed in August with ovarian cancer. She had two rounds of chemotherapy at University Medical Center, the only public hospital in the Las Vegas area.</p>
<p>Soon after, she and her daughter heard the news on TV: The hospital’s outpatient oncology services were closing because of state Medicaid cuts. Treatment for Frye-Jackman and hundreds of other cancer patients was eliminated.</p>
<p>Luckily, Frye-Jackman’s gynecological oncologist, Dr. Nick Spirtos, decided to open a tiny chemotherapy center in his office’s empty storage room.</p>
<p>Today, he treats Frye-Jackman there, along with about 20 more cancer patients who were dumped by the hospital. Frye-Jackman’s care is paid for with Medicare and supplemental insurance, but other patients can’t cover the cost of full treatment. The doctor has considered putting donation boxes in the lobby.</p>
<p>Senate Republicans (and a couple moderate Senate Democrats) must understand that their cuts to the stimulus bill, which seem to be motivated in part by a petty unwillingness to let the new president have his way, have consequences. It is unlikely that, if things get worse, Obama will be able to go back and ask for more massive budget outlays. This may be Washington’s only chance to get this right.</p>
<p>So yes, Republicans will have their pound of flesh. And folks like Margaret Frye-Jackman will pay for it.</p>
<p /> | What the Cuts to the Stimulus Mean, In Real Terms | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2009/02/what-cuts-stimulus-mean-real-terms/ | 2009-02-09 | 4 |
<p>MITROVICA, Kosovo (AP) — Serbia's president on Saturday pledged to help build a lasting peace in Kosovo days after the killing this week of a moderate Kosovo Serb politician fueled fears of instability in the Balkans.</p>
<p>Amid tight security, Aleksandar Vucic paid a visit to Kosovo that officials said was designed to ease concerns among Kosovo Serbs following the slaying Tuesday of one of their leading politicians, Oliver Ivanovic.</p>
<p>Waving Serbian flags, hundreds of people cheered Vucic as he arrived in the Serb-dominated, northern part of the former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008. Serbia has refused to recognize the statehood of the majority ethnic Albanian Kosovo and maintains strong influence in Serb-populated areas, mostly in the north.</p>
<p>Upon arrival, Vucic first visited an Orthodox Serbian monastery before laying a wreath at the site of the attack on Ivanovic in the divided town of Mitrovica.</p>
<p>"Serbia not only wants peace, but will do its best to preserve it," Vucic said in Banjska. "We will do all we can to solve decades- and centuries-old disputes, to secure a lasting peace and security for each (ethnic) Albanian and Serbian family."</p>
<p>Vucic called for those responsible for Ivanovic's death to be brought to justice "without mercy." Some Serbs shouted at the Serbian president during his press conference demanding more protection from Serbia.</p>
<p>Later Saturday, Vucic visited a Serb family in central Kosovo.</p>
<p>Under EU mediation, Serbia and Kosovo have opened talks on normalizing relations in order to advance in efforts to join the European Union. The talks were due to resume this week, but were suspended after Ivanovic was gunned down in Mitrovica.</p>
<p>Ivanovic was a rare voice of tolerance amid persistent ethnic tensions in Kosovo, nearly two decades after the 1998-99 war.</p>
<p>MITROVICA, Kosovo (AP) — Serbia's president on Saturday pledged to help build a lasting peace in Kosovo days after the killing this week of a moderate Kosovo Serb politician fueled fears of instability in the Balkans.</p>
<p>Amid tight security, Aleksandar Vucic paid a visit to Kosovo that officials said was designed to ease concerns among Kosovo Serbs following the slaying Tuesday of one of their leading politicians, Oliver Ivanovic.</p>
<p>Waving Serbian flags, hundreds of people cheered Vucic as he arrived in the Serb-dominated, northern part of the former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008. Serbia has refused to recognize the statehood of the majority ethnic Albanian Kosovo and maintains strong influence in Serb-populated areas, mostly in the north.</p>
<p>Upon arrival, Vucic first visited an Orthodox Serbian monastery before laying a wreath at the site of the attack on Ivanovic in the divided town of Mitrovica.</p>
<p>"Serbia not only wants peace, but will do its best to preserve it," Vucic said in Banjska. "We will do all we can to solve decades- and centuries-old disputes, to secure a lasting peace and security for each (ethnic) Albanian and Serbian family."</p>
<p>Vucic called for those responsible for Ivanovic's death to be brought to justice "without mercy." Some Serbs shouted at the Serbian president during his press conference demanding more protection from Serbia.</p>
<p>Later Saturday, Vucic visited a Serb family in central Kosovo.</p>
<p>Under EU mediation, Serbia and Kosovo have opened talks on normalizing relations in order to advance in efforts to join the European Union. The talks were due to resume this week, but were suspended after Ivanovic was gunned down in Mitrovica.</p>
<p>Ivanovic was a rare voice of tolerance amid persistent ethnic tensions in Kosovo, nearly two decades after the 1998-99 war.</p> | Serbian president visits Kosovo after politician's slaying | false | https://apnews.com/amp/7c6ee458cee24b219e26ad4c4beefa92 | 2018-01-20 | 2 |
<p />
<p>Small Business Spotlight: Boll and Branch, @BollandBranch</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Who: Scott Tannen</p>
<p>What: Startup focused on high-end, organic bedding</p>
<p>When: 2014</p>
<p>Where: Chatham, New Jersey</p>
<p>How: Serial entrepreneur Scott Tannen built his career in social and mobile gaming, before turning to angel investing.</p>
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<p>“I was doing a lot of consulting … I realized the only side of digital I hadn’t spent time on was ecommerce,” says Tannen.</p>
<p>After doing some research, Tannen says he decided the home textile and bedding industry was ripe for disruption.</p>
<p>“The markups in the space are out of control,” says Tannen. By working directly with farmers and only selling products online, Tannen brought to market a high-end, organic bedding line that could be sold at a “reasonable price.” Before debuting Boll and Branch this month, the budding bedding entrepreneur spent time in India getting to know organic cotton farmers and researching the ins and outs of the market.</p>
<p>Biggest challenge: “I had never done anything in terms of textiles. The biggest challenge, and the reason I believe we’ll be successful, is that I don’t have any sacred cows in terms of the way things should be done,” says Tannen.</p>
<p>One moment in time: Tannen says he’s proudest of the fact that his company is providing quality jobs to farmers and textile workers in India. “The more product I sell, the more jobs we create,” he says.</p>
<p>Best business advice: “Pay attention to the little things … At the end of the day, [consumers] buy you for the quality, but they love you for the little things,” says Tannen.</p> | Startup Wants to Be the ‘Warby Parker’ of Bedding | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/01/27/startup-wants-to-be-warby-parker-bedding.html | 2016-03-04 | 0 |
<p>Published time: 14 Sep, 2017 09:56</p>
<p>Caracas has ordered oil traders to convert crude oil contracts into euro and not to pay or be paid in US dollars anymore, according to sources close to the matter as quoted by WSJ. The measure is aimed at bypassing US sanctions against the country.</p>
<p>Read more</p>
<p><a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/399283-venezuela-senators-oil-sanctions/" type="external" /></p>
<p>Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA reportedly asked joint venture partners to open euro accounts and to convert existing holdings into the European currency, the sources said.</p>
<p>Last month, the White House sanctioned Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other senior Venezuelan officials after the election of a new legislative body to rewrite the country’s constitution.</p>
<p>The measure bans both US businesses and citizens from buying Venezuelan debt as well as from making any deals with PDVSA.</p>
<p>Caracas claimed the step as an attempt to embargo Venezuela, which is currently in the middle of an economic crisis.</p>
<p>“To fight against the economic blockade there will be a basket of currencies to liberate us from the dollar,” said the country’s Vice President Tareck El Aissami, as quoted by the media.</p>
<p>The US is Venezuela’s largest trading partner with 95 percent of the state’s revenues coming from oil exports, mostly to the US. Thus, switching the dominating currency may lead to increased transaction costs, according to analysts.</p> | Venezuela ditches dollar for oil payments to dodge US penalties | false | https://newsline.com/venezuela-ditches-dollar-for-oil-payments-to-dodge-us-penalties/ | 2017-09-14 | 1 |
<p>Success has many fathers and failure is an orphan.&#160; But the latest grotesque mass shooting – during which a man killed thirteen people in Binghamton, New York – provoked a rash of conflicting attempts to assign a motive for the gunman’s mad acts.&#160; Shortly after the violence became known, a Taliban sheikh in Islamabad, Pakistan claimed responsibility for the attack.&#160; But since the gunman – Jiverly Wong – was a Vietnamese-American who lived with his parents outside Binghamton, the skeikh’s claim smacks of mere jihadist opportunism.</p>
<p>The conspiracy-minded may&#160;sense the heavy hand of Dick Cheney behind the Taliban cleric’s claim, since Cheney recently warned that President Obama’s policies were making the county less safe. &#160;No doubt it is far-fetched to believe Cheney would employ a sheikh to mastermind a terrorist attack in order to vindicate Cheney’s dire predictions, not to mention the immoral, unconstitutional practices he embraced during the Bush era.&#160; And that would allow Cheney to blame Obama.</p>
<p>Binghamton Police Chief Joseph Zikuski said Wong might have been depressed because other students in his English class at the immigration center he attacked had mocked his poor language skills.&#160; Perhaps his teacher is culpable for failing to raise Wong’s fluency level.&#160; The bullies among his classmates merit blame, but they might merely have been attempting to acculturate more rapidly.&#160; &#160;The students must have noticed that ridiculing anyone slightly different from mainstream bland is as American as chop suey.</p>
<p>Some liberals said Wong probably suffered from the prejudice of American racists against new immigrants.&#160; Some racists blamed immigrant culture itself (them pesky&#160;non-white fureigners) and the policies which allow disturbed or unstable individuals from other countries to compete with the disturbed and unstable native born.</p>
<p>Gun opponents blame the killing spree on the gun culture, of which Wong was an avid member.&#160; Second Amendment absolutists accuse the Obama regime of threatening to take away their cherished weaponry, though no such policy has been declared. &#160;Out of fear that new, more restrictive gun regulations might someday possibly be imposed under Obama, there has been a huge recent upsurge in applications for background checks to purchase more firearms.&#160; The NRA used to flaunt the bumpersticker: “When Guns are Outlawed, Only Outlaws will have Guns.”&#160; They could amend that to read “Since Guns are Legal, Only Paranoids Hoard Guns.”</p>
<p>Given the recent epidemic of mass murder, with so many unbalanced individuals turning weapons on relatives and strangers alike, it is hard to understand what a “background check” actually uncovers.&#160; The week of the Binghamton shootings, a man murdered five members of his family.&#160; In March an Alabama gunner killed eleven.&#160; Last Christmas Eve in Los Angeles a lunatic dressed as Santa shot nine people and himself to death.&#160; The April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, in which 33 people died, still holds the modern record.&#160; We can only hope no one will try to break it.&#160; This is not a category The Guinness Book wants to acknowledge.</p>
<p>Many officials and pundits attribute this latest rise in rampage killing to the economic downturn.&#160; Wong had recently lost his job at Shop-Vac, which manufactures vacuum cleaners.&#160; You could blame Wong’s boss for giving him the boot, but even more, his former co-workers, who showed no surprise at Wong’s wanton madness. &#160;They had even joked among themselves about how he might someday show up at work with a weapon and shoot up the place.&#160; Ha.&#160; Do greedy bankers and hedge fund managers deserve the blame for Wong running amok?&#160; Yes and no but no…</p>
<p>Not long ago Wong’s wife left with their children, apparently adding to his embitterment.&#160; Perhaps the heartbreak of his wife’s departure pushed him over the edge.&#160; Maybe she realized she had to get away before he murdered his family.&#160; In a soon-to-be-posthumous letter to a local TV station, Wong himself blamed police harassment.&#160; Or as Wong put it: “Because undercover cop gave me a lot of ass during eighteen years.”</p>
<p>The potential list of contributing culprits to this senseless horror is ample, even if tangential and contradictory.&#160; In Rashomon, the classic Japanese story made into a film by Akira Kurosawa in the 1950s, each person involved in a crime conveys their very different versions of the incident.&#160; Even the dead murder victim testifies through a medium at a courtroom séance to offer his take.&#160; If we could contact Jiverly Wong through a spirit medium, he might be angry that others appear to share any responsibility for the act he alone committed.</p>
<p>Suicidal killing sprees are desperate outbursts against feelings of impotence that corner the killer. &#160;A murderous rampage is a final, irrational attempt to be taken seriously. &#160;Jiverly Wong wanted to make a statement in the worst possible way.&#160; And so he did.&#160; The pain he inflicted will linger long in many lives, but he himself will soon be forgotten.&#160; Who can name the Virginia Tech gunman?</p>
<p>Victims of the American social experiment who go down shooting are doomed to justifiable obscurity.&#160; They are but symptoms and statistics and by now, cliches.&#160; &#160;But their enablers and accomplices – human and systemic – remain among us.&#160; That is why we tend to look beyond the crazed shooters, to identify the people and problems that poisoned their brains.&#160; So they don’t poison ours.</p>
<p>JAMES McENTEER is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Shooting the Truth: the Rise of American Political Documentaries</a> (Praeger 2006). He lives in Cochabamba, Bolivia.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter | true | https://counterpunch.org/2009/04/08/rashomon-and-the-binghamton-shooter/ | 2009-04-08 | 4 |
<p>Despite some signs of middle-age spread,&#160;the United Automobile Workers Union, now&#160;over 40 years old, sustains a politically&#160;sophisticated response to issues while preserving&#160;much of the democratic spirit that&#160;distinguished its earlier years. The UAW still&#160;is known for being in the vanguard among&#160;unions, protecting the rights of minorities,&#160;devising new bargaining demands, and&#160;helping the cause of those that are denied&#160;justice. What is less known is the stormy life of&#160;the local unions that have institutionalized&#160;democracy and militancy in the UAW. It is&#160;the history of one such local, Local 7, I&#160;propose to relate here.</p>
<p>Local 7, UAW, has been the certified&#160;representative of the Chrysler Kercheval-Jefferson workers in Detroit since 1937.&#160;Along with a number of older locals, it helped&#160;found the international union. Local 7 was&#160;organized in 1936, after the merger of a&#160;federal local union, affiliated with the AFL&#160;and somewhat influenced by followers of the&#160;Communist party, with an independent union&#160;that was influenced by followers of Father&#160;Coughlin, a right-wing Catholic priest. The&#160;major leader of the local was R. J. Thomas, an&#160;electric welder later to become president of&#160;the UAW.</p>
<p /> | The Local Union: Center of Life in the UAW | true | https://dissentmagazine.org/article/the-local-union-center-of-life-in-the-uaw | 2018-10-03 | 4 |
<p>One Monday in June 2009, at the start of the evening rush hour in Washington, D.C., a computer killed nine people. At least that’s one possible interpretation of the crash that occurred at a suburban Metrorail station. The train was in ATO, or “automatic train operation” mode, which means a computer was in control. Investigators later determined that the complicated automatic sensor mechanisms embedded in the trains and tracks had failed, causing one train traveling at almost 50 miles per hour to crash into the back of another stopped at the station. The human operator of the train, realizing too late what was happening, tried in the last few seconds to pull the emergency brake. She died along with eight others that day. It was the worst transportation disaster in the history of the D.C. Metro system.</p>
<p>No one would claim a computer intentionally killed, of course, but the day’s events were the unforeseen, tragic consequence of something that increasingly governs many aspects of our daily lives: computer automation.</p>
<p>In The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, Nicholas Carr, the author of several books about technology, explores our increasing reliance on automation. “The computer is becoming our all-purpose tool for navigating, manipulating, and understanding the world, in both its physical and its social manifestations,” Carr writes. Now, often unwittingly, we allow computers to automate aspects of our lives that never used to be subject to the control of software or hardware. Carr’s astute survey of automation shows just how quickly and uncritically we have outsourced the daily experience of being human to algorithms and machines, and how crucial it is to stop and reflect on what we are doing to ourselves.</p>
<p>Carr’s book is not a story about the technical details of the machinery and software of automation, nor is it a paean to Silicon Valley ingenuity (far too many of which have already been written). It is a story of the human experience of living with the automated technologies we’ve created, which he defines simply as “the use of computers and software to do things we used to do ourselves.” Our contemporary experience of automation is rich and varied, encompassing everything from the questions your doctor asks you during a checkup to the design of buildings to killer robots and driverless cars. Automation has undoubtedly made our lives safer and more convenient in countless ways.</p>
<p>But as Carr’s sweeping survey of automation shows, there are considerable cognitive, physical, political, economic, and moral consequences to our embrace of computer automation. As he did in his previous book, The Shallows, Carr explores the unintended consequences of our relationship with our technologies. If seamlessness, convenience, and efficiency are one side of the automation coin, the other includes unintentional design flaws, misguided assumptions, and—at worst—even human carnage.</p>
<p>Consider cockpit automation. Carr goes into detail about the design of the Airbus A320, whose fly-by-wire system and “glass cockpit” of screens and knobs ushered airplanes into the digital era by automating and routinizing tasks, like controlling airspeed and pitch, that used to be performed by the flight crew. Automation allowed for greater efficiency in the cockpit (and reduced the number of people needed in it from four to two). But, as Carr shows, automation also “severed the tactile link between pilot and plane” and “inserted a digital computer between human command and machine response.” Pilots now spend most of their time monitoring many small machines rather than flying one big one. In fact, Carr argues, “The commercial pilot has become a computer operator.”</p>
<p>Yet numerous studies have shown how computers can distract pilots, making them less likely to achieve situational awareness in an emergency; research has also linked automation to a deterioration of the psychomotor skills required to keep an airplane in the air. As a result, pilots can suffer what one expert calls “skill fade” of their cognitive and motor abilities, leaving them with a reduced ability to react intuitively when an emergency occurs.</p>
<p>As Carr readily concedes, technological improvements to air travel have made air disasters increasingly rare. But he sees a “dark footnote” to this good news: a new kind of accident in which automation is implicated. Tellingly, the National Transportation Safety Board’s report on a Continental Connection commuter flight that crashed near Buffalo, New York, in 2009 noted that, after cockpit warnings sounded, the captain’s response “should have been automatic.” Instead, the pilots became confused and, lacking situational awareness, reacted poorly, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on board. A similar fog of confusion enveloped the crew of Air France Flight 447, which crashed into the ocean on a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in the summer of 2009, killing all on board.</p>
<p>On the ground, researchers have shown how automation bias influences medical workers: One study of radiologists found that when they relied on automated software to analyze patients’ scans, they were more likely to overlook certain types of cancers. Similarly, doctors who use automated electronic record-keeping for their patients end up spending more time interacting with the computer screen than with their patients, potentially missing subtle cues that could lead to better diagnoses. Patients in a study conducted in a Veterans Affairs clinic reported that their visits “feel less personal” because of the intrusion of the computer into the examining room.</p>
<p>And among knowledge workers in various fields, automated “decision-support systems” software increasingly substitutes data processing for old-fashioned human judgment, siphoning autonomy from humans in the name of greater efficiency. Surveying the many ways we are outsourcing cognitive tasks to automated technology, Carr cites technology historian George Dyson’s pugnacious question: “What if the cost of machines that think is people who don’t?”</p>
<p>We think with our bodies as much as we do with our minds. When we first learn to walk, then run, or swim or ride a bike, repeated effort and the often painful experience of failure eventually train us in the art of synchronizing our brains and limbs. Early in the book, Carr describes his youthful experience of learning to drive a standard transmission car. After many stalls and slipped clutches and grinding gears, he gained competence and, eventually, mastery. Unlike the explicit knowledge one obtains from step-by-step instructions, the tacit knowledge he acquired exists in a “fuzzy realm” far different from but no less crucial than the well-defined processes that characterize explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is the reason you can still remember how to ride a bicycle after a 20-year hiatus.</p>
<p>But automation undermines this process, Carr argues, making so many things so easy for us to do that it robs us of opportunities to gain tacit knowledge. This is clear even in creative fields such as architecture, where drawing by hand was until recently the pillar of training and design. Today, no architecture firm would hire someone who wasn’t fluent in computer-aided design (CAD) software, which has almost entirely replaced drawing by hand.</p>
<p>CAD has facilitated extraordinary architectural design, and some might argue that it promotes a new form of tacit knowledge, one that lets architect and software work together to create designs impossible to achieve by hand alone. But Carr notes that although well-known architects such as Renzo Piano and Michael Graves have made great creative use of the software, they worry about the loss of the experience of drawing by hand, and note how the physical act of sketching shapes the final form of building. “Drawings are not just end products: they are part of the thought process of architectural design,” Graves has said.</p>
<p>Like other forms of automation, CAD’s emphasis on efficiency nudges its human users to perform certain actions rather than others, and discourages more open-ended design and creative exploration. Renzo Piano once likened CAD to “those pianos where you push a button and it plays the cha-cha and then a rumba.” CAD software is not intentionally pernicious, but like many things we’ve automated, it contains built-in biases that we rarely question. As Carr warns, “When automation distances us from our work, when it gets between us and the world, it erases the artistry from our lives.”</p>
<p>Modern automation also appears to be erasing jobs from our lives. Although technology-induced joblessness has stoked fear since angry Luddites smashed the first mechanized looms, Carr persuasively argues that this time things really are different: “Machines are replacing workers faster than economic expansion creates new manufacturing positions. As industrial robots become cheaper and more adept, the gap between lost and added jobs will almost certainly widen.”</p>
<p>From an employer’s perspective, this makes sense. Machines are the perfect employees. They never get sick or complain or sexually harass their colleagues (at least not yet), and the occasional software upgrade is a lot cheaper than the health insurance and pension plan demanded by a human worker. And yet despite periodic fretting by economists, we’re oddly passive about the implications of this trend, no doubt because of our nation’s longstanding enthusiasm for technology. Carr quotes cognitive scientist Donald Norman, who has observed, “[T]he machine-centered viewpoint compares people to machines and finds us wanting, incapable of precise, repetitive, accurate actions.”</p>
<p>Rather than humanize the machines, we seem intent on making our human institutions more machinelike. Embedded in Silicon Valley’s techno-optimist worldview is a libertarian political ethos that focuses on ends rather than means and views the political process as a problem to be overcome rather than a way to reach democratic solutions. People who create on-demand businesses like Uber and Amazon don’t have patience for sclerotic Senate subcommittee hearings and partisan political negotiation. Sometimes it seems like they don’t have patience for people at all. If you can get a drone to do what a person can, why not do it?</p>
