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Mark Sparrow | 2019-01-01 16:15:08+00:00 | 2019-01-01 16:00:00 | With their sweatproof design and lightweight feel, the Phiaton Curve BT120NC are noise canceling Bluetooth earbuds that are ideal for use in the gym or any form of exercise. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fmarksparrow%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fthese-new-wireless-earphones-will-make-exercising-less-painful%2F.json | en | January is a time for New Year resolutions and firm promises, such as drinking less or joining a gym and getting into shape. If you’ve already bought some new sportswear for the gym, it’s probably time to think about getting a new pair of wireless earphones to make the grueling exercise pass a little more quickly.
When it comes to the technical performance of a pair of earphones, specifications only tell part of the story. Over the years I’ve reviewed so many pairs of headphones that, on paper, sound as if they ought to be amazing; and yet, when I’ve listened to them, I’ve been really disappointed. And the opposite can often be true. Quite a few times I’ve reviewed a pair of headphones that, on paper, should have sounded awful, yet, when critically listened to, have turned out to be surprisingly good.
A case in point is these Curve BT120C Bluetooth wireless earphones from Korean company Phiaton. On paper, they’re standard Bluetooth earphones with no special codecs other than the plain vanilla SBC. There’s no aptX or AAC. So what we have here is a very average pair of earphones that also included basic noise-canceling circuitry, a microphone for taking phone calls or issuing voice commands, plus a very acceptable 8.5 hours of listening time between charges. And if you do find the earphones have a flat battery, a quick five-minute charge will produce a handy hour of listening time until you can get to fully recharge the battery.
The Phiaton Curve BT120C has a Memory-Flex neckband design with an inline remote control on the left-hand side and a corresponding battery holder on the right-hand side, which means it’s both well balanced and lightweight. The inline remote control includes three buttons for pausing music, skipping tracks, adjusting volume, taking or ending phone calls, and invoking voice command functions. There’s a fourth button on the side of the remote that activates the noise-canceling function, more on which later. The neckband vibrates if there’s an incoming call and will even vibrate if being out of range breaks the connection to your smartphone. So if you end up wandering off to the swimming pool, and you’ve left your smartphone in the gym, the neckband will vibrate to remind you.
These earphones are also ideal for gym use or jogging in the drizzle because they’re water resistant to IPX4 standard. Sweaty or wet hands won’t be a problem when using the remote, and the fit is surprisingly comfortable, thanks to a selection of three different ear tip sizes and two sizes of silicone ear wings that slip over the earbuds, like a small sock, and help to keep the earbuds securely in the listener’s ears when exercising, without feeling uncomfortable.
The earbud shells contain 12mm dynamic drivers that deliver an incredibly rich and well-balanced sound that works across most musical genres. The bass is solid and rhythmically pleasing while there’s enough detail in the treble to make the music sound as if it’s being transmitted with plenty of detail. Despite using the humble SBC Bluetooth audio codec, the sonic quality of these earphones is exceptionally good without any hint of hiss or that really annoying electronic chirrup that some Bluetooth earphone seems to suffer from between tracks or when paused. As I said, on paper these shouldn’t really deliver, but when it comes to playing the music they really serve up a totally enjoyable sound.
The microphone built into the lightweight neckband works well with making phone calls and the quality is good enough that I didn’t sound as if I was calling from a kitchen cupboard. So many earphones with built-in microphones really fail to deliver when making phone calls, so if chatting on the go is something you do, these Phiaton Curve earphones will make you happy. Holding down the center function button on the remote will activate Siri on an iOS device or Google Assist on an Android phone. With an increasing number of voice commands for music apps, this is a useful feature that means you can choose the music you want to listen to without having to handle your smartphone while exercising.
The Bluetooth version on these earphones supports multipoint connectivity which means it’s possible to listen to music being transmitted from one device while being paired to a second device for phone calls, such as a business phone. This is very handy for people who have to use a business phone but who aren’t allowed to keep music stored on it. No problem, just take your personal smartphone or music player with you for serving up the tunes.