<p>This cultural impatience extends beyond the boundaries of Silicon Valley. Former Obama Administration official Peter Orszag once argued for greater “automaticity” in policy-making to avoid gridlock, for example. Carr argues that we are already too eager to embrace technologies that supplant rather than merely supplement our activities and too impatient to work through the often messy process of solving human problems. Although Carr doesn’t ever come right out and say it, he’s grappling with an existential question: Does our blind faith in automated technology suggest a deepening mistrust of human judgment? Much of the enthusiasm for our increasingly algorithmic existence comes from the anxieties and responsibilities it allows us to transfer to supposedly implacable and unbiased machines. (I won’t give that worker a promotion because my decision-support software predicts he will do poorly in the job.) There is much false hope in this and also much denial of individual responsibility.</p>
<p>Like politics, automation is fundamentally about trust—the trust we place in our machines and the technologists who build them, our trust in a system of government that can regulate them, and trust in our own ability to wisely use them. But this trust is built on the assumption that these technologies are morally neutral. Carr’s book provides further evidence of the need to discard this shibboleth. Automation, like much technology, is neither neutral nor benign. As Carr notes of the so-called “substitution myth”: “A labor-saving device doesn’t just provide a substitute for some isolated component of a job. It alters the character of the entire task, including the roles, attitudes, and skills of the people who take part in it.”</p>
<p>Moreover, a world of easy automation is one in which we are more likely to outsource ethical decision-making to machines. Automation at today’s level of sophistication gives machines the power to offer judgments (explicitly or implicitly), not merely to generate information; increasingly, we are more accepting of machines that replicate human judgment (such as a doctor’s ability to diagnose a patient or a pilot’s ability to land a plane). As for free will, the outsourced moral life has less need of it; it isn’t entirely improbable to imagine a near future where a criminal defendant can say, “The algorithm made me do it!”</p>
<p>Eventually, technologies of automation will act less like helpful bank tellers and more like predatory lenders—and some already do. Predictive algorithms recommend books you might like to buy on Amazon, but parole boards also use them to decide whether inmates should be granted their freedom. Automated technologies could easily be designed to mislead their target audience and deftly evade oversight by their own users, who wouldn’t have the first clue what is going on inside either the hardware or the software of their devices. Do we want to live in a world of machine-driven ersatz moral judgment, where “ingenuity is replacing intuition”? If it means a guarantee of unbiased efficiency and reduced risk, many of us might say yes.</p>
<p>But we shouldn’t. Carr’s book shows that automation is not merely a personal or business decision. It is a moral one. Uncritically embracing automation risks degrading our humanity, bit by bit—death by a thousand apps. “The labors our obliging digital deities would have us see as mere drudgery may turn out to be vital to our fitness, happiness, and well-being,” Carr reminds us.</p>
<p>If earlier eras celebrated self-reliance, and the twentieth century lauded self-expression, in the twenty-first century we admire self-control, perhaps because we live in a world of such convenience and ease that we need much more of it. Not for nothing are the phrases “binge-watch” and “information overload” revealing of our particular cultural moment. Carr worries that our dependence on our machines and our expectations of what they can and should do for us—keep us safe, make our lives more convenient, facilitate personal connections—run the risk of creating a kind of technologically enabled learned helplessness. When we outsource personal responsibility to the technologists of Silicon Valley, we adopt a posture Carr correctly deems “submissive.” Our technologies begin to look less like our guides and more like masters holding our leashes. As Carr poignantly asks, “How far from the world do we want to retreat?”</p>
<p>One of Carr’s great strengths as a critic is the measured calm of his approach to his material—a rare thing in debates over technology. He is neither a bully nor a nanny (loyal readers of Carr’s blog also know he has a sharp wit, which I would like to have seen more of in this book) and he has a gift for stating problems succinctly: “The trouble with automation is that it often gives us what we don’t need at the cost of what we do.”</p>
<p>But Carr could be tougher on us than he is. Discussing how wearable technologies such as Google Glass make us “lose the power of presence” by constantly checking the screen in front of our eyes, for example, he stops short of scolding us, even though by choosing to wear Glass or to glance obsessively at our smartphones we willingly exchange the “power of presence” (and the feelings of other human beings) for access to information. We’ve been making that trade-off since the advent of mobile technology, and not because we suffer from false consciousness. We’ve done this willingly, enthusiastically, often foolishly, and without bothering to consider the costs. “It’s impossible to automate complex human activities without also automating moral choices,” Carr reminds us.</p>
<p>Carr excels at exploring these gray areas and illuminating for readers the intangible things we are losing by automating our lives. “How do you measure the expense of an erosion of effort and engagement, or a waning of agency and autonomy, or a subtle deterioration of skill? You can’t,” he writes. But you can, through meticulous research and insight, lay the groundwork for us to ask the right questions—and this is what Carr’s book does so well.</p>
<p>Techno-enthusiasts will dismiss Carr’s concerns about automation as hand-wringing by someone who praises the scythe as a masterful tool (he does, but in the context of a beautiful poem by Robert Frost). But as Carr notes, the true nostalgist is the one who believes that “the new thing is always better suited to our purposes and intentions than the old thing.” Recognizing the potential harm of automation doesn’t require us to toss robots out the window. But it does demand that we develop some principles to guide us.</p>
<p>Our apps and gadgets and their software are obscenely prescriptive. But they are also morally myopic. Their creators, after all, are people who think tacos delivered by drones will transform humanity. And they tell us precisely what we want to hear, as a tweet from Apple CEO Tim Cook shows: “You are more powerful than you think.” Are we? We expect our technologies to do so much for us, from managing our morning commute to suggesting and rating the restaurant we’ll want to eat at; Carr’s book is a reminder that we ought to expect more from ourselves. He’s not naive about the difficulty of striking a balance between using tools and allowing the tools to use us. “The value of a well-made and well-used tool lies not only in what it produces for us,” he writes, “but what it produces in us.”</p>
<p>Carr hopes we haven’t gone so far along the path of technological progress that we can’t pause to reflect on what a more thoughtfully automated world might look like. At the very least, he urges a more rigorous design philosophy for the hardware and software that many of us spend most of our days using and greater accountability from the companies that create them. The binge-watching cynic in me worries that there is little appetite for such an effort among consumers of technology.</p>
<p>But skepticism is crucial given our short memory for technology’s unintended consequences. In September, Washington, D.C.’s Metro system announced that by March all Metro trains on its Red Line would once again be automated, with a goal of fully automating the remaining train lines by fall 2017. Local officials praised the efficiency and security of a rail system built on such sophisticated technology. Asked about the return to computer-driven trains, the aunt of the youngest victim of the 2009 Metro crash told The Washington Post, “[Y]ou can’t risk human beings to some computer…. It’s not worth it.”</p> | Automation for the People? | true | http://democracyjournal.org/magazine/35/automation-for-the-people/ | 2015-12-22 | 4 |
<p>President Obama <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/09/obama-offers-motorcade-for-chelsea-clintons-delivery/" type="external">has offered</a> Chelsea Clinton a motorcade when she goes into labor, according to remarks he made at the Clinton Global Initiative.</p>
<p>"I was just discussing with President Clinton that if Chelsea begins delivery while I'm speaking, she has my motorcade and will be able to navigate traffic," he said with a smirk. "I don't know what the problem is. Everybody hypes the traffic, but I haven't noticed."</p>
<p>ABC News describes Obama as "joking" when he said it, but with the way Obama wastes tax dollars on government programs, it's hard to tell.&#160;</p> | Obama Offers Chelsea Clinton Motorcade to Deliver Her Baby | true | http://truthrevolt.org/news/obama-offers-chelsea-clinton-motorcade-deliver-her-baby | 2018-10-06 | 0 |
<p>A roller coaster has gotten stuck at a Pennsylvania amusement park again, and riders have had to be removed from it.</p>
<p>It's the second time a coaster has stopped working at the park in less than a week.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Hersheypark officials say The Sidewinder "experienced a stoppage" Monday afternoon and workers escorted all 27 riders safely off it. They say the coaster worked as it should during a malfunction by settling at a point that allowed guests to safely exit.</p>
<p>The ride is closed. The malfunction is being investigated.</p>
<p>The Sidewinder is a steel roller coaster that's rated an "aggressive thrill ride" on Hersheypark's website.</p>
<p>On Friday, the park's Fahrenheit roller coaster was stuck mid-ride for about six minutes before continuing.</p> | Roller coaster gets stuck at Hersheypark; 27 riders removed | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/08/22/roller-coaster-gets-stuck-at-hersheypark-27-riders-removed.html | 2016-08-22 | 0 |
<p>A royal flush led to a king-sized payout for a New Jersey man playing cards online in the state's largest-ever Internet gambling jackpot.</p>
<p>The Union County man, who refused to make his name public, was playing the card game Let It Ride on the BetfairCasino.com site on Feb. 14 and won $1.52 million.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>It was the largest Internet gambling payout in the short history of online betting in New Jersey, surpassing the $1.3 million prize won by a Morris County woman in November.</p>
<p>Let It Ride is a variant of traditional poker, paying 1,000-to-1 for a royal flush. It also features an extra side bet called 3-Card Bonus.</p>
<p>Betfair said the man wagered $500 on each of his three initial bets, as well as the 3 Card-Bonus, and was dealt a royal flush in diamonds. He won 1,000-to-1 payouts on each of his three $500 initial bets, and an additional 40-to-1 on his $500 3-Card Bonus bet for a straight flush, yielding a total payout of $1,522,000.</p>
<p>"It's always exciting when a player hits a big win," said Don Ryan, general manager of BetfairCasino.com.</p>
<p>London-based Betfair began operating in New Jersey partnered with the now-closed Trump Plaza. It's now aligned with the Golden Nugget.</p>
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<p>Internet gambling began in November 2013 in New Jersey, and it took in $122 million in 2014, its first full year of operation.</p>
<p>New Jersey regulators are expected to clear another casino site — www.ResortsCasino.com — for full operation Wednesday, making it the sixth Atlantic City casino to offer Internet gambling.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Wayne Parry can be reached at http://twitter.com/WayneParryAC</p> | Union County man wins $1.52M playing cards online in largest New Jersey Internet bet jackpot | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/02/23/union-county-man-wins-152m-playing-cards-online-in-largest-new-jersey-internet.html | 2016-03-05 | 0 |
<p />
<p>President-elect Donald Trump's tax plan would represent the biggest overhaul to the U.S. tax code in decades. And with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress, he may actually be able to get his way. While most people would get a tax cut under Trump's plan, this wouldn't necessarily be the case for all Americans, so here's what you need to know.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Image Source: Disney-ABC Television Group via Flickr.</p>
<p>Currently, there are seven IRS tax brackets, and you can find the income thresholds for 2017 <a href="http://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/12/04/your-guide-to-tax-brackets-in-2017.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Trump has proposed consolidating these into just three brackets, with marginal tax rates of 12%, 25%, and 33%. He also plans to eliminate the so-called marriage penalty by simply making the single tax brackets exactly half of the amounts for married couples filing jointly.</p>
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<p>Data source: www.donaldjtrump.com.</p>
<p>Clearly, this would be a major simplification to the tax code. If you looked at the 2017 tax bracket article I linked at the beginning of this section, you'd notice that what took four large tables to describe has been condensed into just one. It would also represent a lower marginal tax rate for most (but not all) Americans.</p>
<p>In addition to generally lower tax rates, Trump's tax plan also calls for increasing the standard deduction from $6,300 for single filers and $12,600 for married couples filing jointly to $15,000 and $30,000, respectively.</p>
<p>Data sources: IRS, www.donaldjtrump.com.</p>
<p>This would represent a significant tax break for many people, since the tax brackets are based on taxable income, which is lowered by deductions. For example, a married couple who earn $75,000 in 2017 and choose the standard deduction would be taxed on only $45,000 of this amount, assuming they didn't have any other credits or deductions to use.</p>
<p>Despite Trump's lower proposed tax brackets and higher standard deduction, taxes wouldn't necessarily go down for all Americans, and for two specific reasons.</p>
<p>First, Trump's plan includes the elimination of the personal exemption, which currently excludes $4,050 in income from taxation for every taxpayer, spouse, and dependent. In other words, if you're a married couple with two children, you're currently entitled to four personal exemptions, which reduce your taxable income by $16,200.</p>
<p>You can read about the mathematics of how this works <a href="http://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/10/07/the-129-trillion-tax-break-donald-trump-is-proposi.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">here Opens a New Window.</a>, but essentially, married couples with more than two children will lose more from the elimination of the personal exemption than they would gain from the higher standard deduction. Taxpayers of other filing statuses with dependents could face a similar increase as well.</p>
<p>Second, Trump has proposed eliminating the head-of-household filing status, which currently has a higher standard deduction and more favorable tax brackets than the single filing status, and is used by more than 22 million taxpayers annually. Under Trump's plan, taxpayers who currently qualify as heads of household would most likely have to file as single, thereby losing these benefits.</p>
<p>One wild card that could help to offset both of these changes is Trump's proposal to expand tax benefits for child care. His tax plan included an increased deduction for child care expenses that would be capped at the average cost of care in each state.</p>
<p>While it's unclear exactly how this deduction would be structured, it could certainly save Americans significant money, especially those with several children.</p>
<p>Under current IRS law, the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit is worth between 20% and 35% (depending on a filer's income) of the first $3,000 in qualified expenses for one child, or $6,000 worth of expenses for two. Families with more than two children get no additional benefit.</p>
<p>So the maximum credit for a family with, say, three young children, would be between $1,200 and $2,100, depending on the credit percentage they qualify for, no matter how much they spend. Meanwhile, if this family spent a total of $15,000 on child care throughout the year, this translates to $3,750 in tax savings if the family falls into Trump's 25% bracket.</p>
<p>In addition, Trump plans to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit to further assist low-income families with child care expenses, and would establish tax-advantaged Dependent Care Savings Accounts to help families save for these costs. You can read more about Trump's child tax benefits <a href="http://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/10/16/trumps-child-care-tax-breaks-what-you-need-to-know.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">here Opens a New Window.</a>.</p>
<p>Most of Donald Trump's tax plan is in line with the Republican Party platform, and therefore should be met with little resistance. However, one area where the two plans differ is deductions. Specifically, Trump wants to allow taxpayers to keep most of their deductions, while the GOP platform calls for the removal of most deductions, other than mortgage interest and charitable contributions.</p>
<p>Since most independent analyses of Trump's plan find that it is far from revenue-neutral, Trump will likely have to compromise when it comes to which deductions will be kept and eliminated.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that, while these are the details of Trump's tax plan and it's likely that some tax changes will be implemented during his presidency, there is no guarantee that the changes will line up exactly with the ones discussed here. In addition, keep in mind that there's also no guarantee that whatever changes do occur will be made retroactive to Jan. 1, 2017. Therefore, it's important to know what to expect if our new president gets his way, as well as to understand the current tax structure (tax brackets, filing status, exemptions, and deductions), and what both could mean for you in 2017.</p>
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<p>Try any of our Foolish newsletter services <a href="http://www.fool.com/shop/newsletters/index.aspx?source=isiedilnk018048&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">free for 30 days Opens a New Window.</a>. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that <a href="http://www.fool.com/knowledge-center/motley.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">considering a diverse range of insights Opens a New Window.</a> makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a <a href="http://www.fool.com/Legal/fool-disclosure-policy.aspx?&amp;utm_campaign=article&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_source=foxbusiness" type="external">disclosure policy Opens a New Window.</a>.</p> | What Does 2017 Hold for Your Taxes? | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2016/12/18/what-does-2017-hold-for-your-taxes.html | 2016-12-18 | 0 |
<p>On this week’s Sunday talk shows, we didn’t find any whoppers, or even major errors, by politicians. But there were still a few missteps about the nation’s economy, a federal judge’s sexual orientation and an economist’s political leanings.</p>
<p>Understating the Underperforming GDP</p>
<p>On ABC’s “ <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/week-transcript-odierno-chiarelli/story?id=11351927&amp;page=4" type="external">This Week</a>,” former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson was slightly off when talking about the nation’s gross domestic product. He said: “You can’t create jobs at a level we need in this economy without about a 4 percent growth rate, which is twice what we have now.”</p>
<p>His essential point is correct: Economic growth is too slow to create the new jobs needed to make up for the millions lost during the recession. But the growth rate is better than 2 percent, as stated by Gerson. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the GDP was <a href="http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdpnewsrelease.htm" type="external">2.4 percent</a> in the second quarter of 2010.</p>
<p>Federal Judge Not ‘Open’ About His Sexual Orientation</p>
<p>On CBS’ " <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/FTN_080810.pdf?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea" type="external">Face the Nation</a>," Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council said U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker — who <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/acrobat/2010/08/04/Prop-8-Ruling-FINAL.pdf?tsp=1" type="external">ruled against</a> California’s same-sex law — was "openly gay." However, Walker has not publicly commented on his sexual orientation. In fact, he has sought to avoid any discussion of the issue while presiding over this and other cases involving gay rights.</p>
<p>Perkins: I think what you have is one judge who thinks he knows, and a district level judge, and — and an openly homosexual judge at that who says he knows better than not only 7 million voters in the state of California but voters in 30 states across the nation that have passed marriage amendment.</p>
<p>In February, San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/07/BACF1BT7ON.DTL" type="external">wrote</a> that the "biggest open secret in the landmark trial over same-sex marriage being heard in San Francisco is that the federal judge who will decide the case, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, is himself gay." The columnists concluded as much after interviews with unnamed gay politicians and lawyers, saying they were told that Walker "has never taken pains to disguise — or advertise — his orientation."</p>
<p>Walker, who was <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/01/BAGIL8HGVF1.DTL" type="external">appointed</a> to the federal bench by Republican President George H.W. Bush, declined comment when asked by the paper about his sexual orientation. The columnists wrote: "Walker has declined to talk about anything involving the Prop. 8 case outside court, and he wouldn’t comment to us when we asked about his orientation and whether it was relevant to the lawsuit."</p>
<p>After his ruling, the Associated Press sought Walker’s response to allegations by critics of the ruling that his sexual orientation influenced his decision. But he <a href="" type="external">did not respond</a> to the AP’s request for an interview.</p>
<p>Boehner Stumbles</p>
<p>House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio stumbled on a couple of facts during his appearance on NBC’s " <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38593566/ns/meet_the_press-transcripts" type="external">Meet the Press</a>."</p>
<p>He seemed stuck in a time warp when he said he had handed the speaker’s gavel to Democrat Nancy Pelosi "18 months ago," and reinforced that a few minutes later by saying he had become GOP leader at the same time.</p>
<p>Boehner:&#160;When I handed Nancy Pelosi the gavel 18 months ago …</p>
<p>Boehner: I told my colleagues 18 months ago, when I became their leader …</p>
<p>Actually, he handed the gavel to Pelosi <a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2007-01-04/news/17226091_1_rep-nancy-pelosi-climate-change-110th-congress" type="external">Jan. 4, 2007</a> – &#160;43 months ago. That was after Democrats won control of the House in the 2006 midterm elections. And Boehner has been GOP leader for even longer. He was first elected to that post <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/congress/jan-june06/boehner_02-02.html" type="external">Feb. 2, 2006</a>, after Texas Rep. Tom Delay resigned.</p>
<p>Boehner also incorrectly identified economist Mark Zandi as a Republican — echoing recent spin from the Obama White House.</p>
<p>Boehner: President Obama’s favorite Republican economist, Mark Zandi, came out several weeks ago and made it clear that raising taxes at this point in, in the economy is a very bad idea.</p>
<p>Actually, Zandi said in a 2009 interview: “ <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/02/AR2009020202971.html" type="external">I’m a registered Democrat.</a>”</p>
<p>We can understand Boehner’s mistake, since the Obama administration <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-briefing-press-secretary-robert-gibbs-832010" type="external">has lately been referring to Zandi</a> — <a href="http://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/default.asp" type="external">chief economist of Moody’s Analytics</a> — as an adviser to Republican Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign. That’s true, but misleading.</p>
<p>Zandi said in that same 2009 Washington Post article that he had agreed to advise McCain at the request of an old friend, McCain’s chief economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. Zandi also advises Democrats and is a leading <a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/07/zandi_financial_rescue_and_sti.html" type="external">defender of last year’s stimulus</a> legislation.</p>
<p>Washington Post, Feb. 2, 2009: "My policy is I will help any policymaker who asks, whether they be a Republican or a Democrat," Zandi said. He declined to say whether he voted for McCain or Barack Obama in November. "My wife would also like to know the answer to that question," he noted.</p>
<p>Boehner’s main point was correct, however. Zandi is among those economists who say that allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire "for anyone" would be a mistake. <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128970984&amp;ft=1&amp;f=1006" type="external">National Public Radio quoted him on Aug. 4</a> as saying: "It would be an error to allow tax rates to rise for anyone come Jan. 1, 2011. The recovery is just too fragile, and the cost to taxpayers would be very serious."</p>
<p>— Eugene Kiely, Lara Seligman and Brooks Jackson</p> | Sunday Replay | false | https://factcheck.org/2010/08/sunday-replay-16/ | 2010-08-09 | 2 |
<p>Gov. Sam Brownback vetoed a bill Monday that would have increased regulations on ride-hailing companies like Uber, a decision that could face an override vote when the Legislature returns from its annual recess April 29.</p>
<p>In a statement, the governor said the bill, which would have required state background checks and broader insurance coverage for drivers for ride-hailing companies, was "premature" and might stifle innovation in the state.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>"This will allow companies like Uber to continue and expand operations in Kansas, where they otherwise would not be able to do so," Brownback said.</p>