As mentioned earlier, these Phiaton Curve earphones include a noise-canceling function that monitors ambient sound and filters out (according to Phiaton) up to 95% of annoying external noises. Personally, I don’t think the noise-canceling function is as good as noise-canceling headphones, such as the excellent Sony WH-1000XM3, but then they are considerably cheaper.
In real-world use, the Curve BT120NC provide lots of playing time and I found that it was easily possible to get five hours of listening from a two-hour charge with the earphones set at about a third of the volume. It's quoted as offering up to eight hours from a full charge. Another excellent point about these earphones is that they really can go quite loud, which is not always the case with some Bluetooth earphones. That extra volume is handy when used in conjunction with the nose-cancelling feature as it helps to cut out the noise of exercise machines and other gym noises.
Verdict: These affordable Phiaton Curve BT120NC earphones offer great battery life, surprisingly good sound and plenty of volume. The water-resistance and noise-canceling function make them ideal for use in the gym where you’re more likely to want comfort and volume rather than audiophile sound quality. On paper, they don’t look to be cutting edge, but in practice, these earphones serve up great sound in a convenient and comfortable package.
Pricing: $79
More info: https://phiaton.com/product/bt-120-nc/
Specifications: | www.forbes.com | These New Wireless Earphones Will Make Exercising Less Painful | https://www.forbes.com/sites/marksparrow/2019/01/01/these-new-wireless-earphones-will-make-exercising-less-painful/ | 2019-01-01 |
Robert Laura | 2019-01-01 17:45:26+00:00 | 2019-01-01 17:03:00 | Simple questions to make sure your advisor is working for you | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Frobertlaura%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fthree-things-to-ask-your-financial-advisor-right-now%2F.json | en | There are a lot of people who refer to themselves as financial professionals and it’s important for investors to understand which type of professional they are working with, how they are being compensated, and what they are doing for the money.
1) What’s the plan for 2019?
When it comes to managing your money, there should always be a strategy in place. If you don’t have a strategy with some goals, how can you know if it’s working or not. Unfortunately, many advisors sell packaged products with asset allocations that may rebalance but don’t adjust to market conditions. For example, over the last year, we have been in a rising interest rate environment, saw signs of inflation earlier in the year, and the market dropped in the last quarter by almost 20%.
A strategy that adapts to the markets over time might include a shift to lower duration bonds to combat rising rates. Inflation protected securities that capitalize on higher prices and economic growth, and some activity in your account when markets are down. When markets drop like this, there is no better time to upgrade your holdings and reposition for income, especially for people near or already in retirement.
That doesn’t mean you have to change all of your holdings, but if your advisor’s strategy for your money is the same as it was in 2018, 2017, and so on, then you are not paying for advice, you’re paying for a product. (Please note: I don’t think you should have to ask what the strategy is since they should be telling you in the first place).
2) How Much Am I Paying You?
This is an important question to ask your advisor, and don’t let them skirt around it. Some professionals will say something like, “You don’t pay me anything, the companies I work with pay me.” Okay, great, how much money are they paying you for my business. How much do you get up front and ongoing?
The reality is, we are professionals and make a living doing this, so there are costs. But that being said, we should be able to clearly articulate any and all costs. Therefore, take extra precaution to any professional who appears uncomfortable or is unable to answer the cost question as they are likely peddling high cost products that may impact your long-term returns.
The cost question should end at how much they are making, but also include discussions for the products and services they are offering. Be on the lookout for index annuities with high administration fees in the subaccounts, mutual funds with the letters A, B, or C at the end, and always ask how much trades cost. Believe it or not, despite the fact that people can get trades for $7-$10 on many platforms, some advisors are still charging $50-$100 for a trade.
3) What Do I Get For The Money?