<p>Uber connects drivers to riders through a mobile app and now has about 700 subcontracted drivers operating in Kansas after entering the state in 2014, but had said it would cease operations in the state if the governor signed the bill into law.</p>
<p>The company applauded Brownback's veto, saying in a statement the governor "demonstrated a deep understanding for how innovative businesses, such as Uber, can be a strong economic engine for communities while providing more choices to consumers throughout the state."</p>
<p>Republican Rep. Scott Schwab from Olathe, one of the chief negotiators for the final version of the bill, accused the governor of caving to pressure from the company, which has expanded rapidly since 2009 from a Silicon Valley startup to a multinational company valued at more than $40 billion.</p>
<p>"He's just helping them out or is succumbing to threats by them - either way it doesn't make him look like a strong leader right now," Schwab said.</p>
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<p>The bill passed the Legislature with large majorities - the Senate approved it 35-2, while the House's vote was 107-16 - and Schwab said he will seek to override the veto. That would require 27 votes in the Senate and 84 in the House, although many legislators may be reluctant to cross the governor over the issue.</p>
<p>Senate President Susan Wagle, a Republican from Wichita, said in a statement that Uber's entry to Kansas has had a positive impact on the market, but the insurance requirements in the bill were necessary and Uber's negotiating tactics over the bill alienated lawmakers.</p>
<p>"Uber chose not to work with those their product will ultimately impact, and resisted compromise throughout the legislative process," Wagle said.</p>
<p>Schwab said the company got "90 percent of what it wanted" in the bill but continued to fiercely oppose it both through direct lobbying and other methods. Several legislators expressed frustration after Uber urged its customers to email lawmakers on the issue and so many did so that the Legislature's email server was temporarily inoperable.</p>
<p>When lawmakers return later this month they will begin difficult talks over a mix of tax increases and budget cuts needed to close shortfalls of about $400 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1.</p>
<p>"The governor needs friends right now," Schwab said, but through actions like the veto he "is making it harder and harder for people to work with him."</p> | Brownback vetoes bill increasing regulations on Uber, but Legislature may vote to override it | true | http://foxbusiness.com/markets/2015/04/20/brownback-vetoes-bill-increasing-regulations-on-uber-but-legislature-may-vote.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>Russian President Vladimir Putin refrained from criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump at a news conference in China on Tuesday, but said a decision to shutter Russian diplomatic outposts in the U.S. was poorly handled.</p>
<p>Speaking at a news conference during a summit in China on Tuesday, Putin dismissed as “naive” a question about whether he was disappointed in Trump.</p>
<p>In comments carried by Russian news agencies, Putin said Trump is “not my bride, and I’m not his groom.”</p>
<p>Asked how Russia would feel if Trump were impeached, Putin said it would be “absolutely wrong” for Russia to discuss domestic U.S. politics.</p>
<p />
<p>Russian officials cheered Trump when he was elected last year, and Putin praised him as someone who wanted to improve ties with Russia. However, further U.S. sanctions on Russia and the U.S. decision to close Russian diplomatic outposts have raised concerns that the two countries remain far apart.</p>
<p>The Trump administration last week ordered the closure of three Russian facilities in the U.S.: The San Francisco consulate and trade missions in New York and Washington. It was the latest in a series of escalating retaliatory measures between the former Cold War foes.</p>
<p>Putin said the U.S. had a right to close consulates but “it was done in such a rude way.”</p>
<p>“It is hard to hold a dialogue with people who mix Austria with Australia,” he continued, an apparent reference to a decade-old gaffe by George W. Bush, who during a 2007 visit to Sydney referred to Austrian troops when he meant Australian troops.</p>
<p>“The American nation, America is truly a great country and a great people if they can tolerate such a big number of people with such a low level of political culture,” Putin said.</p> | Putin Says Trump ‘Not My Bride, and I’m Not His Groom’ | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/putin-says-trump-not-bride-im-not-groom/ | 2017-09-05 | 4 |
<p>There’s much ado about “choice feminism” lately and some of it surely a bit of healthy autocriticism. If feminism means anything, after all, then it means nothing.&#160;</p>
<p>“Choice feminism” — the idea that feminism means women can individually choose whatever they wish and consider it an inherently feminist act — is certainly an insidious outgrowth of the commodification of empowerment. “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” has come a long way, branching out into various manifestations of neo-”girl power” and pseudo-feminism promulgated by corporations like Unilever in its many Dove commercials, as well as adverts for makeup and shampoo that seem to subtly sell empowerment as well as a greasy bit of beauty product.</p>
<p>Feminist criticism of&#160;choice rhetoric could focus on how it has a profoundly deleterious impact on women’s economic status (consider the widespread argument that women choose occupational segregation that just happens to shunt us into lower paying fields) or in areas of discrimination (she chose to step down from her job after getting pregnant). Instead, many anti-“choice feminism” critiques lately, typified by <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-feminism-is-not-about-choice-40896" type="external">this recent article</a> by Meagan Tyler,&#160;exemplify an unfortunate tendency in feminism to upbraid individual women for how we try to survive or accommodate ourselves in patriarchy. This genre of feminist criticism fixates squarely on women’s sex and sexuality in ways that are more than a little alarming</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Our choices in this society are all mediated. Every single one. We find it easier to make certain personal choices because of how the panoply of possibilities are constrained for us. A woman who quits her job after bearing a child, for example, may be “making her own choice,” but a <a href="" type="internal">society</a> where there is no guarantee of parental leave, where workplaces remain hostile to pregnant women and new mothers, and where our conception of the ideal worker is still inherited from a 1950’s male breadwinner model all make that choice considerably <a href="" type="internal">easier for her</a> to make.</p>
<p>As a sociologist I cut my teeth as Dr. Pamela Stone’s research assistant, helping her with a follow up to her <a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520256576" type="external">pathbreaking study Opting Out</a>, which sought to understand a supposed “trend” identified by media outlets of women in high flying careers that quit their jobs after having children. It puts the lie to the idea that this was a simple choice that these women made without any outside influences or pressures; instead there were a variety of “push/pull” factors that made these choices easier for them, more attractive, and, indeed sometimes the only viable choice they could make. When we valorize these women’s choices as entirely their own and inherently feminist, we stop asking why women make them and why there are large visible trends in income, occupational stratification and segmentation, and the “work/family balance” issue. Put simply, these women’s “choices” were not entirely theirs.</p>
<p>While there is much to criticize in a beauty culture that markets its effluence as empowerment, it is no less subject to this mediation. We feel beautiful when we adhere to its tenets because society rewards that self-conception. Swimming against that current, particularly if you have a body that is ontologically unfit by beauty culture’s standards, requires a good deal more gumption and self-assurance. Certain choices about how we adorn ourselves are made easier or more painless by society’s circumscriptions.</p>
<p>But if we are all stuck in that system, then surely picking on women making a very particular set of mediated choices therein begins to look suspect. Even the most radically minded feminist is making choices about her body, her adornment, her life that are socially mediated and not entirely her own. Even if she recognizes this — as she surely must — she also doubtlessly acts and comports in a way incompatible with an imaginary feminist utopia, or the ideal typical form of true feminism. Why punish other women for trying to make the compromises their own? Or for finding ways to be joyous in the midst of these narrowed choices even as we fight?</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Radical feminists who fixate on hegemonic beauty culture and how some women celebrate their participation in it are committing a cardinal sin that is endemic not just to radical feminism, but all forms of political radicalism: assigning mortal political meaning to our performance of self. Getting your breasts done is not necessarily a feminist act; but then again, neither is wearing your hair short or adopting a “butch” style for one’s self.</p>
<p>This is one of the things that puts radical feminists in the ironic company of queer and postmodern feminists who live and breathe the idea that every bit of our sartorial and sexual performance constitutes a politically significant and impactful act. This is also why some transphobic queer feminists and radical feminists come together on attacking trans women as grotesque mannequins of patriarchal performance. They see our sartorial choices, our gender, and any surgeries we may get as a form of mutilation and compromise that is politically unsound. We inherently fail to perform feminism properly in this reckoning because of how we dress, how we identify, and who we are. Meanwhile, other queer folk — like, say, masculine-presenting genderqueer people — are assigned a more radical political valence; their existence is seen as an inherent strike against patriarchy.</p>
<p>Both perspectives are dehumanizing. On the same token, it is equally dehumanizing to see a woman (cis or trans) who gets breast surgery or who gets married as a traitor to feminist ideals who is setting back the cause. Society is certainly the multiplicative product of our actions, but at the level some feminists like Tyler criticize women it becomes just another kind of pointillist politics hopelessly focused on a narrow range of personal affectations. Such acts may indeed not be inherently feminist, but nor are they inherently anti-feminist.</p>
<p>It’s also worth noting how many, mostly white, radical feminists seem to obsess over Black women in particular. Witness all the <a href="" type="internal">debates about Beyonce</a>, for instance, that hand-wring over what she does with her body and how many women of color admire her for her “flawlessness.” Consider also the way that others, like Megan Murphy, have <a href="http://www.playboy.com/articles/laverne-cox-naked-feminist-exclusionism" type="external">outright attacked Laverne Cox</a> for the same thing, going so far as to suggest that she is not a real woman because she posed naked. And thus we come to the terrible logical endpoint of this fixation; women who appear to make certain sexual choices are patriarchal dolls who fall out of the realm of “true womanhood” — funny how this seems to befall Black women, cis and trans, with especial frequency.</p>
<p>Yes, it’s racist. It also stems from this same fixation on “choices” that can be perceived as sexual or sartorial in nature. Yes, that we find Laverne Cox’s nude to be beautiful says a lot about what our standards of beauty are; but it is equally true that for a Black trans woman to be regarded as beautiful is also something that is uniformly positive for a lot of women like her. Or me, as a Latina trans woman. I did not think I would see a trans woman of color become an icon the way she has; regarding politics, however, I judge her by her activism, not by how she poses, and that substance leaves little to be desired. She has drawn attention to those most marginalized in our horrendously oppressive prison system, the plight of trans women of color brutalized by the police and murdered in the streets, and more. Is that not more meaningfully radical than the fact that she can be regarded as beautiful in our present day society?</p>
<p>I know it is for someone like me. I wear lipstick because I am afraid that if I do not pass for cis I will get beaten or worse. My makeup is armour; and yes, that says a lot about the oppressive nature of patriarchy. I am not free to make choices about my appearance where I do not consider how cisgender men will react to it. That’s real. But it also does not make me a complicit collaborator in patriarchy. Nor does the fact that, frankly, I do like lipstick and might wear it often even without the threat of “not passing.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>I am certainly not fond of the idea that we should consider every choice a woman makes “feminist” — it puts us well on the road to completely devaluing any affirmative meaning feminism may have. But the real problem with “choice feminism” is its fixation on individual choices, and so the answer to this is not feminist criticism that tries to assign those same choices a negative political value. That’s merely buying into the same binarist, neoliberal logic you criticize.</p>
<p>Conversely, the individual fixation which, as Tyler correctly suggests, renders women invisible as a class is a real issue. But the ideological roots of this, in classical liberalism, capitalist ideologies and so on, are found&#160;not in beauty culture or heterosexual marriages but in an antipathy to regarding classes of persons as political subjects unto themselves. The Supreme Court case <a href="" type="internal">Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes</a> which ruled that female employees of Wal-Mart could not sue for discrimination as a class, and therefore precluded the possibility of a class-action suit, is typical of this tendency that is now pervasive in our society. This was in spite of overwhelming evidence of a structural problem at the retailer that needed to be addressed by a legal case that pitted a collective against a collective, rather than one woman at a time against the nation’s largest corporation.</p>
<p>This fetish for individualism uber alles is indeed a problem, but it is not best explained — or combated — by attacking women who, say, get married or really enjoy wearing makeup.</p>
<p>The real death of a collective feminist politics lies there, surely, fiddling the same piddling few notes while our society burns.</p> | Choice feminism: Time to ‘choose’ another argument | true | http://feministing.com/2015/05/07/choice-feminism-time-to-choose-another-argument/ | 4 | |
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Torii Hunter is returning to the Minnesota Twins, and injured Atlanta pitchers Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy were among 32 players tossed into the free-agent market Tuesday along with San Diego shortstop Everth Cabrera and New York Mets outfielder Eric Young Jr.</p>
<p>Hunter agreed to a $10.5 million, one-year contract with the Twins, the team announced Wednesday. He was to hold a news conference at Target Field in the afternoon.</p>
<p>A five-time All-Star outfielder who turns 40 in July, Hunter played for the Twins from 1997-07 before signing a $90 million, five-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels. He then signed a $26 million, two-year deal with Detroit.</p>
<p>Hunter hit .286 with 17 homers and 83 RBIs for the Tigers last season and will be relied upon to be the kind of hard-driving veteran a young clubhouse needs to set an example. He won seven of his nine Gold Gloves with the Twins, who have lost at least 92 games in each of the last four seasons.</p>
<p>In a trade, the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired outfielder Chris Heisey from Cincinnati for minor league right-hander Matt Magill. Heisey, who turns 30 on Dec. 14, hit .222 with eight homers and 22 RBIs in 119 games last season. He is eligible for arbitration.</p>
<p>Nineteen players eligible for arbitration were let go Tuesday, leaving about 185 eligible to file Jan. 13. Any player offered a contract is entitled to, at a minimum, roughly one-sixth of his 2015 salary as termination pay if he gets released.</p>
<p>Los Angeles Angels infielder Gordon Beckham, Oakland first baseman Kyle Blanks, Texas right-hander Alexi Ogando, New York Yankees left-hander David Huff, Cincinnati reliever Logan Ondrusek and St. Louis infielder Daniel Descalso also were among the players let go.</p>
<p>Once considered rising stars in the rotation, Medlen and Beachy did not pitch in 2014 after ligament-replacement surgeries during spring training, the second Tommy John operation for each.</p>
<p>Cabrera, an All-Star shortstop in 2013, faces charges of resisting arrest and possession of marijuana in a car after he was stopped by authorities in eastern San Diego County on Sept. 3, while he was on the disabled list. He is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 8.</p>
<p>He was suspended by Major League Baseball for the final 50 games of the 2013 season for violating the sport’s drug agreement in relation to its investigation of the Biogenesis of America drug clinic.</p>
<p>Cabrera led the National League with 44 stolen bases in 2012. He batted .232 this year with three homers, 20 RBIs and 18 steals in 90 games, and made $2.45 million.</p>
<p>Young batted .229 with 30 stolen bases in 100 games this year, when his salary was $1.85 million. He led the NL with 46 steals in 2013 and opened last season as New York’s primary leadoff hitter but managed only a .299 on-base percentage and lost playing time in a crowded outfield. The switch hitter finished with a homer and 17 RBIs in 316 plate appearances, scoring 48 runs.</p>
<p>Oakland agreed to one-year contracts with first baseman Ike Davis ($3.8 million) and right-hander Fernando Rodriguez ($635,000). The Dodgers and infielder Darwin Barney agreed at $2,525,000, and the Yankees struck a $1.48 million deal with reliever Esmil Rogers.</p>
<p>In addition, Seattle finalized its $100 million, seven-year deal with All-Star third baseman Kyle Seager, an agreement from last week that had been pending completion.</p>
<p>Among free agents, right-handed reliever Matt Belisle agreed to a $3.5 million, one-year deal with the Cardinals.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP Sports Writers Mike Fitzpatrick, Jon Krawczynski, Charles Odum and Bernie Wilson contributed to this report.</p>
<p>NEW YORK (AP) — Torii Hunter is returning to the Minnesota Twins, and injured Atlanta pitchers Kris Medlen and Brandon Beachy were among 32 players tossed into the free-agent market Tuesday along with San Diego shortstop Everth Cabrera and New York Mets outfielder Eric Young Jr.</p>
<p>Hunter agreed to a $10.5 million, one-year contract with the Twins, the team announced Wednesday. He was to hold a news conference at Target Field in the afternoon.</p>
<p>A five-time All-Star outfielder who turns 40 in July, Hunter played for the Twins from 1997-07 before signing a $90 million, five-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels. He then signed a $26 million, two-year deal with Detroit.</p>
<p>Hunter hit .286 with 17 homers and 83 RBIs for the Tigers last season and will be relied upon to be the kind of hard-driving veteran a young clubhouse needs to set an example. He won seven of his nine Gold Gloves with the Twins, who have lost at least 92 games in each of the last four seasons.</p>
<p>In a trade, the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired outfielder Chris Heisey from Cincinnati for minor league right-hander Matt Magill. Heisey, who turns 30 on Dec. 14, hit .222 with eight homers and 22 RBIs in 119 games last season. He is eligible for arbitration.</p>
<p>Nineteen players eligible for arbitration were let go Tuesday, leaving about 185 eligible to file Jan. 13. Any player offered a contract is entitled to, at a minimum, roughly one-sixth of his 2015 salary as termination pay if he gets released.</p>
<p>Los Angeles Angels infielder Gordon Beckham, Oakland first baseman Kyle Blanks, Texas right-hander Alexi Ogando, New York Yankees left-hander David Huff, Cincinnati reliever Logan Ondrusek and St. Louis infielder Daniel Descalso also were among the players let go.</p>
<p>Once considered rising stars in the rotation, Medlen and Beachy did not pitch in 2014 after ligament-replacement surgeries during spring training, the second Tommy John operation for each.</p>
<p>Cabrera, an All-Star shortstop in 2013, faces charges of resisting arrest and possession of marijuana in a car after he was stopped by authorities in eastern San Diego County on Sept. 3, while he was on the disabled list. He is scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 8.</p>
<p>He was suspended by Major League Baseball for the final 50 games of the 2013 season for violating the sport’s drug agreement in relation to its investigation of the Biogenesis of America drug clinic.</p>
<p>Cabrera led the National League with 44 stolen bases in 2012. He batted .232 this year with three homers, 20 RBIs and 18 steals in 90 games, and made $2.45 million.</p>
<p>Young batted .229 with 30 stolen bases in 100 games this year, when his salary was $1.85 million. He led the NL with 46 steals in 2013 and opened last season as New York’s primary leadoff hitter but managed only a .299 on-base percentage and lost playing time in a crowded outfield. The switch hitter finished with a homer and 17 RBIs in 316 plate appearances, scoring 48 runs.</p>
<p>Oakland agreed to one-year contracts with first baseman Ike Davis ($3.8 million) and right-hander Fernando Rodriguez ($635,000). The Dodgers and infielder Darwin Barney agreed at $2,525,000, and the Yankees struck a $1.48 million deal with reliever Esmil Rogers.</p>
<p>In addition, Seattle finalized its $100 million, seven-year deal with All-Star third baseman Kyle Seager, an agreement from last week that had been pending completion.</p>
<p>Among free agents, right-handed reliever Matt Belisle agreed to a $3.5 million, one-year deal with the Cardinals.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP Sports Writers Mike Fitzpatrick, Jon Krawczynski, Charles Odum and Bernie Wilson contributed to this report.</p> | Hunter returns to Twins; Medlen, Beachy let go | false | https://apnews.com/0eeba360c638473da49f7da04d7b9754 | 2014-12-03 | 2 |
<p>In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the Family and Medical Leave Act, mandating 12 weeks of unpaid leave for employees who need to care for loved ones or bond with a newborn baby. Now&#160;the Obama administration wants to expand on Clinton's policies</p>
<p>During Tuesday's&#160;State of the Union address, President Barack Obama announced&#160;his plan to expand&#160;paid leave for workers, starting with the federal government. Even with three months available to them, few Americans can take that much leave without pay. And&#160;as Baby Boomers age, more and more Americans will need to provide care for elderly family members.</p>
<p>“The president is calling for Congress to pass legislation that would allow millions of working Americans to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave per year,” says&#160;Betsey Stevenson, a member of the president's Council of Economic Advisors and a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan.&#160;“The idea that workers should be able to earn paid sick leave is one that Americans around the country support.”</p>
<p>In November, Massachusetts became the third state in the nation —&#160;after&#160;Connecticut and California —&#160;to guarantee paid sick days for workers. Nearly 60 percent of the state's&#160;voters approved the sick leave ballot initiative, and Obama highlighted that support in his speech.</p>
<p>“[Obama] is also proposing $2 billion in new funds to encourage states to develop paid family and medical leave programs,"&#160;Stevenson says.</p>
<p>At the same time, Obama is using his authority over the federal workforce to extend more benefits&#160;</p>
<p>[Obama] modernized the federal workplace by signing a presidential memorandum last week,” says Stevenson. “It directs agencies to advance up to six weeks of paid sick leave for parents with a new child. He’s also calling on Congress to pass legislation to give federal employees an additional six weeks of paid parental leave.”</p>
<p>As it stands right now, federal employees do not have the right to take paid paternity or maternity leave. The US is&#160; <a href="http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_242615.pdf" type="external">only one of two nations</a>, alongside Papua New Guinea, that&#160;doesn’t have some form of legally protected, partially paid time off for working women who’ve just had a baby.</p>
<p>"What the research shows clearly is that adopting these types of family-friendly policies are good for parents, are good for workers&#160;and it's good for the economy," Stevenson says.</p>
<p>Businesses that adopt paid leave policies often see positive results:&#160; <a href="http://cep.lse.ac.uk/management/worklifebalance_research.pdf" type="external">A study</a>&#160;of more than 700 firms by the Centre&#160;for Economic Performance, a London-based think tank,&#160;found that companies with work-life balance policies had higher productivity.&#160; <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/updated_workplace_flex_report_final_0.pdf" type="external">Other research</a>&#160;suggests that it can even boost corporate profits.</p>
<p>“When California implemented paid family leave a decade ago, lots of employers expressed concern that allowing for paid family leave would hurt their bottom line,”&#160;Stevenson says. “But six years into the program, in 2010, 90 percent of employers reported that the law did not negatively affect their productivity, profitability, morale or turnover."</p>
<p>But others argue that paid leave policies have hidden costs. Kay Hymowitz, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank,&#160;and author of " <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Manning-Up-Rise-Women-Turned/dp/0465028365" type="external">Manning Up: How the Rise of Women has Turned Men into Boys</a>," agrees that leave is important for families. But she's skeptical of the models many economists hold dear.</p>
<p>“I agree with a lot of what [Stevenson] said,” Hymowit says. “But I think what people need to understand is you don’t want to bring any magical thinking into this. It's&#160;not like it’s going to solve the gender gap or have an enormous impact on inequality.”</p>
<p>Hymowitz says it’s important&#160;how&#160;the United States implements paid sick and family leave programs.</p>
<p>In Sweden, new parents are entitled to 480 days of leave;&#160;for 390 of those days, they receive 80 percent of their paycheck. As Hymowitz&#160;argues, while the Swedish plan might sound like a dream come true for American parents, those benefits have hidden costs <a href="http://ideas.time.com/2013/09/04/do-women-really-want-equality/" type="external">when new parents return to work</a> — especially, she says, for mothers.</p>
<p>A very long period of paid family or sick leave like the kind offered in Sweden can increase the gender pay gap because it means that women will be out of the workforce for a year or sometimes longer. Such a long leave of absence cuts down on the amount of employment experience a woman can bring to the table when comparing a male job candidate.</p>
<p>“What’s happened there, and it’s something that no one anticipated, is that it’s added to the gender wage gap,” she says. “That may be a trade-off some people are willing to make, but it’s not going to be to everyone’s taste. That’s one possible downside if you don’t do it right.”</p>
<p>Hymowitz also argues that extended time off&#160;might be taken into account by hiring managers and others when considering job applicants.&#160;</p>
<p>“If one [applicant] is a young woman —&#160;let’s say 30&#160;years&#160;old and newly married —&#160;and the other is a guy in his 40s, you could see how [the employer] might hesitate if he’s going to be thinking about the future of his firm,” Hymowitz says.</p>
<p>She does concede&#160;that there's no&#160;statistical basis for such a prejudice, saying that it would be “extremely difficult” to study the negative effect.&#160;“However, it is inevitable that if you give too many kinds of advantages or benefits to one particular group you are going to disincentivize employers from hiring them,” she adds.</p>
<p>On the whole, Hymowitz says that paid parental and sick leave should not be handled by the federal government, but should be rolled out on a state-by-state basis.</p>
<p>“We have seen, as Betsey Stevenson said, some fairly successful experiments,” Hymowitz says. “They’ve been fairly modest by international standards, but they seem to be working well enough.”</p>
<p>This story is based on <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/story/president-obama-pushes-paid-family-leave/" type="external">an interview</a> from PRI's <a href="http://www.thetakeaway.org/" type="external">The Takeaway</a>, a public radio program that invites you to be part of the American conversation.</p> | The State of the Union kicked off Obama's push for paid parental and sick leave | false | https://pri.org/stories/2015-01-21/state-union-kicked-obamas-paid-maternity-leave-push | 2015-01-21 | 3 |
<p>(Fox News) – An Illinois father wants a school district to reconsider its dress code after his son was asked to remove a U.S. Marines T-shirt or be suspended, FoxNews.com has learned.</p>
<p>Daniel McIntyre, 44, of Genoa, told FoxNews.com that his 14-year-old son, Michael, was asked to remove the T-shirt by eighth-grade teacher Karen Deverell during reading class at Genoa-Kingston Middle School on Monday. Deverell, citing the school’s dress code, said the garment’s interlocking rifles was problematic and had to be removed from sight, McIntyre said.</p>
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<p>“My son is very proud of the Marines, and, in fact, of all the services,” McIntyre said. “So he wears it with pride. There are two rifles crossed underneath the word ‘Marines’ on the shirt, but to me that should be overlooked. It’s more about the Marines instead of the rifles.”</p>
<p>McIntyre said his son was initially threatened with suspension before complying with Deverell’s request to turn it inside out. He has worn the T-shirt to school many times before without incident, McIntyre said.</p>
<p>“He was upset, he couldn’t understand it,” he continued. “He couldn’t understand why a teacher would make him do that.”</p>
<p>Brett McPherson, the school’s principal, referred questions to&#160;Genoa-Kingston Superintendent Joe Burgess, who reiterated that the shirt is not in violation of the district’s dress policy.</p>
<p>“We’ve been accused of a lot of things, but our middle school is well-known for its support of the armed forces,” Burgess told FoxNews.com. “That’s why this is so disheartening to all of us.”</p>
<p>Deverell did not inform school officials of the incident, Burgess said, adding that McPherson would have quickly determined the shirt to be a non-issue if consulted.</p>
<p>“Nobody took the next step of asking the principal or making them aware of it,” Burgess said. “The teacher is obviously allowed to question anything they feel might be a violation of dress code, but again, had an administrator been allowed to respond, this could have been taken care of yesterday.”</p>
<p>Students within the district are expected to wear clothing in a “neat, clean and well-fitting manner,” according to a copy of the policy, which was obtained by FoxNews.com. While addressing “violent behavior,” gang symbols and other inappropriate images, it does not explicitly ban images of guns and other weapons.</p>
<p>“Student dress (including accessories) may not advertise, promote, or picture alcoholic beverages, illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, violent behavior, or other inappropriate images,” it reads. “Student dress (including accessories) may not display lewd, vulgar or obscene or offensive language or symbols, including gang symbols.”</p>
<p>Hats, bandannas and sunglasses are also banned inside the building. Students who violate the dress code will be asked to wear their gym uniform, it reads.</p>
<p>District officials, meanwhile, said its students are dutiful patriots who support U.S. troops as much as they can.</p>
<p>“The students and staff regularly write letters of support to the troops, and hold patriotic ceremonies for Veterans Day and Patriots’ Day,” a statement obtained by FoxNews.com reads. “We very much support the armed forces and were disheartened to learn of this matter through the media. The administration and school handbook agree that this shirt is not a violation of the dress code. We also take school safety very earnestly and it needs to be recognized that is a topic that we also take very seriously and support our students and staff in providing a safe environment to learn, teach and work in on a daily basis.”</p>
<p>McIntyre said he believes the incident is likely an overreaction to recent mass shootings, particularly to the Dec. 14, 2012, massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in which 20 students and six staffers were killed after Adam Lanza killed his mother at their Connecticut home.</p>
<p>“I backed him up and he knows that,” McIntyre said of his son. “This is not right. This policy that they have in place can obviously be loosely interpreted, so they need to change it.”</p> | Student Threatened with Suspension for Wearing Marines T-shirt with Rifles on it… | true | http://teaparty.org/student-threatened-with-suspension-for-wearing-marines-t-shirt-with-rifles-on-it-20676/ | 0 | |
<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Gov. Bruce Rauner has issued a ban on legislators financially benefiting from state property-tax appeals.</p>
<p>Rauner issued an executive order Friday calling such representation "a clear conflict of interest that must end." It is effective immediately.</p>
<p>Rauner has often accused Chicago Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan of benefiting from high Illinois property taxes because his law firm deals in tax-assessment appeals. Madigan has maintained he operates by a strict code of ethics and within the law.</p>
<p>The order directs the <a href="http://www.ptab.illinois.gov/" type="external">Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board</a> to prohibit lawmakers from participating in appeals before it.</p>
<p>The board hears appeals only after county boards of review consider them.</p>
<p>It also bans lawmakers from seeking outside employment activities which "conflict with their official state duties and responsibilities."</p>
<p>SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — Gov. Bruce Rauner has issued a ban on legislators financially benefiting from state property-tax appeals.</p>
<p>Rauner issued an executive order Friday calling such representation "a clear conflict of interest that must end." It is effective immediately.</p>
<p>Rauner has often accused Chicago Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan of benefiting from high Illinois property taxes because his law firm deals in tax-assessment appeals. Madigan has maintained he operates by a strict code of ethics and within the law.</p>
<p>The order directs the <a href="http://www.ptab.illinois.gov/" type="external">Illinois Property Tax Appeal Board</a> to prohibit lawmakers from participating in appeals before it.</p>
<p>The board hears appeals only after county boards of review consider them.</p>
<p>It also bans lawmakers from seeking outside employment activities which "conflict with their official state duties and responsibilities."</p> | Rauner order bars lawmakers from property-tax appeals | false | https://apnews.com/amp/d31b8aa396964277a7c678fb588cce36 | 2018-01-19 | 2 |
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<p />
<p>The 87,500-square-foot-space, dubbed the “Cistern” and reminiscent of ancient European water reservoirs, opened its doors to visitors in May. Then earlier this month, the structure’s darkened pillars and walls became the canvas for a piece of modern art.</p>
<p>“Repurposing it for a contemporary audience is the perfect solution,” said Judy Nyquist, a board member with the Buffalo Bayou Partnership, which incorporated the reservoir as part of a $58 million park renovation project.</p>
<p>It’s the latest example of efforts by U.S. cities — including Atlanta; Buffalo, New York; Philadelphia; San Francisco; and Washington, D.C. — to repurpose abandoned and dilapidated pieces of infrastructure as public spaces. Urban planners see the preservation of historic buildings and other structures as essential in creating the kinds of communities people want to live in, said Stephanie Meeks, president and CEO of the Washington, D.C.-based National Trust for Historic Preservation.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Probably the best-known project is New York City’s High Line, an abandoned elevated railroad section converted into a park in 2009. It’s shown cities that such pieces of infrastructure can be diamonds in the rough, said Robert Steuteville, with the Congress for the New Urbanism, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that promotes sustainable communities.</p>
<p>“That’s why other cities are saying, ‘Aha. We have this thing. What can we do with it?’ Very often you can do something with it that actually generates value,” he said.</p>
<p>In Houston, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership saw the preservation of the Cistern, first built in 1926 and decommissioned in 2007, as a way to save a piece of history and educate visitors about Houston’s relationship with its bayous, which have provided both drinking water and drainage. The group also saw the Cistern as a good fit for its plans to display art throughout the renovated Buffalo Bayou Park, 160 acres that the reservoir sits next to.</p>
<p>The first exhibition is an abstract-video installation called “Rain” by Venezuelan artist Magdalena Fernández. The nearly two-minute video, accompanied by a soundtrack of snapping fingers and stomping heels that mimics falling rain, projects a series of white geometric shapes onto the darkened concrete columns and the shallow pool of water on the Cistern floor to evoke the atmosphere of a stormy night. It can be seen until June through scheduled tours.</p>
<p>In San Francisco, officials and community leaders are working to turn a reservoir shuttered in 1940 into a park. In October, officials in Philadelphia broke ground on a project to transform an abandoned rail line into a public park similar to the High Line. In Buffalo, a collection of concrete grain elevators that are remnants of the city’s heyday as a shipping hub are being reused as locations for restaurants, outdoor concerts and as the projection screen for a nightly light show. In Washington, D.C, a cultural organization is transforming an abandoned trolley station underneath the Dupont Circle neighborhood into a place for exhibitions and artistic expression.</p>
<p>Atlanta is in the midst of a project to transform 22 miles of a mostly abandoned railroad corridor that encircles the city into a network of trails, parks, affordable homes and rail transit that will connect 45 neighborhoods. The project is set to be completed in 2030.</p>
<p>“This really is a legacy project that goes out 20 years, 30 years, 50 years,” said Kevin Burke, senior landscape architect for the project, which is managed by the economic development agency Atlanta BeltLine Inc. “We really have to have that long view as to what we are doing and the impact that we will have not only on the current generations of Atlanta residents and visitors but those yet to come for decades.”</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter at <a href="http://www.twitter.com/juanlozano70" type="external">www.twitter.com/juanlozano70</a></p> | Houston reservoir reborn as public space, canvas for art | false | https://abqjournal.com/915749/houston-reservoir-reborn-as-public-space-canvas-for-art.html | 2016-12-26 | 2 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Gov. Susana Martinez has proposed spending $9.5 million on two high-tech research and development initiatives.</p>
<p>The governor says the aim is to attract top faculty members to New Mexico’s colleges and universities and to fund innovative projects that have the potential to contribute to the state’s economic growth.</p>
<p>Martinez unveiled her proposals during visits Thursday to the University of New Mexico and New Mexico Tech.</p>
<p>One initiative calls for reforming the Higher Education Endowment fund and appropriating $7.5 million to allow New Mexico’s colleges and universities to compete for endowed chairs.</p>
<p>Martinez also called for $2 million to activate the Technology Research Collaborative, which would allow researchers from the national labs and New Mexico’s colleges and universities to team up and compete for funding.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | NM governor proposes high-tech initiatives | false | https://abqjournal.com/324073/nm-governor-proposes-high-tech-initiatives.html | 2013-12-20 | 2 |
<p>Oct. 6 (UPI) — The Spanish government’s top official in Catalonia apologized in an interview Friday for the conduct of police who were seen beating largely peaceful voters at polling stations.</p>
<p>The Catalan government said dozens were injured in clashes with police loyal to Spain’s national government, which had declared the referendum illegal. Video showed police using physical force against protesters and shooting rubber bullets in an attempt to disperse crowds of demonstrators.</p>
<p>“When I saw those images — and knowing that people were hit, shoved and one was even taken to hospital — all I can do is apologize on behalf of the officers who intervened,” said Enric Millo, the government’s top representative in the region.</p>
<p>Still, Millo <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/06/catalan-government-press-ahead-referendum-debate" type="external">blamed Catalan leaders</a> who pressed forward with the referendum despite government warnings it would be blocked after Spain’s constitutional court ruled it an illegal vote.</p>
<p>The apology comes as the central government in Madrid has adopted a softer approach to Catalonia in the days since the violence surrounding the referendum drew international condemnation.</p>
<p>Instead of the harsh rhetoric, the Spanish government has responded with financial muscle, approving a measure that would make it easier for businesses in Catalonia to pick up roots and relocate outside the province to another part of the country. Thus far, Catalonia’s two largest banks have announced plans to do so, along with several other large businesses, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-05/catalan-separatists-squeezed-further-as-spain-tightens-its-grip" type="external">Bloomberg reported</a>.</p>
<p>Backed by the European Union, which has sided with the Spanish government and thus far refused to confer legitimacy on the Catalan independence referendum, businesses have cited the potential of being frozen out of business in other parts of the Eurozone if leaders press forward to declare their independence.</p>
<p>Catalan leaders said the referendum passed with 90 percent of the vote, though due to the chaotic events surrounding the vote and with access blocked to many polling places, turnout was limited to 42 percent of eligible voters. Opinion polls conducted in the run-up to the vote showed a more closely divided public, leading to questions about the outcome’s legitimacy. It’s possible many “no” voters took their cue from the Spanish government and boycotted the polls, or were intimidated into staying home by the tens of thousands of demonstrators who flooded the streets of Barcelona and other cities on Sunday.</p>
<p>The Spanish government is also pressing forward with the possibility of sedition charges against regional officials, including Catalonia Police Chief Josep Lluís Trapero. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/world/europe/catalonia-referendum-sedition.html" type="external">The New York Times reported</a> Trapero appeared before a judge in the capital Madrid on Friday to answer charges his officers failed to assist police brought in from other parts of the country to prevent Sunday’s vote from taking place.</p>
<p>Following the closed-door hearing, Trapero told reporters he was “very satisfied” by the hearing, but did not elaborate on why.</p> | Spanish official apologizes for police actions during Catalan referendum | false | https://newsline.com/spanish-official-apologizes-for-police-actions-during-catalan-referendum/ | 2017-10-06 | 1 |
<p>The Tuesday Morning Massacre at Donald Trump’s White House rocked the political media. In the matter of a few hours Trump had <a href="" type="internal">fired the Secretary of State</a> Rex Tillerson, Steve Goldstein, the State Dept spokesman whose announcement of Tillerson’s firing <a href="https://twitter.com/NBCPolitics/status/973595043360632832" type="external">contradicted</a> the White House story, and Trump’s personal assistant, John McEntee, whose dismissal was due to an investigation for “ <a href="https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/973573562484318209" type="external">serious financial crimes</a>“ (He was then immediately hired by Trump’s 2020 campaign).</p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/NewsCorpse/posts/2072488272765957" type="external" /></p>
<p>However, over on Fox News the presidential pandemonium was given a much more positive spin. It didn’t represent the turmoil that everyone else was seeing. It was merely, as Fox political editor Chris Stirewalt said, “Trump being Trump.” In an interview (video below) with anchor Sandra Smith, Stirewalt dutifully pardoned the President for any malfeasance in office or mismanagement.</p>
<p>Smith: “Does this add to the speculation of disarray inside the West Wing? Or should one just decide that this is the way the President works?” Stirewalt: “Well, both things could be true. Disarray may be the methodology. If disarray is a methodology, then perhaps that is Trumpism. But let’s also remember if we put this in context of what else is going on, we saw Donald Trump govern in 2017 as a very traditional kind of Republican president. In 2018 we’re seeing Trump being Trump. […] And so I think we are seeing here, maybe not disarray, but instead this real pivot back to core nationalist, populist Trumpism.”</p>
<p>See? It’s just Trump executing his plan perfectly. It’s all unfolding exactly the way he wants it to. Nothing out of order, or out of the ordinary. He is just “pivoting” back to his “core nationalist, populist Trumpism,” whatever the hell that is.</p>
<p>If those remarks weren’t ludicrous enough, Stirewalt also had to assert that last year Trump was “very traditional.” In what dystopian nightmare? 2017 was a year filled with lying, hypocrisy, and a policy agenda that was either preposterous or dangerous or both. It was the year that he tried (and failed) to repeal ObamaCare. He rescinded DACA by executive action. He pushed through a tax bill that enriched corporations and his wealthy pals to the detriment of everyone else.</p>
<p>And his personnel management was a historical disaster. There was a forty-plus percent turnover in top presidential posts. And just to put a fine point on Trump’s deranged perspective, <a href="https://twitter.com/axios/status/973551970844905477" type="external">he had this to say</a> regarding his recent staff shake-up: “I’m really at a point where I’m close to having the Cabinet, and other things, that I want.” He’s been in office for more than a year and he’s just now getting to that point? God help us all if he ever actually gets there.</p>
<p>But leave it to Fox News to sugar-coat Trump’s incompetence. And it didn’t take them an hour to develop this public relations propaganda spiel. Just think what they’ll be saying by this evening when Sean Hannity goes on the air. By then Trump will be heralded as the most brilliant national leader of the millennium. And sadly, way too many glassy-eyed Fox News disciples and Trump cultists will believe it.</p>
<p>How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock: <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QSSMOES/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00QSSMOES&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=newscorpsecom-20&amp;linkId=TLI6JC2OYE22MUTS" type="external">Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.</a> Available now at Amazon.</p>
<p /> | Fox News Excuses Tillerson Mess, White House Chaos By Saying that ‘Disarray is Trumpism’ | true | http://newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p%3D34608 | 4 | |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico State Police officer’s AR-15 assault rifle and magazine for the rifle were stolen sometime Monday night or early Tuesday morning from her police car parked at her home in the Northeast Heights.</p>
<p>State Police didn’t release any details on how the burglar was able to break into the car and break through the rifle’s locking mechanism.</p>
<p>Police are asking for anyone with information or who may have seen a suspicious vehicle near 9000 Spain NE to contact police.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Rifle stolen from State Police car | false | https://abqjournal.com/322017/rifle-stolen-from-state-police-car.html | 2 | |
<p>CLEVELAND (AP) _ These Ohio lotteries were drawn Thursday:</p>
<p>Lucky For Life</p>
<p>11-12-19-28-46, Lucky Ball: 4</p>
<p>(eleven, twelve, nineteen, twenty-eight, forty-six; Lucky Ball: four)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $418 million</p>
<p>Pick 3 Evening</p>
<p>1-2-3</p>
<p>(one, two, three)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Midday</p>
<p>0-1-6</p>
<p>(zero, one, six)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Evening</p>
<p>5-2-1-7</p>
<p>(five, two, one, seven)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Midday</p>
<p>5-4-2-3</p>
<p>(five, four, two, three)</p>
<p>Pick 5 Evening</p>
<p>6-4-0-4-3</p>
<p>(six, four, zero, four, three)</p>
<p>Pick 5 Midday</p>
<p>4-7-6-2-0</p>
<p>(four, seven, six, two, zero)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p>
<p>Rolling Cash 5</p>
<p>10-11-16-22-25</p>
<p>(ten, eleven, sixteen, twenty-two, twenty-five)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $220,000</p>
<p>CLEVELAND (AP) _ These Ohio lotteries were drawn Thursday:</p>
<p>Lucky For Life</p>
<p>11-12-19-28-46, Lucky Ball: 4</p>
<p>(eleven, twelve, nineteen, twenty-eight, forty-six; Lucky Ball: four)</p>
<p>Mega Millions</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $418 million</p>
<p>Pick 3 Evening</p>
<p>1-2-3</p>
<p>(one, two, three)</p>
<p>Pick 3 Midday</p>
<p>0-1-6</p>
<p>(zero, one, six)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Evening</p>
<p>5-2-1-7</p>
<p>(five, two, one, seven)</p>
<p>Pick 4 Midday</p>
<p>5-4-2-3</p>
<p>(five, four, two, three)</p>
<p>Pick 5 Evening</p>
<p>6-4-0-4-3</p>
<p>(six, four, zero, four, three)</p>
<p>Pick 5 Midday</p>
<p>4-7-6-2-0</p>
<p>(four, seven, six, two, zero)</p>
<p>Powerball</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $550 million</p>
<p>Rolling Cash 5</p>
<p>10-11-16-22-25</p>
<p>(ten, eleven, sixteen, twenty-two, twenty-five)</p>
<p>Estimated jackpot: $220,000</p> | OH Lottery | false | https://apnews.com/amp/efb8d979b5ac479aa9c74307b437b4c5 | 2018-01-05 | 2 |
<p>Following last week’s&#160; <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html" type="external">New York Times</a>&#160;exposé on <a href="http://variety.com/t/harvey-weinstein/" type="external">Harvey Weinstein</a>, the <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-overtures-to-sexual-assault-harvey-weinsteins-accusers-tell-their-stories?mbid=social_facebook" type="external">New Yorker</a>&#160;Tuesday morning published another explosive story regarding the Hollywood mogul’s alleged sexual assault and harassment of many women in the industry.</p>
<p>In light of the New Yorker’s story, <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/lena-dunham-amber-tamblyn-harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment-1202581729/" type="external">even more</a> celebrity <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/harvey-weinstein-scandal-hollywood-reactions-1202583971/" type="external">reactions</a> have stormed social media. Leonardo DiCaprio, Mia Farrow, Hillary and <a href="http://variety.com/t/chelsea-clinton/" type="external">Chelsea Clinton</a>, Mandy Moore, <a href="http://variety.com/t/lena-dunham/" type="external">Lena Dunham</a>, and <a href="http://variety.com/t/rose-mcgowan/" type="external">Rose McGowan</a> are just a few public figures who have addressed the New Yorker article.</p>
<p>Mia Farrow, mother of the New Yorker article’s author Ronan Farrow, expressed her respect for women who spoke up and her pride in her son’s work.</p>
<p>Though he didn’t name Weinstein, DiCaprio said on Facebook on Tuesday that there is “no excuse for sexual harassment or sexual assault.”</p>