Whether you paid your advisor a flat-fee up front, they receive commissions, or there is an Assets Under Management (AUM) charge, you should know what you get for the money and feel good about it. Many investors don’t ask this question or consider how important it is when markets are hitting new highs and your account value is moving up.
However, when markets reverse course and turn in a negative return for the year, their thinking changes. People begin to wonder why their advisor is still making money, but they aren’t. Obviously, if they are offering other services, there is more perceived value.
By having a plan going forward, knowing how much it’s going to cost you, and what you get for the money, investors can better weigh their relationship with their advisor and the benefit it provides to their long-term financial health. | www.forbes.com | Three Things To Ask Your Financial Advisor Right Now | https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlaura/2019/01/01/three-things-to-ask-your-financial-advisor-right-now/ | 2019-01-01 |
Paul Tassi | 2019-01-01 14:45:57+00:00 | 2019-01-01 14:20:00 | Season 2 of The Punisher on Netflix is bringing a villain that is sure to be controversial. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Finsertcoin%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fbuckle-up-the-punishers-season-2-villain-is-an-alt-right-christian-fundamentalist%2F.json | en | The Punisher is doomed.
It’s a weird situation, seeing a show march forward to release a new season when it’s almost certain that no matter how good it is or how well it does, it will end up cancelled regardless. But that’s the situation all of Netflix’s Marvel shows are in, as through no real fault of their own, the streaming wars between Disney and Netflix have resulted in Iron Fist, Luke Cage and Daredevil being cancelled already, with The Punisher and Jessica Jones sure to follow after they air their new seasons.
That’s a shame, given that Punisher season 1 was fantastic and my favorite show of last year. If season 2 is anywhere close to that good, it will be a shame for Netflix to lose it, but if they don’t fully own the rights, it’s gone, a concept we’re seeing expand beyond Marvel and into other great shows like American Vandal as well.
New details are emerging about The Punisher season 2, and it seems the show is determined to go out with a bang, the pun being unavoidable. According to information gleaned from a Collider set visit, a season 2 villain will not just be the put-back-together Billy as Jigsaw, but it will also feature Josh Stewart as John Pilgrim, who has no direct comic equivalent, though some have compared him to The Mennonite. But there isn’t really that much to go off of with The Mennonite, and it’s clear what the show is trying to do with Pilgrim instead.
“On the exterior, he’s a man who is a Christian Fundamentalist who had a rage, a violent side of him,” Stewart said, according to Collider. “It’s buried deep. I think where this is all headed, that sort of side of him is going to resurface a bit.” Pilgrim is also described as “Alt-Right.”
So yep, season 2’s villain is an alt-right Christian fundamentalist in a time when actual alt-right Christian fundamentalists are in a position of power in the US, though they usually hate both the terms “alt-right” and “fundamentalist” at this point. They’re also likely to be very, very vocal about the decision to be made the bad guys in a season of The Punisher, but this is clearly being done for a very specific reason.
The Punisher’s trademark skull has been adopted as a sort of symbol for many people in the alt-right movement, and he has been sort of a conservative, gun-toting icon for a long while now, even before these labels existed. And The Punisher himself, Jon Berenthal, hates that, and makes no bones about it.
When asked about the alt-right members wearing Punisher logos in the Charlottesville protests earlier this year, Berenthal said simply “f--- them,” and this season seems likely to draw a clear line between The Punisher and this crowd by way of John Pilgrim.
It’s also significant that the villain is being specifically described as Christian as well, which other pieces of pop culture have gone out of their way to avoid, like Far Cry 5’s non-denominational cult this past year, even though it had clear Christian influences.
It may be tough to explain why Frank should not be the poster child of “good guy with a gun” proponents, given his bullet-laden problem solving skills, but I think a key point about this iteration of The Punisher is that Frank does not want to be who he is, and only reacts when provoked. He doesn’t view himself as a hero or someone to be emulated, he’s doing what he does because he has to, no more, no less.