<p>Former U.S. Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate <a href="http://variety.com/2017/politics/news/hillary-clinton-harvey-weinstein-statement-twitter-1202585861/" type="external">Hillary Clinton</a> and her daughter, <a href="http://variety.com/2017/scene/vpage/chelsea-clinton-hillary-joke-snl-star-1202392976/" type="external">Chelsea Clinton</a>, both reacted to Weinstein’s behavior via Twitter.</p>
<p>Mandy Moore, who <a href="http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/milo-ventimiglia-harvey-weinstein-hollywood-men-responsibility-1202584334/" type="external">spoke</a> in support of survivors at the Rape Foundation’s annual brunch on Sunday, also sent her love to the women that Weinstein victimized.</p>
<p><a href="http://variety.com/2017/music/news/lena-dunham-jack-antonoff-essay-tribute-1202578614/" type="external">Lena Dunham</a> <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/lena-dunham-amber-tamblyn-harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment-1202581729/" type="external">continued</a> her commentary Tuesday morning…</p>
<p>…as did <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/rose-mcgowan-ben-affleck-harvey-weinstein-1202586189/" type="external">Rose McGowan</a>, who is <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/harvey-weinstein-sexual-harassment-leave-of-absence-new-york-times-1202581677/" type="external">one of at least eight women</a> with which Weinstein reached previously undisclosed settlements.</p>
<p>now imagine his huge size, his monster face/body closing in on you. In one second your life path is not yours. You have been stolen. <a href="https://t.co/92Gj6dZWu0" type="external">https://t.co/92Gj6dZWu0</a></p>
<p>— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) <a href="https://twitter.com/rosemcgowan/status/917808838715236352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" type="external">October 10, 2017</a></p>
<p><a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/jessica-chastain-warned-about-harvey-weinstein-1202584993/" type="external">Jessica Chastain</a>, who said she was “warned from the beginning” about Weinstein’s questionable character, also reacted to the New Yorker’s expose.</p>
<p>Anthony Bourdain, who <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/harvey-weinstein-scandal-hollywood-reactions-1202583971/" type="external">previously</a>&#160;tweeted that Matt Damon and Russell Crowe “got some ‘splaining to do” in reference to reports that the actors had been aware of and complacent in Weinstein’s behavior.</p>
<p><a href="http://variety.com/t/chloe-grace-moretz/" type="external">Chloe Grace Moretz</a> also weighed in on the scandal by posting a quote from the New Yorker story on Instagram along with the caption: “The women who have spoken up against one of the most powerful men in our industry are heroes for all women going forward. I stand with them and am sickened by the crimes he committed, I push for a safer workplace for all women.”</p>
<p><a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/features/10-actors-to-watch-kumail-nanjiani-1202578273/" type="external">Kumail Nanjiani</a>&#160;shared his efforts to be “better attuned to the ways in which women are mistreated in Hollywood.”</p>
<p><a href="http://variety.com/t/women-in-film/" type="external">Women in Film</a>&#160;has also released a statement regarding the matter. The organization encouraged people of all genders to continue speaking up about sexual harassment, “an all-too-common form of discrimination.” <a href="http://variety.com/2017/film/news/women-in-film-flip-the-script-1202467513/" type="external">Women in Film</a> said: “That so many people, particularly other men in power, knew about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior and didn’t say anything is an indication of how deeply entrenched discrimination is in the film &amp; TV business — and in culture overall.”</p>
<p>The organization also released a list of demands, saying that “in order to do something about sexual harassment,&#160;we must require industry leaders to (1) mandate gender inclusive boards and decision making groups; (2) mandate inclusive hiring practices from the top down… and (3) mandate that lasting legal penalties be applied without compromise, bias, or settlement, and these penalties be enforced for those found guilty and complicit in these crimes of discrimination.”</p>
<p>“No one should be held to different standards; regardless of their power, money, or fame,” the Women in Film statement continued. “Women need allies.”</p>
<p>Patricia Arquette applauded her sister, Rosanna Arquette, for speaking up in the article.</p> | Chelsea Clinton, Jessica Chastain and More React to the Latest Harvey Weinstein Exposé | false | https://newsline.com/chelsea-clinton-jessica-chastain-and-more-react-to-the-latest-harvey-weinstein-expose/ | 2017-10-10 | 1 |
<p>Sept. 22 (UPI) — Tennis icon <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Serena_Williams/" type="external">Serena Williams</a> wrote a heartfelt letter to her mother recently on Reddit.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/serenawilliams/comments/714c1b/letter_to_my_mom/" type="external">letter was published on Wednesday</a>. Her 339-word ode to Oracene Price details the early life of newborn baby girl Alexis Olympia Ohanian. Alexis Ohanian, the baby’s father, is a Reddit co-founder.</p>
<p>Williams and Ohanian’s baby was born Sept. 1 in Florida.</p>
<p>The 23-time <a href="https://www.upi.com/topic/Grand_Slam/" type="external">Grand Slam</a> champion also talked about her personal battles with body shamers and praises her mother for dealing with it gracefully during her childhood.</p>
<p />
<p>“I was looking at my daughter [OMG, yes, I have a daughter] and she has my arms and legs! My exact same strong, muscular, powerful, sensational arms and body. I don’t know how I would react if she has to go through what I’ve gone through since I was a 15 year old and even to this day.”</p>
<p>I’ve been called man because I appeared outwardly strong. It has been said that that I use drugs [No, I have always had far too much integrity to behave dishonestly in order to gain an advantage]. It has been said I don’t belong in Women’s sports — that I belong in Men’s — because I look stronger than many other women do. [No, I just work hard and I was born with this badass body and proud of it].</p>
<p>But mom, I’m not sure how you did not go off on every single reporter, person, announcer and quite frankly, hater, who was too ignorant to understand the power of a black woman.”</p>
<p>Williams also explained that she is proud to be able to show the critics what some women look like.</p>
<p>“We don’t all look the same,” she wrote. “We are curvy, strong, muscular, tall, small, just to name a few, and all the same: we are women and proud!”</p>
<p>“Thank you for being the role model I needed to endure all the hardships that I now regard as a challenges–ones that I enjoy. I hope to teach my baby Alexis Olympia the same, and have the same fortitude you have had,” Williams wrote.</p>
<p>Price has five children, including Serena and Venus. The Williams’ father, Richard, has four children, including the superstar sisters.</p> | Serena Williams says baby already has same 'powerful sensational arms and body' | false | https://newsline.com/serena-williams-says-baby-already-has-same-039powerful-sensational-arms-and-body039/ | 2017-09-22 | 1 |
<p>ABC News President James Goldston was caught on tape laying into his own staff on Monday, excoriating reporters — and especially chief investigative reporter Brian Ross — for getting their facts wrong in a story about Michael Flynn's dealings with the FBI.</p>
<p><a href="http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/04/media/abc-news-president-brian-ross-flynn-correction/index.html" type="external">According to CNN, who obtained a recording of the speech</a>, Goldston announced that Ross had been "removed" from covering any story related to President Donald Trump and that the newsroom would face a "full review" of its error.</p>
<p>Last week, ABC News reported that former transition official Mike Flynn struck a deal with the FBI and would testify that then-candidate Trump had instructed Flynn to contact Russian officials and establish a line of communication. The story was a huge break for ABC, and sent left-leaning activists aflight. But the story turned out to be misleading: Flynn was prepared to testify only that the Trump transition team, and the president-elect, had instructed him to reach out to members of the U.N. Security Council, which included Russia.</p>
<p>ABC News was forced to issue a humiliating apology, and Goldston says he fears that the story has destroyed the news network's credibility, perhaps for decades to come.</p>
<p>He was . . . not subtle . . . in his remarks to staff.</p>
<p>"I don't think ever in my career have I felt more rage and disappointment and frustration that I felt through this weekend and through the last half of Friday," Goldston told the ABC newsroom.</p>
<p>"I don't even know how many times we've talked about this, how many times we have talked about the need to get it right," he added. "That how we have to be right and not first. About how in this particular moment, with the stakes as high as these stakes are right now, we cannot afford to get it wrong."</p>
<p>Goldston also noted how badly ABC suffered in the aftermath. We "spent this weekend getting absolutely pilloried as a news division for reporting fake news," he said. "250,000 tweets. One percent positive, 99 percent negative about this news division. Two tweets from the president."</p>
<p>"If it isn't obvious to everyone in this news division, we have taken a huge hit and we have made the job of every single person in this news division harder as a result. It's much, much harder," Goldston continued. "We have people in Washington who are going to bear the brunt of this today and in the days forward. Very, very, very, very unfortunate. Really, really angry about it."</p>
<p>The worst part of the incident, Goldston said, was that Michael Flynn's charging documents appeared before the story was set to air, and, had Ross and his team merely read the documents, they could have corrected their own error well before ABC World News Tonight went live.</p>
<p>Instead, ABC aired the story and was forced to issue a "full-blown correction" almost immediately.</p>
<p>Goldston has suspended Ross for four weeks without pay, but Ross' future at the network remains uncertain, sources also told CNN.</p> | ABC News Chief EVISCERATES Staff Over Michael Flynn Error, Tape Reveals | true | https://dailywire.com/news/24328/abc-news-chief-eviscerates-staff-over-michael-emily-zanotti | 2017-12-05 | 0 |
<p>Traders of short-term U.S. interest-rate futures on Wednesday kept bets that the Federal Reserve will wait to raise rates until at least April 2015, and more likely even longer, after the Fed said it would keep its massive stimulus program in place.</p>
<p>Fed funds futures contracts, tied to the Fed's policy rate target, fell slightly after the announcement.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Futures prices suggest the Fed will raise rates no earlier than April 2015, giving the probability of an increase in that month about 51 percent, according to CME Group's Fed Watch, which generates probabilities based on the price of Fed funds futures traded at the Chicago Board of Trade.</p>
<p>Traders saw the probability increasing to about 70 percent by July, 2015.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)</p>
<p>Advertisement</p> | Traders keep eyes on 2015 for first Fed rate hike | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2013/10/30/traders-keep-eyes-on-2015-for-first-fed-rate-hike.html | 2016-03-02 | 0 |
<p>Journal Article - European Security</p>
<p />
<p>The attitude of Turkish officials toward the US nuclear weapons deployed in Turkey for over four decades has been static. Officials have understandable arguments, based on their threat analysis, as to why these weapons should be retained in Turkey. However, since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the international security environment has undergone radical changes. The classical deterrent value of nuclear weapons no longer applies with these emerging threats. At the same time, there is an increased probability of unauthorized use of crude radiological devices or nuclear weapons by terrorist organizations. In addition to increased security at storage sites, bolder steps must be taken by concerned countries to get rid of nuclear weapons. Such steps should begin with drawing-down US nuclear weapons deployed in allied countries including Turkey.</p>
<p /> | Isn't it Time to Say Farewell to Nukes in Turkey? | false | http://belfercenter.org/publication/isnt-it-time-say-farewell-nukes-turkey | 2005-12-01 | 2 |
<p>The Defense Department says it has learned of a plot to spy on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances traveling through Canada. Though it released few other details, the U.S. Defense Security Service says it found <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-coins11jan11,1,3364489.story" type="external">tiny transmitters</a> hidden in Canadian coins.</p>
<p>AP via Los Angeles Times:</p>
<p>The Defense Department is warning its American contractor employees about a new espionage threat seemingly straight from Hollywood: It discovered Canadian coins with tiny radio-frequency transmitters inside.</p>
<p>In a U.S. government report, it said the coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.</p>
<p />
<p>The U.S. report doesn't indicate who might be tracking American defense contractors or why. It also doesn't describe how the Pentagon discovered the ruse, how the transmitters might function or even which Canadian currency contained them.</p>
<p>Further details were secret, according to the U.S. Defense Security Service, which issued the warning to the Pentagon's classified contractors.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-coins11jan11,1,3364489.story" type="external">Read more</a></p> | Canadian Coins Signal Mysterious Espionage Plot | true | https://truthdig.com/articles/canadian-coins-signal-mysterious-espionage-plot/ | 2007-01-12 | 4 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — Officials at the Secretary of State’s Office were weighing options Tuesday about what if any action to take since state Sen. Phil Griego has failed to provide a detailed response to an election challenger’s complaints about Griego’s use of campaign funds.</p>
<p>Last week, Griego, D-San Jose, delivered a brief letter to the office’s ethics investigator saying it was his intent “to work with you and the Secretary of State’s office to supply a response as soon as possible.”</p>
<p>His letter said, “I can assure you that our campaign contributions and expenditures are above board and comply with the New Mexico financial disclosure requirements as well as full campaign finance reporting.”</p>
<p>Former Santa Fe County Commissioner Jack Sullivan, one of two candidates running against Griego for the Senate District 39 seat in the June 5 Democratic primary, in late April filed a complaint asking Secretary of State Dianna Duran to investigate whether Griego’s campaign contributions and expenditures have been properly accounted for. Sullivan maintained Griego had violated campaign law.</p>
<p>Among the items Sullivan asked Duran to look into were $955 spent by Griego’s campaign for Denver Broncos football tickets for constituent events in 2011 and about $10,000 on green fees and a golf tournament. He also questioned thousands of dollars of reported campaign spending on vehicle maintenance and office furniture and supplies, among other expenditures.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Griego has not returned phone calls from the Journal during the past two weeks seeking comment on Sullivan’s complaint.</p>
<p>The Secretary of State’s Office asked for a response from Griego by mid-May. The letter Griego had delivered to the office last week noted that the items Sullivan has complained about “span over a period of four years.”</p>
<p>Ken Ortiz, Duran’s chief of staff, said Tuesday that as of Tuesday afternoon Griego had not provided an additional response and that the matter likely would be discussed by the office leadership late in the day.</p>
<p>Sullivan has issued a steady stream of news releases calling on Griego to respond to his complaint. His latest release, on Tuesday, said that Griego “has now resorted to hiding from the press.”</p>
<p>Nicole Castellano of Santa Fe is also running for the District 39 seat in the Democratic primary. Republican Aubrey Dunn of Roswell will be on the general election ballot.</p> | State May Take Action On Griego Finances | false | https://abqjournal.com/108292/state-may-take-action-on-griego-finances.html | 2012-05-23 | 2 |
<p>Yesterday at 5:00am I was awakened by what sounded like huge trucks. When I looked out the window I saw several tanks. A half hour later the Israeli soldiers rang the bell–we did not answer–then I heard them coming up the steps after breaking down the main door. They pounded the door to the house. My husband opened the door and was confronted by huge guns pointed at us. They pushed the door open and distributed themselves throughout our house and office.</p>
<p>Over 50 heavily0armed soldiers were now in the office and home (which are adjacent). We asked what they wanted and they told us to shut up and sit down. I explained that I was American. They said that they did not care what I was. I insisted that they leave the house and told them as an American I protest to what they are doing. They said, “This in no worse than what your country is doing in Afghanistan.” I told them to use the steps and the roof if they insisted on staying and to get out of the house and office. They said, “Shut up and sit down, we will do what we want, wherever we want.”</p>
<p>I got my passport out and asked for the commanding officer.</p>
<p>The officer said that they are thinking about leaving. When I asked “when,” he said “soon”. Then this soldiers started ripping the curtains and breaking things. I asked them not to do that and gave them an ashtray to put out their cigarettes instead of the floor. One took the ashtray from me and threw it in the hallway. At that point I realized they were out of control. I went to the phone to call the American Consul. Three soldiers attacked me one pushing one twisting my arm and the other taking the phone away from me.</p>
<p>As I went to the office to get my computer they kept on pushing me, poking me with their guns and telling me to get back in the house. I started screaming at them: “I cannot believe you are doing this. Don’t you realize I am American?”</p>
<p>The commanding officer asked them to leave me alone and gave permission for me to get my laptop. They started laughing and calling me “Bush”.</p>
<p>As I was getting my laptop I heard a crashing noise, I ran back to the house and found my husband on the floor with three guns pointed at him. I screamed for the commanding officer, who finally came and pushed them away. The soldiers were everywhere and doing whatever they felt like doing, including urinating on the floor.</p>
<p>I went to the kitchen to get coffee and found olive oil spilled all over the place. They were just being vulgar and uncivilized, and became extremely annoyed when I complained about the barbaric behavior.</p>
<p>The commanding officer took me in my bedroom where four soldiers were sitting and asked me about some buildings. I told him that most of the houses around us are full of children. One said, “Area A has no children”.</p>
<p>I kept on trying to make phone calls from different phones only to get more physically abused and have the phones taken away from me and the batteries remained. Then I asked to go to the bathroom and had a mobile in my robe pocket. I called some officials while the soldiers broke in the bathroom and tried to take the phone. Within a half hour, they got a phone order to clear out of the house and office, leaving the places in shambles.</p>
<p>As soon as they left I tried to talk to the Consul General by cellphone, but only reached his voice mail. I left a message informing him of what has taken place. I also called his office and insisted that I talk to him personally. They put me on the phone with the American Citizens Services section, Ms. Victoria Coffineau (Chief of section). She told me I was one of dozens of American citizens making such complaints. The details of the disturbing phone call and response will follow soon to help other Americans in understanding what our offices abroad are about and what we actually get for our tax dollars. And how we allow ourselves to be treated by so called allies.</p>
<p>That number of tanks is growing by the second. I have to get the message to you while I can. I will try to write later. They are trying to kill Yasser Arafat. I can see it from my window.</p>
<p>God help the innocent. And help Americans in seeing the truth.</p>
<p>Maha Sbitani is a Palestinian-American living in Ramallah, next to Yasser Arafat’s compound.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>&#160;</p> | The Israelis Took Over My House | true | https://counterpunch.org/2002/03/31/the-israelis-took-over-my-house/ | 2002-03-31 | 4 |
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<p />
<p>They even bring yellow-frosted cookies reading “support the library” to sweeten their request.</p>
<p>A group of library supporters, including advisory board member Kathy Hoover, were at a public meeting held by Bernalillo County on Monday night at the Raymond G. Sanchez Community Center.</p>
<p>“We want to make you aware that bonds are the only way we can purchase materials, books and technology,” Hoover said. “The bond funding is not keeping pace with the increased costs.”</p>
<p>The county held the meeting get input on projects the community would like to see completed.</p>
<p>The county will ask voters to approve a $15 million to $18 million bond issue during a Nov. 6 election. If approved, the county would like to use $5 million of that for Paseo del Norte/I-25 interchange improvements. The remaining amount would go toward community projects, which could include parks, sports fields, trails, swimming pools and road and sewer projects.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>Advisory board member Ceil van Berkel said the 14 city and three county libraries are supported with funding from the state, city and county. The city and county help pay for operating costs, including salaries and utilities. On alternating years, the county and city pass bonds to help pay for books, technology and other materials. She said in the last eight years, the city has steadily increased the amount of bond money it set aside for libraries, but the county has not kept pace.</p>
<p>“The cost continues to go up, but not the funding,” van Berkel said. “We are not able to meet the needs of our citizens.”</p>
<p>On average, she said, the county gives the library $1.25 million in bond money every two years. She said the advisory board would like to see that increased to $2.3 million. The city designated $3 million in bond money for libraries in 2011.</p>
<p>“We don’t like a waiting list of more than five people for one book,” she said. “That’s getting more difficult because now you have electronic books and you have to purchase several different formats for each book.”</p> | Library Seeks More Funds | false | https://abqjournal.com/98806/library-seeks-more-funds.html | 2012-04-07 | 2 |
<p>An ad from the Romney campaign mocks President Obama’s proposal to create a “Secretary of Business,” but misrepresents the president’s proposal.</p>
<p>The ad says that “his solution to everything is to add another bureaucrat.” But in fact, Obama’s plan actually seeks to consolidate more than a half dozen agencies, trim the federal workforce by as many as 1,000 to 2,000 employees and save $3 billion. In short, it specifically seeks to reduce bureaucracy.</p>
<p>According to the narrator in the video: “Barack Obama says he may appoint a Secretary of Business. His solution to everything is to add another bureaucrat. Why not have a president who actually understands business? … Mitt Romney understands business, knows how to create jobs and get our economy moving.”</p>
<p>The ad is a response to a comment that President Obama made in an Oct. 29 interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show (ironically in the context of talking about initiatives he thinks could garner bipartisan support). As the full comments make clear, Obama’s proposal to create a secretary of business is part of a plan to consolidate several federal programs in order to eliminate some bureaucracy.</p>
<p>Obama: I’ve said that I want to consolidate a whole bunch of government agencies. We should have one secretary of business, instead of nine different departments that are dealing with things like getting loans to SBA [the Small Business Administration] or helping companies with exports. There should be a one-stop shop. Now, the reason we haven’t done that is not because of some big ideological difference. It has to do with Congress talking a good game about wanting to streamline government, but being very protective about not giving up their jurisdiction over various pieces of government.</p>
<p>Romney reiterated the campaign ad’s jab in <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTzTc_-6aDQ&amp;feature=youtu.be" type="external">a speech in Roanoke, Va.</a>, on Nov. 1 (later passed around by the Romney campaign in a press release), saying that Obama is “trying to figure out some way to suggest he’s got some new ideas” and that he “came up with an idea last week, which is he’s going to create the department of business.”</p>
<p>“We don’t need a secretary of business to understand business,” Romney said. “We need a president who understands business, and I do.”</p>
<p>It’s not true that Obama “came up with [the] idea last week.” Back in January, Obama called on Congress to reinstate the president’s authority to reorganize the government <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/13/government-reorganization-fact-sheet" type="external">and announced</a> that his first action with that power would be to consolidate six agencies — U.S. Department of Commerce’s core business and trade functions, the Small Business Administration, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency — into one department “to promote competitiveness, exports and American business.”</p>
<p>“For too long, overlapping responsibilities among agencies have made it harder, rather than easier, for our small businesses to interact with their government,” according to a White House <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/01/13/government-reorganization-fact-sheet" type="external">press release</a>. “Those redundancies have also led to unnecessary waste and duplication.”</p>
<p>The White House plan came after a March 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office — titled “ <a href="http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11318sp.pdf" type="external">Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue</a>” — found a number of redundant and overlapping government programs including 52 programs in four agencies — Commerce, HUD, SBA and USDA&#160; — that can fund “entrepreneurial efforts.” (page 42)</p>
<p>The White House says it <a href="http://www.govexec.com/oversight/2012/01/obama-proposes-reorganizing-trade-agencies-giving-sba-cabinet-status/35829/" type="external">expects</a> its plan will save $3 billion over 10 years, with 1,000 to 2,000 positions eliminated through attrition.</p>
<p>In February, Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman and Democratic Sen. Mark Warner introduced the <a href="http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d112:s.02129:" type="external">Reforming and Consolidating Government Act of 2012</a>.</p>
<p>“Any plan a president proposes under this legislation must decrease the number of executive agencies and result in cost savings,” Lieberman told the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-panel-considers-obamas-reorganization-plan/2012/03/21/gIQAfRedSS_story.html" type="external">Washington Post</a> in March.</p>
<p>Obama’s plan got at least some bipartisan support. The Washington Post story quoted Republican Sen. Tom Coburn as saying that he was “fully supporting the president’s idea.” Nevertheless, while hearings were held on the bill, it stalled in committee.</p>
<p>Some may take issue with Obama’s plan to add another Cabinet-level position for a secretary of business — as the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203880704578086843521337254.html" type="external">Wall Street Journal‘s</a> editorial board did on Oct. 29 — but to mock it as simply “add[ing] another bureaucrat,” ignores the very intent of Obama’s plan, which seeks to consolidate redundant government programs and shrink government bureaucracy.</p>
<p>— Robert Farley</p> | Campaign Funny Business | false | https://factcheck.org/2012/11/campaign-funny-business/ | 2012-11-01 | 2 |
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<p>Democrats complained bitterly in public about a portion of the $1.1 trillion measure that eases regulations imposed on big banks in the wake of the 2008 economic meltdown – even though 70 members of party’s rank and file supported an identical provision in a stand-alone bill late last year.</p>
<p>After a closed-door meeting, Democrats also chorused objections to separate section of the spending bill that eases limits on campaign contributions to political parties.</p>
<p>The White House declined to state President Barack Obama’s position on the legislation, negotiated in secret over several days by senior lawmakers, including top leaders in both parties and both houses.</p>
<p>“Putting these two things together in the same bill illustrates everything that’s wrong with the political process right now,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. Republicans countered – correctly – that Democratic negotiators initially signed off on both, and Speaker John Boehner rebuffed a request from the Democratic leader, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, to jettison them.</p>
<p>“If Rep. Pelosi doesn’t think her negotiators did a good job, she should discuss it with them,” said Michael Steel, Boehner’s spokesman.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>On the other side of the political spectrum, some conservatives grumbled that the measure left the administration’s controversial new immigration policy unchallenged until the end of February. That decision “makes no sense at all. We’ve let the Democrats set their agenda as though we lost the election,” said Louisiana Rep. John Fleming.</p>
<p>Given opposition from an unknown number of conservatives, Boehner and the Republican high command likely will need some Democratic support to assure the bill’s passage in a vote set for today.</p>
<p>Whatever the Democrats’ motive, the political crossfire left the massive, 1,603-page bill in limbo .</p>
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<p /> | Spending bill draws complaints | false | https://abqjournal.com/508422/spending-bill-draws-complaints.html | 2 | |
<p>So what happened to the Bush/Cheney pre-election attack on Iran? It’s like everything else. You think you have months. You put it on one side, in the “things to be done tomorrow” pile. Suddenly it’s a matter of weeks, then days. Then the moment just slips away. The father of one of my neighbors here in Petrolia had been a captain in the Wehrmacht and fought at Stalingrad. He’s dead now but a few years ago my brother Andrew once asked him, “Captain, what happened at Stalingrad?” “Vell, Andrew, the Fuehrer wanted to avoid casualties. Und then the equipment was running out. A tank here, a tank there. Und then..then it was too late!”</p>
<p>I guess Bush and Cheney are too busy working on the pardons to have time for anything else like an attack on Iran. . But don’t fret. Joe Biden hints that he and Obama are working on it, though they may declare war on Russia first. Or Venezuela. So much to do in those first 100 days. An empire in October will still be an Empire next January. We’ll have continuity.</p>
<p>“Mark my words,” Biden said solemnly at a Seattle fundraiser last Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”</p>
<p>“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden went on. He mentioned the Middle East and Russia. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”</p>
<p>What exactly is Biden hinting at in that last sentence? From the context of that whole paragraph it’s clear enough to me he’s suggesting that despite hopes that post-Bush/Cheney America might backpeddle from hasty military confrontations, President Obama will stand tall and lose no time in going eyeball to eyeball with those who would test his resolve.</p>
<p>When JFK was worried that his mettle was being tested and he might look like a wimp, we got the Berlin crisis of July, 1961. We got right to the brink of World War Three.</p>
<p>So don’t write off that attack on Iran quite yet. On Iran Obama is more hawkish than McCain; on Afghanistan and Pakistan too.</p>
<p>A Ha’aretz story for July 28 of this year reported that in their meeting of July 24 “Obama reportedly told Olmert that he is interested in meeting the Iranians in order to issue clear ultimatums. “If after that, they still show no willingness to change their nuclear policy, then any action against them would be legitimate,” an Israeli source quoted him as saying.”</p>
<p>As CounterPuncher Marc Schuler, who sent me the quote, remarks, “To me, Obama is saying he’ll ‘fix’ the negotiations just like the intel on Iraq was ‘fixed’. This sounds very much like Bush-style negotiations. Deliver an ultimatum, then if the other side doesn’t just surrender and comply, start the military attacks.”</p>
<p>“I’ve forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know,” Biden says. It’s probably true. In the US Congress the bar is set very low. I remember in the debate with Sarah Palin Biden was praised in the press for his effortless mastery of detail. Jonah Goldberg wrote a funny piece in the Los Angeles Times about this chorus of approval for Biden’s knowledgeable aplomb:</p>
<p>Biden was at ease; he easily rattled off a string of falsehoods and gasbaggeries.</p>
<p>According to the master senator, the U.S. and France “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon.” Afterward, according to Biden, “I said and Barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.’ ” Perhaps Biden meant to say the U.S. and France kicked Syria out of Lebanon. But even this is woefully glib. Syria never fully abandoned Lebanon. And there was no “vacuum” for Hezbollah to fill. The terrorist group was already firmly in control of southern Lebanon and part of the government. No one remembers Biden and Obama fighting for the stupidly impossible NATO move either….</p>
<p>The constitutional law professor scornfully mocked Dick Cheney because the vice president “doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president. That’s the executive branch.” Wrong. Article I defines the Legislature, Article II the executive branch. Both define the role of the VP.</p>
<p>The scrapper from Scranton boasted about bonding with the common folks at a restaurant that’s been closed for two decades.</p>
<p>Biden’s lucky in having an opponent for the vice presidential slot who’s now drawing about 95 per cent of the press coverage for the entire campaign. There’s no space for nasty questions about his very special&#160; relationship to MBNA, the largest independent credit card company in the world, or for the immense favors he did for&#160; the credit card industry as a whole with the bankruptcy bill that even Bill Clinton vetoed before Bush finally signed it.&#160; But did anything ever so clearly indicate the truly incredible stupidity of McCain’s team of strategists, handlers and consultants than the disaster the Palin candidacy has become?</p>
<p>I thought the original choice of Palin wasn’t a bad one, from&#160; the point of view of the McCain campaign.. Most people would certainly rather look at the governor of Alaska on TV than, say, the governor of Massachusetts and, after some judicious voice coaching for which we haven’t yet seen the price tag, even rather listen to her too. On the general principle that state troopers are the scum of the law-enforcement pond, I was all for the Palins’ efforts to fire the Taser-happy former in brother-in-law.&#160; She was a fresh gust in the rank, stale air of Campaign 008. So instead in buying Palin a couple of new outfits in slightly upgraded sync with her unpretentious Alaska wardrobe the handlers went hog wild in Nieman Marcus and unleashed $150,000. Then they dropped $24,000 in two weeks on her hair stylist. So much for the spokeswoman for the ordinary folk. The only encouraging aspect of the $24,000 was that it was twice what McCain’s economic and foreign policy advisers were paid, showing a correct sense of priorities. Mind you, the economist should be off the payroll altogether, since he destroyed McCain’s only shot at the White House by not advising him to oppose the bailout. The foreign policy man presumably has his subsidies from the Georgian president to fall back on.</p>
<p>Sarah Palin’s job was to firm up the evangelical base, which has never trusted McCain. She’s done that. But then the handlers send her into a metrosexual, ultraliberal sinkhole like&#160; Saturday Night Live where she gets made a fool of. A Christian evangelical friend of mine called&#160; mournfully the next mourning to tell me than he’d previously rated Palin at 100 per cent, but after seeing her consorting on SNL with the likes of Alec Baldwin he’d dropped his approval to 75 per cent and would never think about her in the quite the same way again. (Mind you, he told me a few days later he wasn’t bothered about the wardrobe and hair expenses and said Palin fans in his part of the country thought it was one more sign of the bias of the liberal media. “She’s a star now, Alex. You can’t blame her for wanting to look pretty.”)</p>
<p>All the same, a real&#160; instinct for populism, right or left, means going to Muncie, Indiana and sounding as though you cared that half the city is out of work, not chirping about Alaska’s god-given resources. You would have thought that even Palin would have realized that. The way things are going for the Palin-Wurzelbacher ticket, she’ll have plenty of time for post-mortems and if-onlys back in Alaska. At least McCain has remembered to come out for parents’ choice on infant vaccination.</p>
<p>So far as the progressives and the left are concerned, Palin’s useful function has been to detain them from misgivings about the Democratic ticket which 98 per cent of them are going to vote for. From the vantage point of 2008 I wouldn’t blame Al Gore or John Kerry from feeling that maybe there’s been a double standard at work here, between the rough treatment they got from the left and from radical environmentalists, as compared to the well-mannered silence about Obama’s call for a 90,000 increase in the Armed Forces, his endorsement of nuclear power, “clean coal”,&#160; warrantless wire-tapping, tort reform,&#160; real ID, groveling to the bankers and the Israel lobby and so forth. K St loves Obama. So do the defense contractors.&#160; They love Biden too. Just to refresh your memories of what a progressive platform actually looks like, take a look at the website of the Nader campaign.&#160; Like the U.S. senators’ knowledge of foreign policy, the bar these days for what the left finds bearable is awfully low. The more the left holds its tongue, the lower the bar will go.</p>
<p>Only in CounterPunch</p>
<p>A week goes by and it’s easy to forget the world has changed. There’s no check in my mailbox from Ben Bernanke, or sweet little note from Hank Paulson telling me he’ll be handling my mortgage payments from now on.&#160; But the world has changed, and one of the ways you can get a really encouraging reminder of this is in our latest CounterPunch newsletter. Here Michael Hudson and Jeff Sommers spell out the contours of what could be a new era in a post neo-liberal world.</p>
<p>“The U.S. economy,” Hudson and Sommers write, “rose to dominance as a result of Progressive Era regulatory reforms prior to World War I, reinforced by popular New Deal reforms put in place in the Great Depression. Neoliberal economics was promoted as a means of undoing these reforms.”&#160;&#160; And now? “A much better economy can be created by rejecting Washington’s financial model of austerity programs, privatization sell-offs and trade dependency financed by foreign-currency credit. Prosperity cannot be achieved by creating a favorable climate for extractive foreign capital, or by tightening credit and balancing budgets decade after decade. “</p>
<p>Read their full article in our newsletter. Read too the up-sum by your CounterPunch coeditors Cockburn and St Clair on Election 2008. And read too David Bonner’s brilliant portrait of a police spy, active in the late 60s and recently deceased. The discovery of a Tsarist spy, Roman Malinovsky, in their highest party echelons came as deadly fuel for paranoia to Lenin, Stalin and the Bolsheviks. The late George Demmerle wasn’t a provocateur of that caliber or importance, but Bonner’s piece is a worthy addition to the snitch file. <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/Annual_Subscriptions.html" type="external">Only in CounterPunch newsletter</a>.</p>
<p>And… yes, the time is nigh. Once a year CounterPunch has its fundraiser. We only ask once a year, and it’s starting next Monday. It’s a crucial part of our annual budget and what enables us to bring you this site free, 365 days a year, with original articles. Without the money you donate to CounterPunch in this annual fundraiser we couldn’t do it. Can the massed financial support of CounterPunch’s millions of readers each month add up to even half Sarah Palin’s clothing expenditures in Minneapolis? We’re betting it can, which means we’re betting on you. We don’t get money from anyone else.&#160; <a href="http://www.easycartsecure.com/CounterPunch/Donations.html" type="external">So get in early, this very weekend</a>.</p>
<p>ALEXANDER COCKBURN can be reached at: <a href="mailto:alexandercockburn@asis.com" type="external">alexandercockburn@asis.com</a></p>
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<p>&#160;</p> | Waiting for the Curtain to Rise | true | https://counterpunch.org/2008/10/24/waiting-for-the-curtain-to-rise/ | 2008-10-24 | 4 |
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<p>SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) — Emergency rehabilitation work is now complete in an area of the Gila National Forest that was charred by wildfire earlier this year.</p>
<p>The burn response team has installed water bars on forest roads in an effort to prevent erosion and to help direct any runoff away from the roads.</p>
<p>The team also installed signs throughout the area to warn visitors of possible post-fire hazards.</p>
<p>Aerial seeding was also done on more than 2 square miles where the burn severity was considered high. With monsoons in full swing, officials hope the seeding will lead to more vegetative cover on the steep slopes.</p>
<p>The Signal Fire burned more than 8 square miles north of Silver City in May and forced the temporary closure of some forest roads and recreation sites.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Emergency rehab work complete on Gila fire | false | https://abqjournal.com/445732/emergency-rehab-work-complete-on-gila-fire.html | 2 | |
<p>CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Christian Keeling had 19 points, Phlandrous Fleming Jr. scored 18 and Charleston Southern throttled Longwood 84-43 in a Big South opener on Saturday.</p>
<p>Charleston Southern (6-6) took the lead for good with an 18-2 run early with Travis McConico burying a pair of 3-pointers and one each from Jamaal David and Fleming.</p>
<p>JaShaun Smith hit a 3 to reduce Longwood’s deficit to 25-15 with 6:49 before halftime, but Cortez Mitchell made a layup and Fleming buried another 3 for a 15-point lead. Fleming’s last 3 of the half put the Buccaneers up 42-23 at the break.</p>
<p>Charleston Southern extended its lead to 61-30 with a 19-7 run after intermission with Keeling scoring eight and Cortez Mitchell adding seven. Mitchell finished with 13 points and McConico scored 10.</p>
<p>Smith led Longwood (3-11) with 15 points.</p>
<p>CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) — Christian Keeling had 19 points, Phlandrous Fleming Jr. scored 18 and Charleston Southern throttled Longwood 84-43 in a Big South opener on Saturday.</p>
<p>Charleston Southern (6-6) took the lead for good with an 18-2 run early with Travis McConico burying a pair of 3-pointers and one each from Jamaal David and Fleming.</p>
<p>JaShaun Smith hit a 3 to reduce Longwood’s deficit to 25-15 with 6:49 before halftime, but Cortez Mitchell made a layup and Fleming buried another 3 for a 15-point lead. Fleming’s last 3 of the half put the Buccaneers up 42-23 at the break.</p>
<p>Charleston Southern extended its lead to 61-30 with a 19-7 run after intermission with Keeling scoring eight and Cortez Mitchell adding seven. Mitchell finished with 13 points and McConico scored 10.</p>
<p>Smith led Longwood (3-11) with 15 points.</p> | Charleston Southern pounds Longwood 84-43 behind Keeling | false | https://apnews.com/02e4085e6bb04a72850d7525f442f132 | 2017-12-31 | 2 |
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<p>ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The son of a New Mexico state representative was found dead in a South Valley home on Monday, and the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office has so far released few details about who might have been behind his death.</p>
<p>Ralph J. Chavez, 45, was found dead in the 1400 block of La Vega Drive SW shortly after 10 a.m. Monday. Another person was also shot but is recovering, police said. Investigators are now saying that his killer possibly knew the victims.</p>
<p>“This was not a random act of violence towards the victims,” BCSO spokesman Sgt. Sam White said in an email. “However, we cannot release any more information about the motive or details of the investigations at this time.”</p>
<p>White said investigators are concerned releasing more information could compromise their efforts to find the suspect.</p>
<p>The Sheriff’s Department is asking for tips to help solve the case. Please call investigators at 975-8459.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | Sheriff’s Office Releases Few New Details About South Valley Homicide | false | https://abqjournal.com/138102/sheriffs-office-releases-few-new-details-about-south-valley-homicide.html | 2 | |
<p>Romenesko LettersRogers Cadenhead notes that the New Bedford (Mass.) Standard-Times has yet to apologize for running the story about a student's bogus claim that he was interrogated by homeland security agents after checking out Mao's "Little Red Book." Also, the paper hasn't named the hoaxster. "At what point does a newspaper find sufficient cause to break a confidentiality agreement?" asks Cadenhead. "The 22-year-old student knowingly lied to the newspaper and harmed its reputation across the entire planet."</p> | Why is the Bedford-Times protecting the "Red Book" liar? | false | https://poynter.org/news/why-bedford-times-protecting-red-book-liar | 2005-12-27 | 2 |
<p>When politicians demand that the public do something because of the dictates of financial markets, it is best to hold on to your wallet. Back in September of 2008, both President Bush and the Democratic leadership in Congress insisted that if we did not immediately hand over $700 billion to the banks, the whole financial system would grind to a halt.</p>
<p>The threat worked – the banks got their $700 billion from Congress and much more from the Fed – with few questions asked. As a result, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and the rest are now as profitable as ever and once again paying out record bonuses to “top performers.”</p>
<p>If the market had been allowed to run its course, Goldman, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and many other major banks would have been bankrupt, leaving their shareholders and creditors out of luck and their top executives walking the unemployment lines. There are reasons that this outcome would have been undesirable for the economy as a whole, but there is a big difference between the TARP blank check and doing nothing. If the politicians and their accomplices in the economics profession had not overwhelmed the public with fear, we could have ensured that the bankers suffered from the crisis that they had themselves created.</p>
<p>With the banks back on their feet, the Wall Street crew and their accomplices in the economics profession are again feeling their oats. They are insisting that we have to put our hopes for economic recovery on the back burner. Instead, we have to focus on deficit reduction. The reason is that we have to soothe financial markets.</p>
<p>The claim is that if we don’t act aggressively now to reduce the budget deficit then the “bond vigilantes” will start a run on U.S. debt just as they have recently done with Greece. This is supposed to make us so scared that we will accept large cuts in Social Security and other important programs.</p>
<p>There are three basic problems with this argument. First, why on earth should anyone trust what the bankers’ economist accomplices are telling us? These people completely missed the $8 trillion housing bubble, is there any reason to believe that their insight into financial markets is better today than it was two years ago?</p>
<p>The second reason not to follow their advice is that the financial markets themselves don’t necessarily reflect the underlying reality in the economy. Are we supposed to twist ourselves into knots over whatever is fashionable in financial markets this week? Suppose we structure our policies to make the markets happy this week and then next week the Wall Street diz brains decide that something else is now fashionable? This leaves us forever chasing Wall Street fashions. That is not a sound basis for economic policy.</p>
<p>The third reason not to take the deficit hawks argument seriously is simply that it is bad economics. The country needs deficit spending to sustain demand until private demand recovers from the collapse of the housing bubble. This is basic logic – and the prestigious positions of many of the deficit hawks will not allow them to repeal the rules of logic.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the United States is not Greece, as all serious people know. It has a huge economy that is still largely self-sufficient (imports are only 16 percent of GDP). The idea that the United States is about to experience a run on its debt is absurd on its face. The Fed can and should buy the debt, if necessary. Let’s hear the deficit hawks say this will cause inflation. With very few exceptions, they won’t dare make such an assertion because they know it is not true.</p>
<p>The deficit hawks are not concerned about national insolvency; they are not worried about soaring inflation; they are worried about how to take every last penny from ordinary workers and give it to the Wall Street crew. That is what the TARP was about and this is what the latest crusade to reduce the deficit is all about. Now they want to go after workers’ Social Security because, as Federal Reserve Board chairman Ben Bernanke said, “that is where the money is.” The fact that workers have paid for these benefits doesn’t matter at all to the Wall Street crew.</p>
<p>So, if you feel like giving all your money to the Wall Street gang, then you should take the deficit hawks seriously. But, if you think that people who are not Wall Street millionaires have rights too, then get our the pitchforks and send the deficit hawks and their economist accomplices running.</p>
<p>DEAN BAKER is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of <a href="" type="internal">Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy</a>and <a href="" type="internal">False Profits: Recoverying From the Bubble Economy.</a></p>
<p>This column was originally published by <a href="http://www.wapost.com" type="external">The Guardian.</a></p>
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<p /> | TARP and the Deficit Hawks | true | https://counterpunch.org/2010/06/02/tarp-and-the-deficit-hawks/ | 2010-06-02 | 4 |
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<p>After covering Wall Street, the financial markets and economic policy for much of the past two decades I can count on one hand the number of people I've written about whom I've come to admire as figures truly looking out for the greater public good.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Wall Street is, after all, Wall Street.</p>
<p>There's John Bogle, the legendary founder of The Vanguard Group who in 1975 introduced index funds to a mass market of Mom and Pop investors. Index funds such as the Vanguard 500, which track the value of a large group of stocks, have allowed Main Street to tap into Wall Street's vast profits while greatly reducing the risk inherent to betting on the stock market.</p>
<p>Vanguard and index funds made Bogle a wealthy man, but he's never stopped preaching the value of steady, long-term investing for the average investor. His philosophy may not make you rich, but you won't lose everything on some hyped-up Internet IPO either.</p>
<p>Arthur Leavitt, who led the Securities and Exchange Commission during the 1990s technology bubble, also struck me as someone in the world of high finance who was looking out for the rest of us.</p>