I am certainly eager to see how season 2 players out when it’s released this January. And I expect controversy, and unfortunately, cancellation, to follow. | www.forbes.com | Buckle Up, The Punisher's Season 2 Villain Is An Alt-Right Christian Fundamentalist | https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2019/01/01/buckle-up-the-punishers-season-2-villain-is-an-alt-right-christian-fundamentalist/ | 2019-01-01 |
Huileng Tan | 2019-01-02 02:41:13+00:00 | 2019-01-01 20:31:34 | Results of a private survey on China's manufacturing for the month of December showed factory activity contracted amid a trade dispute with the U.S. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2019%2F01%2F02%2Fchina-reports-december-caixin-manufacturing-purchasing-managers-index.html.json | en | Results of a private survey on China's manufacturing for the month of December showed factory activity contracted for the first time in 19 months amid a trade dispute with the U.S.
The Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' index (PMI), a private survey, fell to 49.7 in December from 50.2 in November. Analysts' in a Reuters poll predicted the PMI to come in at 50.1 in December.
A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below that level signals contraction.
In December, two separate measures for new orders and new export orders showed contraction, the Caixin survey showed.
"That showed external demand remained subdued due to the trade frictions between China and the U.S., while domestic demand weakened more notably," wrote Zhengsheng Zhong, director of macroeconomic analysis at CEBM Group, a subsidiary of Caixin.
"It is looking increasingly likely that the Chinese economy may come under greater downward pressure," Zhong added in the press release.
Economic data from the world's second-largest economy is being closely watched for signs of damage inflicted by the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing.
Official manufacturing PMI released on Monday showed a slowdown in activity for the month of December as the sector contracted for the first time in more than two years, dropping below the critical 50 level.
The private survey focuses on small and medium-sized enterprises, while the official PMI gauge focuses on large companies and state-owned enterprises.
At the beginning of December, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day ceasefire that delayed the planned U.S. increase of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods that were initially due to take effect on Jan. 1, while the two sides negotiated a trade deal.
On Saturday, Trump said on Twitter that he had a "long and very good call" with Xi and that a possible trade deal between the two countries was progressing well.
Yet beyond the tariffs battle, China's economy has been facing its own domestic headwinds. Even before the escalation in trade tensions with the U.S. this year, Beijing was already trying to manage a slowdown in its economy after three decades of breakneck growth.
The situation on the ground in China may look worse than any numbers suggest, one analyst told CNBC.
"I do believe, of course, the economy in China is decelerating. I do believe the numbers are worse than reported, of course, in that type of political environment where there's strong censorship, where media is essentially prevented from reporting," said Alex Capri, a visiting senior fellow at NUS Business School.
— Reuters contributed to this report. | www.cnbc.com | China reports December Caixin manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/02/china-reports-december-caixin-manufacturing-purchasing-managers-index.html | 2019-01-01 |
Meredith Ochs | 2019-01-01 23:00:41+00:00 | 2019-01-01 | When The Byrds released "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" in 1968, it was a commercial failure. A century after its debut, the album has become a classic. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2F681442532%2Fhow-the-byrds-sweetheart-of-the-rodeo-became-a-classic-50-years-after-its-debut%3Futm_medium%3DRSS%26utm_campaign%3Dstoriesfromnpr.json | en | How The Byrds' 'Sweetheart Of The Rodeo' Became A Classic 50 Years After Its Debut When The Byrds released "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" in 1968, it was a commercial failure. A century after its debut, the album has become a classic. | www.npr.org | How The Byrds' 'Sweetheart Of The Rodeo' Became A Classic 50 Years After Its Debut | https://www.npr.org/2019/01/01/681442532/how-the-byrds-sweetheart-of-the-rodeo-became-a-classic-50-years-after-its-debut?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=storiesfromnpr | 2019-01-01 |
Brennan Barnard | 2019-01-01 13:15:03+00:00 | 2019-01-01 12:55:00 | The new year provides an opportunity to review what is working and what is not. The college admission experience could certainly use less finger pointing and more constructive collaboration. Here is how everyone involved can resolve to do better. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fbrennanbarnard%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fa-new-year-in-college-admission%2F.json | en | My family had a New Year’s tradition that was different than most, one that often led to tears and retribution between me and my brothers. At breakfast on January 1st every year, we gathered around pancakes, and instead of crafting our own New Year’s resolutions, the group would decide what each family member should commit to change or improve in the coming year. Having a spotlight on our shortcomings was no picnic, as you can imagine, but in retrospect, it was a valuable exercise.