<p>Amid the frenzy of Internet IPOs in the late 1990s, when seemingly everyone -- analysts, fund managers, the media -- was cheering on a bevy of wild new dotcom stocks each week, Leavitt publicly rained on the parade. In a purposely high-profile speech at the height of the craze, he referred to the new issues market as the "IPO game," and warned retailer investors away from the risky deals.</p>
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<p>But Leavitt's SEC missed Madoff, and that was egregious.</p>
<p>A Free Thinker and Iconoclast</p>
<p>Now comes U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, seated in the southern district of New York, which is to say the heart of the financial world. As a federal judge in Manhattan, Rakoff has literally had a front row seat as all manner of alleged financial malfeasance has spilled out in various court cases brought by regulators against some of Wall Street's biggest players.</p>
<p>Rakoff already had a reputation as a free-thinker on the bench and a bit of an iconoclast long before cases related to the financial crisis began to show up on his docket. Once they did the cases seemed to add fuel to some inner fire burning within the judge. Two cases in particular prompted Rakoff to turn the often-cozy relationship between Wall Street and securities regulators on its ear.</p>
<p>In the first, Rakoff refused to approve a $33 million settlement reached in 2009 between Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and the SEC tied to charges the bank lied to shareholders about billions of dollars in bonuses promised to executives ahead of the bank's takeover of Merrill Lynch.</p>
<p>Rakoff, in a biting but elegant ruling that quoted Oscar Wilde, said the only people punished under the settlement were Bank of America shareholders.</p>
<p>Two years later, in an equally provocative ruling, Rakoff <a href="" type="internal">refused to sign off</a>on a $285 million settlement between Citigroup (NYSE:C) and the SEC from a case in which the bank was charged with defrauding investors.</p>
<p>In addition to calling the penalty portion of the settlement "pocket change," Rakoff took particular exception to the time-honored tradition that allowed Citigroup to "neither admit nor deny" the allegations under the terms of the deal.</p>
<p>There can be no benefit to the public, the judge said, if serious financial transgressions are swept under the rug via cash settlements and legal jargon that allow charges to disappear as if they never happened.</p>
<p>The SEC and other financial regulators have since <a href="" type="internal">hardened their position</a> on allowing firms to settle without admitting or denying guilt.</p>
<p>Fraud at Center of Financial Crisis</p>
<p>In his latest unexpected broadside at Wall Street and the regulators charged with keeping it clean, Rakoff has penned <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/jan/09/financial-crisis-why-no-executive-prosecutions/?pagination=false" type="external">a long essay Opens a New Window.</a> for the venerable New York Review of Books entitled "The Financial Crisis: Why Have No High-Level Executives Been Prosecuted?"</p>
<p>The judge takes pains to inform his readers that he has no specific knowledge of any Wall Street executive who committed a criminal act in the run-up to the financial crisis. Yet he makes a strong case that criminal prosecutions could have -- and perhaps should have -- occurred.</p>
<p>Possibly so that the essay wouldn't be viewed solely as a screed against archetypal Wall Street villains and incompetent -- or worse, corrupt -- regulators, Rakoff suggests that there's plenty of blame to go around for the daisy chain of fraud that nearly toppled the global economy five years ago.</p>
<p>Using the blunt, common-sense approach that infuses many of his rulings, Rakoff points out that virtually every top regulator, prosecutor and investigator who has looked into the crisis has acknowledged the systemic fraud at its center.</p>
<p>But fraud is not some esoteric concept that originates organically and then flows about on its own energy. Hardly. Criminal fraud, the kind that can be prosecuted, is knowingly committed by managers and executives - real people -- who consciously make a decision to lie and mislead, unusually in pursuit of profit.</p>
<p>Rakoff says that kind of fraud was clearly pervasive ahead of the crisis and wonders aloud why real people -- the decision makers who called the shots -- haven't been held accountable.</p>
<p>It's a great question and kudos to Rakoff for asking it so eloquently.</p> | Judge Rakoff is Rattling Wall Street Cages Again | true | http://foxbusiness.com/politics/2013/12/18/judge-rakoff-is-rattling-wall-street-cages-again.html | 2016-03-09 | 0 |
<p>A To Z Pets in Portland, Oregon suffered a rather unusual theft during the first&#160;week of the new year. According to store owner Richard Bjugan, a man and a blue-haired woman walked into his store on Friday, January 6th.</p>
<p>The couple kept to themselves for a few minutes, then security cameras caught the man taking a $200 black pastel ball python from its tank at around 2 p.m. What the thief did next was truly bizarre.</p>
<p>As he approached the store’s doors, the man shoved the 2-foot long snake down his pants.</p>
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<p>The following Wednesday, Bjugan claims that a different&#160;man <a href="http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2017/01/13/Snake-stuffed-down-thiefs-pants-returned-to-Oregon-pet-store/5571484341025/?spt=sec&amp;or=on" type="external">returned</a> the snake. The python is said to be in good health. Police are still searching for the&#160;suspect in the security camera footage.</p>
<p>Christin Bjugan, the co-owner of the store, told local media&#160;that she had seen the thief in the store before. She also said that the man was very lucky. If he had taken the snake on Monday, he would’ve had a very hungry python in his pants, for Monday is the store’s feeding day.</p>
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<p>Featured image via <a href="https://youtu.be/fUZAVPTaf2Y" type="external">YouTube.</a></p> | Man Did Something VERY STRANGE With This Python (VIDEO) | true | http://offthemainpage.com/2017/01/15/man-did-something-very-strange-with-this-python-video/ | 2017-01-15 | 4 |
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<p>Monalisa Perez was arrested on Monday night after she fatally shot her 22-year-old boyfriend, Pedro Ruiz, while the couple were recording a YouTube stunt for her vlog, according to a criminal complaint provided to BuzzFeed News.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, Perez was charged with second-degree manslaughter — a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 10 years, a fine of $20,000, or both.</p>
<p>She was released after paying a cash bond of $7,000 on the conditions that she could not possess firearms, and that she had to be hooked up on a GPS monitor prior to her release.</p>
<p>Perez called 911 on Monday evening to report that she accidentally shot Ruiz in the chest while they were making a YouTube video at the couple’s house in Norman County.</p>
<p>Authorities found Ruiz with a single gunshot wound to his chest and attempted to save his life, but he died at the scene, the complaint said.</p>
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<p>Perez started a YouTube channel in March which aimed to show “the real life of a young couple who happen to be teen parents.”</p>
<p>Perez had uploaded several YouTube videos featuring her and Ruiz, many of which involved doing “pranks,” “stunts,” and “challenges.”</p>
<p>Some of the videos also featured their three-year-old daughter.</p>
<p>The couple’s most recent video, which was uploaded on Monday — the day Ruiz died — was&#160; <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr8VlTZMNn0" type="external">titled</a>&#160;“Doing scary stunts at the fair.”</p>
<p>Perez told authorities that Ruiz had been trying to convince her “for a while” to shoot the book while he held it for a YouTube video.</p>
<p>Ruiz had set up a GoPro camera and another camera on a ladder nearby to record the stunt, according to the complaint. The two cameras — which recorded the shooting — have been secured as evidence for the investigation.</p>
<p>Perez told authorities that Ruiz eventually “convinced” her to shoot the book he was holding.</p>
<p>She said he had showed her a different book which the bullet did not go through.</p>
<p>Perez told police that she shot from a foot away while Ruiz held the book to his chest.</p>
<p>She used a .50-caliber Desert Eagle firearm which authorities recovered from the grass near the house.</p>
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<p />
<p>“He had told me about that idea and I said, ‘Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Why are you going to use a gun? Why?'” Claudia Ruiz told the TV station.</p>
<p>“They were in love, they loved each other,” she said. “It was just a prank gone wrong. It shouldn’t have happened like this. It shouldn’t have happened at all.”</p>
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<p />
<p>In the video, Perez said she was 25 weeks pregnant and that it was a “blessing” to have Ruiz home. She said she was “excited” that he was home for the birth of their baby boy, due in September.</p>
<p>She said she would need his help looking after the newborn baby and the toddler. They had decided to name their baby boy Pedro, after Ruiz, she said in the video.</p>
<p>“I’m a little nervous for things to change, but I think it’s normal to be nervous,” she told the camera.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/woman-charged-fatal-youtube-stunt?utm_term=.uoJp6VEd7#.tjX8K6plL" type="external">H/T</a></p> | A Teen Was Charged With Killing Her Boyfriend During A Failed YouTube Stunt | true | http://conservativedeplorable.com/teen-charged-killing-boyfriend-failed-youtube-stunt/ | 2017-06-29 | 0 |
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<p>When it comes to workplace negotiations, women don't get many straight answers, new research finds.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>Women are usually at a disadvantage during business negotiations because they face more deceit than men, according to a study to be published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.</p>
<p>The study's authors found that low expectations for a negotiator's competence drove the deceptive intent.</p>
<p>"We found that men and women alike were targeting women with more deception than men," Jessica Kennedy, assistant professor of management at the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management and co-author of the new research, said in a statement. "It was interesting that men and women alike tried to deceive women in negotiations."</p>
<p>As part of the study, researchers had MBA students hold mock real estate negotiations where it was up to the buyer &#160;to reveal whether the "real" intention for the use of the land in question contradicted the seller's wishes. Buyers admitted to being deceitful to 22 percent of female sellers, compared with 5 percent of male sellers. <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3786-how-women-can-avoid-backlash-in-salary-negotiations.html" type="external">[Psychology Plays Key Role in Women's Salary Negotiations ] Opens a New Window.</a></p>
<p>The study's authors discovered that when women were at the negotiating table, they were perceived as easier to deceive than men.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>"We measured a number of different things, and what kept popping up is people expected women to be easier to mislead than men," Kennedy said.</p>
<p>The question of whether the gender stereotype that women are easier to mislead is accurate is still up for debate, according to Kennedy.</p>
<p>"Men and women alike are poor at detecting deception,” she said. “Past work has established that women are better at decoding nonverbal cues than men, though no better at catching a liar."</p>
<p>There are steps women can take to try to combat this form of discrimination."I think we can train women to exhibit characteristics in negotiations that suggest they're not at all easy to mislead," Kennedy said. "If we have women persistently questioning information, asking for verification from multiple sources, writing critical things in contracts and signaling a willingness to retaliate for deception, I think that should help to disconfirm this stereotype."</p>
<p>The study was co-authored by Laura Kray, holder of the Warren E. and Carol Spieker Chair in Leadership at the University of California, Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and Alex Van Zandt, a Haas School of Business Ph.D. candidate.</p>
<p>Originally published on <a href="http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/" type="external">Business News Daily. Opens a New Window.</a></p> | The Truth About Negotiations: Women Are Lied to More | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2014/10/06/truth-about-negotiations-women-are-lied-to-more.html | 2016-04-07 | 0 |
<p><a href="http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/the-internet-crackdown-begins-u-s-senator-al-franken-wants-google-facebook-and-twitter-to-censor-political-speech" type="external">Authord by Michael Snyder via The American Dream blog,</a></p>
<p>Are the days of the free and open Internet numbered?&#160; The Internet is certainly used for all sorts of horrible things, but it has also allowed ordinary people to communicate on a mass scale that would have been unimaginable decades ago.&#160; In the old days, if you wanted to reach large audiences of people with your information you always had to go through corporate gatekeepers.&#160; But today, anyone with an Internet connection can literally broadcast whatever they want to say to the whole world.&#160; Personally, my wife and I have always been amazed at how many people we are able to touch all over the planet from our little home in the mountains.&#160; Over the past seven years, our websites have been viewed more than 100 million times, and we receive emails about our work from people all over the globe.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2017/11/13/20171113_web.jpg" type="external">&lt;img src="https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2017/11/13/20171113_web.jpg" alt="" /&gt;</a></p>
<p>Unfortunately, major changes may soon be coming to the Internet.&#160; The election of Donald Trump really angered the elite, and they are blaming the power of the Internet for his victory.&#160; They insist that something must be done “for the good of democracy”.</p>
<p>For example, in an opinion piece <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/08/big-tech-security-freedoms-democracy-al-franken" type="external">for the Guardian</a>, U.S. Senator Al Franken proposed that it is time for the U.S. government to step in because Google, Facebook, and Twitter have failed to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/08/big-tech-security-freedoms-democracy-al-franken" type="external">prevent the spread of propaganda, misinformation, and hate speech</a>…</p>
<p>As lawmakers grapple with the revelations regarding Russia’s manipulation of social media during the 2016 election, many are shocked to learn the outsized role that the major tech companies play in so many aspects of our lives. Not only do they guide what we see, read, and buy on a regular basis, but their dominance – specifically in the market of information – now requires that we consider their role in the integrity of our democracy.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>Last week’s hearings demonstrated that these companies may not be up to the challenge that they’ve created for themselves. In some instances, it seems that they’ve failed to take commonsense precautions to prevent the spread of propaganda, misinformation, and hate speech.</p>
<p>Those are very ominous words.</p>
<p>So precisely what would constitute “propaganda”, “misinformation” or “hate speech”?</p>
<p>When you start regulating speech, you cross a very dangerous line.&#160; There is a reason why our founders guaranteed us freedom of speech in the Bill of Rights, because if we don’t have the freedom to say what we want then what do we really have left?</p>
<p>During the presidential election, there was a lot of talk about Hillary Clinton’s health.&#160; The mainstream media insisted that she was just fine, and they accused those of us in the alternative media that were questioning her health of engaging in “propaganda” and “misinformation”.&#160; Well, it turns out that we now know that Clinton’s health was so bad that Donna Brazile was <a href="https://nypost.com/2017/11/07/how-brazilles-book-exposes-liberal-medias-hillary-health-coverup/" type="external">actually considering replacing her as the nominee</a>, and so it was actually the mainstream media that was putting out “propaganda” and “misinformation”.</p>
<p>Any effort to institute some sort of “truth police” would take us significantly down the road to totalitarianism, but apparently, that is what Franken wants.&#160; In fact, he is openly suggesting that it is time for <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/sen-al-franken-calls-for-vigorous-overight-of-big-tech-companies-2017-11" type="external">government regulators to step in</a>…</p>
<p>Instead of simply trusting the big tech companies to police how their services are being used and abused, Franken suggested that regulators need to step in. Lawmakers should take a closer look at the influence technology plays in the everyday lives of Americans by conducting “vigorous oversight in the form of investigations and hearings to fully understand current practices and the potential for harm,” the Minnesota senator said.</p>
<p>&#160;</p>
<p>“I’m hopeful that recent events will encourage regulators, as well as a broader contingent of my colleagues — on both sides of the aisle — to give this issue the attention it deserves,” he said.</p>
<p>So once government regulators begin regulating speech on the Internet, where will it end?</p>
<p>Will everything that we do on the Internet have to be evaluated for “truthiness” before it is allowed to be posted?</p>
<p>And who decides what the “truth” actually is?</p>
<p>I am a big believer in the marketplace of ideas.&#160; I have always been convinced that if everyone is allowed to openly share what they believe that the truth will win in the end.</p>
<p>Of course the elite are scared of the free exchange of ideas because that gives the people way too much control over their own destiny.&#160; Prior to the Internet age, they were <a href="http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/how-the-elite-dominate-the-world-part-3-90-of-what-you-watch-on-television-is-controlled-by-just-6-giant-corporations" type="external">always in control of the flow of information in our society</a>, but now things have changed dramatically.</p>
<p>They desperately want to get control of the Internet, because they want things to go back to the way that they used to be.&#160; But we can’t allow that to happen, and so we must greatly resist any attempts to regulate speech on the Internet.</p>
<p>*&#160; *&#160; *</p>
<p><a href="https://www.michaelsnyderforcongress.com/" type="external">Michael Snyder</a> is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his <a href="https://www.michaelsnyderforcongress.com/contribute.html" type="external">official website</a>. His new book entitled <a href="https://amzn.to/2t5bx4A" type="external">“Living A Life That Really Matters”</a> is available in paperback and for the Kindle on <a href="https://amzn.to/2t5bx4A" type="external">Amazon.com</a>.</p> | Internet Crackdown Begins: Senator Al Franken Wants Google, Facebook, & Twitter Censor Political Speech | false | https://studionewsnetwork.com/articles/internet-crackdown-begins-senator-al-franken-wants-google-facebook-twitter-censor-political-speech/ | 2017-11-13 | 3 |
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<p>Hess Corp. (NYSE:HES) said Friday it intends to split the roles of chairman and chief executive after its annual meeting next week, responding to pressure from activist shareholder Elliott Management.</p>
<p>Continue Reading Below</p>
<p>The oil company nominated former General Electric (NYSE:GE) Vice Chairman John Krenicki for the new post of non-executive chairman. Krenicki will be up for election at the May 16 meeting in Houston.</p>
<p>Hess noted that current Chairman and CEO John Hess “stated his full support for the decision.”</p>
<p>“Based on strong leadership qualities and unimpeachable independence, the board believes that [Krenicki]—along with Hess' other director nominees—has the right blend of experience and sound judgement to provide accountability, while guiding Hess' transformation to a pure play E&amp;P company for the benefit of all shareholders,” lead director John Mullin said.</p>
<p>Hess and Elliott, which owns a stake of about 4.5%, have been locked in months-long proxy battle in which the hedge fund has criticized the company’s management and current slate of directors. Hess, which in March announced its plans to become a pure-play exploration and production company, has questioned the independence of Elliott’s own nominees.</p>
<p>Separately, the oil company accused proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services of having a bias toward activist shareholders.</p>
<p>Advertisement</p>
<p>ISS and Glass-Lewis, another proxy adviser, both supported Elliott’s board nominees.</p>
<p>On Friday, Elliott played down the move to separate the chairman and CEO roles.</p>
<p>“Hess’s announcement today is not a concession or step on the part of the Company, rather it is a reaction to the shareholder vote currently underway,” Elliott said in a statement. “It is significant to note that Hess’s Board recommended against this split only a few weeks ago.”</p>
<p>Krenicki said he believes Hess’s management is executing on a measurable plan that is already unlocking value at the energy firm, adding that he and other nominees have spoken to shareholders who support that view.</p>
<p>Shares of Hess were down 1.9% at $69.59 in early morning trading.</p> | Hess to Separate Chairman, CEO Roles | true | http://foxbusiness.com/features/2013/05/10/hess-to-separate-chairman-ceo-roles.html | 2016-01-25 | 0 |
<p>Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!</p>
<p><a href="http://rt.com/usa/growing-oregon-wheat-monsanto-968/" type="external">RT.Com</a>: Unapproved Monsanto Crop Found Growing in Oregon</p>
<p><a href="http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/telescope-will-allow-public-to-go-on-the-net-and-view-earth-from-the-moon-1.1301310" type="external">CTVNews</a>: Won't This Be Cool!</p>
<p><a href="http://becauseican-2old2care.blogspot.com/2013/05/why-are-taxpayers-paying-for-alec.html" type="external">Because I Can</a>: Why Are Taxpayers Paying for ALEC Legislator's Travel?</p>
<p><a href="http://namelesscynic.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-end-of-error.html" type="external">Nameless Critic</a>: The End of an Error</p>
<p>Round up by Swimgirl.(tweeter @miamiswimmer) Send tips to mbru AT <a href="" type="internal">crooksandliars.com</a></p> | Mike's Blog Round Up | true | http://crooksandliars.com/batocchio/mikes-blog-round-119 | 2013-07-01 | 4 |
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<p>SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico State Police will be going after suspected drunken drivers who fail to show up for court as part of a special operation that will be conducted every three months in 2017.</p>
<p>Gov. Susana Martinez announced the initiative Wednesday, saying the operation is meant to send the message that people can’t avoid justice.</p>
<p>Many of those that will be targeted include repeat offenders.</p>
<p>The roundups will be a coordinated effort between law enforcement and courts across the state that identify DWI offenders who have an outstanding bench warrant.</p>
<p>A similar three-day operation earlier this year netted 33 arrests.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p> | New Mexico to go after drunken drivers who skip court | false | https://abqjournal.com/917439/new-mexico-to-go-after-drunken-drivers-who-skip-court.html | 2 | |
<p>Eric Cartman is the 1 percent.screenshot: &lt;a href="http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/398503/preview-ganging-up-on-the-one-percent"&gt;southparkstudios.com&lt;/a&gt;</p>
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<p>It was only a matter of time: South Park has something to say about Occupy Wall Street. On Wednesday night, <a href="http://www.southparkstudios.com/fans/behind/creator-bios" type="external">Trey Parker and Matt Stone</a>‘s Comedy Central series ran an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_South_Park" type="external">episode titled “1%”</a> that drew some topical humor and mild-to-moderate jabs from the ongoing #OWS protests sweeping the country.</p>
<p>The analogs are blatant: During a schoolwide <a href="http://www.presidentschallenge.org/" type="external">President’s Challenge</a> exam, the corpulent, Jew-baiting <a href="http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Eric_Cartman" type="external">Eric Cartman</a>&#160;tanks the fitness test. Because the student body’s evaluation is based on an average, Cartman’s performance severely slashes the score of the rest of the students, thus condemning everyone to gym class during recess. Cartman is unanimously dubbed the “1 percent” who is dragging down the other “99 percent.” Students unite to “fight the system” that’s rigged against them, while Cartman grumbles and loudly plays the victim.</p>
<p>To watch the full episode, <a href="http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e12-one-percent" type="external">click here</a>. Here’s a clip:</p>
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<p>Days before the episode aired, conservative pundits were already quivering with anticipation. Awaiting a harsh comedic takedown of #OWS, right-wing bloggers got all enthused: On&#160; <a href="http://www.redstate.com/biggator5/2011/10/30/die-hippie-die-south-park-took-down-ows-years-ago/" type="external">RedState</a>, “BigGator5” wrote about how “South Park [Actually] Took Down #OWS, YEARS AGO!” with their 2005 episode “ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hippie,_Die" type="external">Die Hippie, Die</a>,” and how Cartman’s “only redeemable character trait is that he’s a capitalist.” On Andrew Breitbart’s <a href="http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/hollywoodland/2011/10/31/the-south-park-gang-to-tackle-occupy-wall-street/" type="external">Big Hollywood</a>, “Hollywoodland” looked forward to the show’s “first, full-on commentary on the fledgling political movement” that would dole out the barbs fairly.</p>
<p>But many of these commentators, surely itching for a chance to confirm that the hip, politically incorrect Comedy Central satirists are on their side, smugly miss the point.</p>