College admission is an imperfect system. With each new year, it grows more complicated, and produces more anxiety and finger-pointing, for everyone involved. It’s easy enough to assign blame, but rarely are we willing to address our role. So, in the spirit of the Barnard family tradition, I want to suggest two simple New Year’s resolutions to all the constituents involved in college admission: communication and kindness. Imagine the ways that our culture could start to heal if we all stopped blaming each other, and instead of defaulting to extremes, embraced the ways we can contribute to a healthier global community. Whether you are a student, a parent, or a high school or college educator, this coming year I beg you to continually ask yourself, “what am I doing to be a better communicator and to be more kind?”
Students
As an applicant, it is too easy to approach college admission passively. The whole process may feel like something that happens to you, but in reality, it is full of opportunity to own the experience and exert choice. Your generation is poised to be the most accepting and inclusive generation ever, and if you can look at admission to college not as a “Hunger Games” competition or prize to be won, then it will be a much more collaborative, enjoyable, and meaningful. So in 2019, resolve for more:
Communication. Look, I get it, I was a teenager once and now I have two of my own. I know that a free flow of communication with adults is not at the top of your priority list. When it comes to college admission, however, make it one. Whether you are a junior just beginning your college search, or a senior finishing applications and waiting for decisions, be sure that your parents and school counselor know what is going on with you. Tell them what you are excited about, what you are afraid of, and the areas where you need support or perhaps a little breathing room. A free flow of information will keep everyone more grounded and unified. And speaking of communication, when you learn decisions from colleges, by all means, share this with the teachers and others who advocated for you. Let them understand your disappointment or include them in the celebrations.
Kindness. Maybe you are a straight-A student in high school with strong standardized testing. You have toiled over your essay and done everything else that our culture tells you is a must to be a competitive applicant. Now ask yourself this, “how have I demonstrated kindness?” Not in a manufactured way as another “checkbox” for admission but genuine, authentic compassion for yourself and others. Be kind primarily because it is moral and will help make the world a better place. As a byproduct, you will likely find that doors to your future open wide. Whitney Soule, dean of admissions and student aid at Bowdoin College explains that,
Operating from a place of care and concern for others, understanding that you are in relation to others – all the time – is incredibly important for how students open themselves to learning. If students are generally aware of others, interested in their well-being, thoughts, feelings, and needs – in addition to their own – then they are better equipped to take in new information, test it, consider it, and problem solve it with more perspectives and options than what they would have started with on their own. Plus, it’s a kind and positive approach to being stretched, challenged, and acknowledged.
With the goal of building a college community that supports these values, she adds,
When we are selecting students for Bowdoin, we are looking for evidence of student’s willingness to be in a considerate space, a relational environment that will require resolve and generosity to confront stressful information, situations, choices and to grow. We find these qualities in how students spend their time, what they choose to write about, and how others describe them. And those examples are not always showing up in connected dots that make straight lines. Sometimes the signals are subtle. But we know what we are looking for because we have evidence of it in our community with each new class.
The take-home message is that if you are sincerely kind, it will be naturally evident as admission offices review your application, and it matters.