<p>South Park does have what one could arguably call a libertarian streak. The show’s creators have a known history of inserting their characters into national political discussions, mocking both the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUtA3VlXCJI&amp;feature=related" type="external">left</a> and <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6610212795155043011" type="external">right</a>. But they have a soft spot for gleefully trashing left orthodoxies, from Hollywood’s <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4076932" type="external">limousine liberals</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_Out" type="external">anti-tobacco campaigns</a>. In 2001, Andrew Sullivan famously coined the term “ <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_Republican" type="external">South Park Republican</a>,” and ostensibly right-leaning quotes attributed to Parker and Stone, such as “ <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/25/matt-stone-trey-parker-ar_n_475744.html" type="external">I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals</a>,” only help to further the case for the series’ alleged anti-progressive bent.</p>
<p>However, “1%” simply doesn’t try to demolish #OWS in the way that Republican viewers would have wanted. Sadly for <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/special/2011/10/11/304642/erickson-whines-53-percent/" type="external">Erick Erickson</a>, the 1 percent are depicted as the whiners, paranoid excuse-makers, and irrational Obama-blamers, not the 99. “I know how this works,” says Cartman after the other students had begun to gently criticize him. “You’re the 99 percent ganging up on the 1 percent…Jesus Christ! The 99 percent is totally ganging up on me!”</p>
<p>Later, as he whimpers to his beloved stuffed animal collection, his inanimate friends “tell” him that “It’s not your fault, Eric. How can they blame you for what is clearly President Obama’s fault?” (Because Obama supposedly invented “that stupid presidential fitness test.”) The next day, Cartman accuses children casually eating lunch of “occupying the cafeteria” and screams at them, “you think it’s wrong to be pissed off at a black president, so you’re all just pissed off at me! Well, go ahead, have your little rally to figure out how to stick it to the 1 percent. See what it gets you!”</p>
<p>The episode also targets police overreaction, the rabid media coverage of #OWS, and the panic over “class warfare.”</p>
<p>But those who were looking for any obvious pro- or anti-#OWS sentiment must’ve felt the same way lefty Simpsons viewers felt when they saw the decidedly apolitical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Bad_Neighbors" type="external">episode</a> on George H.W. Bush. “1%” stays true to South Park‘s patented formula: don’t ever commit the sin of taking politics too seriously, and just mine the big issues for crude silliness. For example, when Butters takes a half-hour bathroom break from what the mass media has labelled #Occupy <a href="http://www.redrobin.com/default.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1" type="external">RedRobin</a>, a reporter announces that #OccupyRestroom is now in full swing.</p>
<p>In the end, petty debates over the animated show’s “true” political colors obscure the obvious point that the South Park team are in it to get the provocative, crude, and often contrarian laugh. For them, taking a political stand is at most a fleeting consideration. This applies no matter how you decide to interpret their Occupy-inspired episode.</p>
<p /> | South Park on Occupy Wall Street | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2011/11/south-park-occupy-wall-street/ | 2011-11-03 | 4 |
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<p>O’maury Samuels made two big plays – one on offense and another on defense – as No. 5 seed Los Lunas scored 13 straight third-quarter points to beat No. 4 Belen 16-14 in the Class 5A quarterfinals Friday night.</p>
<p>will face Artesia or Alamogordo in next week’s semifinals.</p>
<p>But the Eagles didn’t have another threat.</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>The Tigers (9-3)Samuels scored on a 7-yard run on the first possession of the third quarter for Los Lunas as the Tigers led 9-7. After the ensuing kickoff, the Tigers forced a Belen fumble that Samuels picked up. He raced 40 yards for the touchdown for a 16-7 lead.</p>
<p>Belen’s Diego Casillas scored on a 1-yard run with 9:08 left in the game to cut the deficit to two points.</p>
<p>– Kenn Rodriguez</p>
<p>Class 6A</p>
<p>No. 2 CLEVELAND 38, No. 10 MAYFIELD 14:</p>
<p>Senior running back Niko Papadopoulos rushed for 173 yards and scored four touchdowns – on second-quarter runs of 2 and 4 yards, and fourth-quarter jaunts of 27 and 37 yards – as the Storm (10-1) advanced to the semifinals.</p>
<p>Senior quarterback Jacob Flores, making his first varsity start in relief of injured Angelo Trujillo, added 116 rushing yards and accounted for the Storm’s other TD, a 21-yard run. Passing, Flores completed three of five for 90 yards, but his two incompletions were Mayfield interceptions.</p>
<p>of his linemen. “I couldn’t do anything without them. I appreciate all the work for me, even if they don’t get the recognition.”</p>
<p>ADVERTISEMENT</p>
<p>on Friday in the semifinals. Cleveland beat the Bulldawgs 49-42 on Sept. 9.</p>
<p>and limited Wildcats In five postseason meetings with the Trojans (6-6), this was the first time the home team won.</p>
<p>Isaac Vance of Mayfield brought the Trojans to within 21-14 early in the second half. T.J. Pickens of the Storm kicked a 35-yard field goal midway through the period, and Papadopoulos added two late TD runs.</p>
<p>“They open the holes for me,” he saidThe Storm plays host to Las Cruces (10-1) at 7 p.m.</p>
<p>tailback Micah Gray to 36 yards as Las Cruces (10-1) advanced to the semifinals with a win over Clovis (7-4).</p>
<p>Las Cruces QB Payton Ball rushed for 143 yards and three TDs. The Bulldawgs rushed for 297 yards.</p>
<p>Class 4A</p>
<p>No. 6 ST. MICHAEL’S 36, No. 3 MORIARTY 33: In Moriarty, Antonio Gabaldon threw a 23-yard touchdown pass to Joey Fernandez, Jr.</p>
<p>with 48 seconds remaining as the Horsemen (9-3) upset the Pintos (9-2).</p>
<p>Moriarty had scored two quick TDs late in the fourth quarter to lead 33-30 with just over 2 minutes to go.</p>
<p /> | Los Lunas holds off Belen, 16-14 | false | https://abqjournal.com/892673/los-lunas-holds-off-belen-1614.html | 2016-11-19 | 2 |
<p />
<p>In a stirring editorial in today’s Guardian, former British Foreign Office press secretary John Williams <a href="http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_williams/2006/08/john_williams.html" type="external">declares</a>, “This crisis is a terrible failure for President Bush’s championing of Middle East democracy.” His rebuke stems from the fact that Israel’s invasions of Gaza and Lebanon seem, at the present time, to have rendered moderate leaders like Mahmoud Abbas and Fouad Siniora impotent and marginal, while strengthening the hands’ of extremists such as the leaders of Syria and Iran.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the Bush administration, and the <a href="" type="internal">neocons lauding its response</a> to the crisis in Lebanon, can take comfort, perhaps, that Lebanese civil society—a crucial component of democratization—seems to be strengthening. In <a href="http://www.adabmag.com/bayaneng.htm" type="external">a letter</a> being circulated online among intellectuals inside the country and abroad, 50-odd journalists, professors and poets have signed on to a core set of declarations and demands for their government and their peers. The unity comes with strong language:</p>
<p>We the undersigned declare:</p>
<p>1) Our conscious support for the Lebanese national resistance as it wages a war in defense of our sovereignty and independence, a war to release Lebanese imprisoned in Israel, a war to safeguard the dignity of the Lebanese and Arab people.</p>
<p>2) Our unambiguous refutation of the logic that accuses HizbAllah of having provided the “pretext” for the Israeli invasion. Israel did not invade Lebanon, destroy its infrastructure, displace and murder its populace because of the heroic operation carried out by HizbAllah. Israel has never needed a pretext to breach the sovereignty of Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, or other nations… How strange that Israel should wish to be the policeman in charge of executing UN Resolution 1559 when it has not yet executed any of the previously issued UN resolutions addressing its own actions, with the exception of the partial implementation of Resolution 425, which resulted essentially because of strikes inflicted by the armed Lebanese Resistance.</p>
<p>3) Our staunch condemnation of official American support for, and contribution to, the Israeli aggression. The war crimes Israel is currently committing, as well as those it committed in the past and will commit in the probable future, would not have occurred or occur yet without America’s political and military support for Israel, that which is unmitigated by its allegedly unswerving espousal of Lebanese freedom, sovereignty, and independence.</p>
<p>But then, that’s probably not what quite what the White House had mind…</p>
<p /> | Lebanese Intellectuals Unite | true | https://motherjones.com/politics/2006/08/lebanese-intellectuals-unite/ | 2006-08-01 | 4 |
<p />
<p>Photo by DonkeyHotey | <a href="" type="internal">CC BY 2.0</a></p>
<p />
<p>Every day, it seems, we talk about Prison America; the profitable high growth industry that entombs millions of our people… stealing years, often decades, of their lives while destroying families and communities along the way… as we continue to subsidize a vicious, sagging economy built upon death… not life. Though the debate centers largely on the question of why we continue to prosecute and bury mostly young people of color and poverty for drug crimes and other non-violent offenses, the equation often misses a core component of the challenge concerning how to control willful cops… those in uniform and out… who cross the line with mostly unbridled power to dictate who goes to prison and who does not, whose reputation remains solid and whose becomes soiled, and then set about to do whatever it takes to see their view of justice be had.</p>
<p>In the US, <a href="http://jpm-law-chicago.com/essays/result-oriented-judging.html" type="external">result oriented justice</a> is not new or even creative; it’s as old as the frontier sheriff with boundless power to rule with a firm hand to control who got to walk down the streets of Dodge and who did not. Of course, cops plant evidence, coerce statements and entrap folks… that’s a given. Torture, rendition and agent stings are very much now the norm. No breaking news here. Ultimately, when all else fails, it’s the modern day version of the old school way to ensure “case closed”… another “victory” for those who not only relish their power but see its arbitrary application as just fine as long as they get their man… or woman.</p>
<p>It seems most cops, from those directing traffic on the boulevard to the guy in the designer suit before Congress, lose sight along the way that their power is but power on loan… not owned by them to use and do with as they please when their own social, political or “security ends” justifies their means… or where they seek to lay the groundwork for future employment.</p>
<p>Once again, this past week, FBI Director James Comey&#160;proved that point.</p>
<p>Although finely polished and experienced, this lifelong Republican cop seems to feel that there’s one set of rules for all those he’s helped to send to prison and a completely different one for him… one blue book of conduct for all others in the Department of Justice but, apparently, not a volume to be found among the personal library of he who now occupies the Director’s desk of the FBI.</p>
<p>Time and time again, throughout the Clinton email scandal, Comey has proven himself to be not much more than an old fashioned ward healer… but with a badge… desperate for the feel of flesh or to see the flash of bulbs or, perhaps, a novice candidate for political office looking for a hook to, some day, launch his own career.</p>
<p>FBI Directors do not hold press conferences to discuss or explain why charges have not been pursued against a potential subject of interest or a target of an investigation. They just don’t. Inexplicably, he did.</p>
<p>As a matter of long settled policy, these matters are simply not offered up to the public for Monday morning debate or talking head analysis which can not only tarnish the reputation of persons cleared of criminal wrongdoing but expose investigative sources or techniques that can endanger the reliability of future investigations or the safety of agents. Indeed, legend is the cases where the door to on-going or post hoc litigation leads has been slammed shut, without hesitation, by federal judges for this very reason.</p>
<p>As well, the all too convenient mass publication by the FBI in this matter of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of its sensitive 302 reports (official FBI case progress memoranda) are simply unprecedented. Indeed, prisoners (and journalists) often spend years litigating access to this material which is challenged by the FBI, every step along the way, with endless technical statutory excuses for keeping it secret; even in cases, long closed, where its release might offer a ray of hope to those perhaps wrongfully convicted or overcharged.</p>
<p>Most stunning of all however was the cheap political ploy by Comey where but 11 days prior to the election he suggested, in a public writing to Congress, that he had uncovered newly discovered, potentially damning evidence with regard to the Clinton email scandal. The tenor and tone of the Director’s insinuation is remarkable, indeed astonishing, given the fact that apparently neither he nor any of his agents had, as of the time of the written press conference, reviewed the material itself. Can anyone say deceitful?</p>
<p>Even more disingenuous was the timing of this claim which not only rubbed up against firmly rooted and sound DOJ policy but, in fact, swallowed it whole as the Director slobbered away from the political dining table with a scheming smile on his face.</p>
<p>Although periodically ruptured, by design the mandate of federal law enforcement necessarily excludes witting participation in the political process, let alone becoming ensnarled in it, as an ostensible partisan or one consciously seeking to impact upon it one way or another. That’s the job of politicians not cops.</p>
<p>Indeed, the Department of Justice has, for decades, avoided taking actions that might be viewed as an attempt to influence an election. As noted in a 2012 Justice Department memo “… all employees have the responsibility to enforce the law in a neutral and impartial manner…which is ‘particularly important’ in an election year.” According to Matthew Miller, former Director of the Justice Department’s Public Affairs Office, this becomes all the more sensitive, nay, critical as Election Day draws near:</p>
<p>“Justice traditionally bends over backward to avoid taking any action that might be seen by the public as influencing an election, often declining to even take private steps that might become public in the 60 days leading up to an election.”</p>
<p>This rule finds firm footing in the position of a host of former and current Attorneys General and senior prosecutors. For example, it has been reported that former AG Janet Reno was “adamant… anything that could influence the election had to go dark,” as she suspended a politically sensitive investigation… one much further removed in time from Election Day than the most recent blindside, by the FBI Director, just 11 days before the vote to see who will lead this country for the next four years.</p>
<p>Remarkably, it appears Comey completely ignored the “preference” of current Attorney General Lynch… his boss… as well as her deputies that he adhere to a well established <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/james-comey-broke-with-loretta-lynch-and-justice-department-tradition" type="external">DOJ policy</a> of remaining silent about on-going investigations and refrain from taking any steps that <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/benjamin-wallace-wells/donald-trump-has-a-new-closing-argument" type="external">could influence the outcome of an election</a>. This view has been shared by Republican prosecutors as well. As noted by George J. Terwilliger III, a deputy attorney general under President George Bush, “There’s a <a href="" type="internal">longstanding policy</a> of not doing anything that could influence an election.” He added “Those guidelines exist for a reason. Sometimes, that makes for hard decisions. But bypassing them has consequences.”</p>
<p>Sadly, Comey’s palpable decision to charge full steam ahead and place his own view and reputation before that of the electoral process as so much the ultimate arbiter of what he believes the public should know and not… real or otherwise… on the eve of this election is not sui generis. Although different in approach, and context, he now follows a long and time tested tradition of corrupt and venal FBI directors who have not hesitated to implement personal political agendas ranging from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Palmer-Raids" type="external">Palmer raids</a> upon anarchists of the early 20th century, to the blacklisting and <a href="http://definitions.uslegal.com/p/perjury-trap-doctrine/" type="external">perjury traps of McCarthy</a>, to the murder of black activists under <a href="https://vault.fbi.gov/cointel-pro" type="external">COINTELPRO</a>.</p>
<p>Comey is many things. He is not however stupid or brash. He had to know that what essentially constituted a vaguely worded personal press release, in the final desperate days of a very ugly campaign, would be seized upon, by an opposing candidate, media pundits and the public, as newly discovered evidence of criminality, even without verification, that might very well alter the course of US history.</p>
<p>To him, it mattered not that the “new” emails were as yet unparsed. Nor did he care that their timed release would almost certainly have the consequence, if not the intended effect, to mislead the American people already battered and tired by unprecedented levels of empty rhetoric and unfounded accusations by both sides.</p>
<p>One can only wonder whether Comey’s blindside was simply breathtaking in its carelessness or… like the beat cop who has decided who goes to jail and who goes home… a calculated decision to place his own personal stamp of approval on who he wants to see as his next uber boss.</p>
<p>The path from street corners or, at times, even Board Rooms to prison cells is not a complicated walk at all. It seems these days the road to the White House is pretty much the same march… just a bit longer and nastier.</p> | Comey’s Blindside: You’re Just a Cop | true | https://counterpunch.org/2016/10/31/comeys-blindside-youre-just-a-cop/ | 2016-10-31 | 4 |
<p>By Jeff Brumley</p>
<p>Jim Somerville pastors a Baptist congregation in Virginia that, thanks to the Internet, includes people living in Austria, India and Slovakia.</p>
<p>And now, he learned recently, some guy in Iowa.</p>
<p>“He said ‘I tune in online and consider <a href="http://fbcrichmond.org/index.htm" type="external">First Baptist, Richmond</a>, my church, and Jim Somerville is my pastor,’” he said, recalling a conversation between the man and a local church member.</p>
<p>Such accounts are relatively common at churches that use the Internet to share their services, Sunday school classes and other ministries. And the practice is nearly as old as the web itself.</p>
<p>But faith leaders are testifying to a growing awareness that the Internet may well be a virtual mission field in its own right.</p>
<p>Baptist ministers, among others, are now describing their Facebook and other web ministries in missional terms.</p>
<p>“I am less and less concerned about the institutional church and more concerned about the Kingdom,” said <a href="http://www.wadeburleson.org/" type="external">Wade Burleson</a>, pastor of <a href="http://www.emmanuelenid.org/" type="external">Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla</a>. Burleson participates in the non-denominational, <a href="http://thewartburgwatch.com/echurchwartburg-2/" type="external">web-based EChurch</a>.</p>
<p>“It is my theological view that this ministry is Kingdom oriented,” Burleson said.</p>
<p>‘It’s just helpful’</p>
<p>Some have ventured into web-based churching for functional rather than missional purposes. <a href="http://www.wilshirebc.org/" type="external">Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas</a> began live streaming its 11 a.m. worship about six months ago to serve existing members who cannot make it to worship due to illness, vacations or business travel, Associate Pastor Mark Wingfield said.</p>
<p>It’s also proven highly popular among faraway relatives who can watch a youngster sing in the youth choir.</p>
<p>“For some churches it’s probably missional, but for us it’s just helpful,” Wingfield said.</p>
<p>Church members had been requesting the service for years, Wingfield said, but it was only launched after the technical and volunteer resources were available to do so.</p>
<p>All sorts of issues – from sound to lighting and camera quality – have to be mastered to avoid frustrating those who tune in online.</p>
<p>“It sounds like a really simple thing to do, but it is not,” Wingfield said.</p>
<p>‘Won’t step foot in church’</p>
<p>Keeping it simple was the whole idea behind EChurch, an online worship experience launched in March by two bloggers intent on reaching the unchurched.</p>
<p>“Worse than unchurched, it’s people who just won’t step foot in a church,” said Dee Parsons, co-founder of EChurch and <a href="http://thewartburgwatch.com/" type="external">The Wartburg Watch</a>, a blog that tracks controversial Christian trends.</p>
<p>Parsons said she and blog&#160;partner Wanda Martin discerned from posted&#160;comments the need for an online spiritual community for those who feel alienated from church. Some cited pedophilia and financial scandals, or feeling ostracized for questioning religious dogma, behind their unwillingness to enter churches.</p>
<p>‘Restoring trust in church’</p>
<p>EChurch is not a live worship streaming event, but rather contains prayers, Christian music of varying styles and an embedded video of Burleson preaching at Emmanuel in Enid.</p>
<p>The format allows participants to watch when they can and then to comment on the experience. The back-and-forth between readers tells Parsons EChurch is providing much-needed fellowship for its participants.</p>
<p>Parsons said their participants represent a specific population that is otherwise not being reached by churches or missionaries.</p>
<p>“The seeker churches are getting the seekers,” she said. “These people are not seeking – they know what they believe, but they just don’t want to come to church.”</p>
<p>Burleson said he jumped at the invitation to have his sermons imbedded at EChurch because that demographic needs ministry. “It’s amazing,” he said. “I have people contact me who said EChurch is restoring a little trust in the church.”</p>
<p>‘Bringing heaven to earth’</p>
<p>In addition to the live streaming of its 8:30&#160;and 11 a.m. services, First Baptist, Richmond,&#160; <a href="http://fbcrichmond.org/micro/index.htm" type="external">also offers “Microchurch.”</a></p>
<p>Through the church website, people can view the order of worship, suggested Scripture readings and watch the sermon. They are encouraged to gather with others as they do so, Somerville said. Participants are encouraged to speak about the services, pray with one another and then have lunch together.</p>
<p>“I run into people all the time who said ‘I’m one of your Microchurches,’” Somerville said, adding that a format also exists for television viewers.</p>
<p>“It’s another way we do what we can to bring heaven to earth,” he said.</p> | Online community as missions field | false | https://baptistnews.com/article/some-see-online-community-as-missions-field/ | 3 | |
<p><a href="" type="internal">Chuck Norris</a> told <a href="" type="internal">Mike Huckabee</a> on&#160;Saturday night&#160;that if <a href="" type="internal">President Obama</a> is re-elected, the liberal judges he appoints “will eliminate gun control,” which will “jeopardize our Second Amendment rights, for sure.” Norris,&#160;who recorded a video this week that claimed if President Obama is reelected, <a href="" type="internal">America will plunge into 1000 years of darkness</a>, apparently doesn’t understand that his side — conservative, Tea Party Republicans &#160;– believe gun control “jeopardizes”&#160;Second Amendment rights. Ironically, Governor Huckabee didn’t even try to correct Norris.</p>
<p>READ:&#160; <a href="" type="internal">Era Detergent Ads Boast Anti-Gay ‘Chuck Norris Approved’ Seal</a></p>
<p>“The thing is, what worries me, if he gets elected we’re going to have some US Supreme Court justices retiring, and so that means that Obama is going to be putting in more liberal US justices, and I think that’s going to jeopardize our constitution, it’s going to jeopardize our Second Amendment rights for sure, because they will eliminate gun-control in our country, and so this is what I’m extremely worried about Mike, is that is that if Obama gets re-elected that’s the direction we’ll be going.”</p>
<p>The gun control conversation begins at about 5:33 in the video, below, but if you <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUS9LeS1nEk" type="external">watch the video from the beginning</a>, you can tell Norris is just repeating GOP talking points, like, “Obama’s a nice guy, we gave him a chance, but he’s inexperienced and in over his head” hogwash.</p>
<p>Clearly, Norris has no idea what he’s talking about. Should make everyone rethink his “Chuck Norris Approved” slogan.</p>
<p />
<p>Tagged as: <a href="" type="internal">appointee</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Arkansas</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="" type="internal">chuck norris</a>, <a href="" type="internal">chuck norris approved</a>, <a href="" type="internal">commentators</a>, <a href="" type="internal">elimination</a>, <a href="" type="internal">fox news channel</a>, <a href="" type="internal">gun control</a>, <a href="" type="internal">judges</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Mike Huckabee</a>, <a href="" type="internal">nationality</a>, <a href="" type="internal">norris</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Obama</a>, <a href="" type="internal">Politics</a>, <a href="" type="internal">presidency of barack obama</a>, <a href="" type="internal">President Obama</a>, <a href="" type="internal">sys</a>, <a href="" type="internal">united states</a>, <a href="" type="internal">victory university</a></p>
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