Parents
Admission to college for our children can feel like the final exam and litmus test of the first two decades of parenting: did we do it right? It’s the wrong question. As teens approach this experience, it is important to separate ourselves from their journey and refuse to see it as a referendum on us, a chance for a do-over, or a test of anything. With that in mind, if you have a student who is in the midst of searching for, or applying to, college, resolve for more:
Communication. Every parent would love better communication from their teen, but we also must consider our role. It is easy to assume that our children know our perspective, but it is important to be more direct in articulating our intentions. Talk to your children about your hopes and fears for their future, and why this can make you act a little crazy sometimes. Be honest about your biases as they look at colleges and then work hard to address your preconceptions on your own, rather than saddle your children with the weight of your expectations. Be upfront about family finances and other factors that will influence the college search. By resolving to be more transparent you are more likely to enjoy 2019 with your child.
Kindness. The kindest thing we can do for our children is to empower them to make their own decisions and mistakes. We must listen to what they are saying and allow them to stand on their own two feet before they have launched off to college. By modeling kindness and dedication to others, we can show our children that it is who they are and what they do that matters, rather than acceptance to any given college.
High Schools
Mediators, guides, teachers, protectors, a source of inspiration—the roles of high schools are many. While not every student who graduates from secondary schools is destined for college, our nation’s high schools still have a responsibility to provide the foundation and opportunities for those who wish to follow this path. When it comes to college admission, the messages and framework that schools establish for approaching this experience are crucial, and in 2019 high schools can resolve to focus on:
Communication. What are the messages that high schools send about college admission? Are they consistent to students of all backgrounds? Too often schools feel at the mercy of admission to college and before long, every aspect of high school becomes about how to position students as applicants, rather than developing young people. Secondary educators can resolve to talk openly with students and parents about the difference between college preparation and college obsession. They can also be aware of the subtle cues that students take from how teachers and counselors talk about specific colleges and what is “acceptable.”
Kindness. The best way for high schools to promote kindness is to create spaces for students to experiment with it that are not framed around admission to college. Schools can also build daily schedules that are humane and allow for exploration, innovation, and play. Kindness means setting clear limitations that protect students from their own propensity, and that of their parents, towards trying to do and be everything in the name of a college acceptance.
Colleges
“With great power comes great responsibility”—so said Uncle Ben to Peter Parker in Spiderman, though it is surely older than that. Nowhere is this more applicable than in college admission—like it or not, the truth is that the power that admission offices have in evaluating applicants trickles down, dictating many of the decisions and actions of high schools, parents and students. With this reality in mind, colleges can resolve in 2019 to improve:
Communication. Often what families read or hear from colleges becomes gospel, guiding their every move. Admission offices explain that competitive applicants take the most challenging classes offered by their high school, and soon students have loaded up on every advanced course in the curriculum guide and are spending four hours each night on homework. Colleges encourage students to find their passion and suddenly students feel like they must be sure of their future and career choice. Colleges publish rankings in their marketing materials and families begin to believe that they should be making decisions based on a school’s position rather than opportunities offered. The list goes on, which is why colleges should resolve to do an internal review of the unintended consequences of their messaging.
Kindness. What would a kinder admission experience look like? Less standardized testing? A limit on the number of activities a student can report? A more developmentally appropriate timeline for submitting applications or a lower cap on the percentage of their incoming class that is filled through early admission? More candor about the chances of admission? Perhaps colleges could resolve to ask students and their parents how the experience could be more meaningful and less stressful. In the meantime, schools can take Bowdoin College’s lead and agree to keep reinforcing the importance of students expressing concern and commitment to others.
New Year’s resolutions are meant to be lofty and are often most successful when they are collaborative, even if they can be hard to hear or achieve. Rarely did my family members end the year having accomplished everything that we hoped to. However, we resisted pointing fingers and bet on the best intentions of each other. That alone allowed us to move the needle on our resolutions and has had a lasting impact on each of us. | www.forbes.com | A New Year In College Admission | https://www.forbes.com/sites/brennanbarnard/2019/01/01/a-new-year-in-college-admission/ | 2019-01-01 |
Dave Thier | 2019-01-01 14:45:10+00:00 | 2019-01-01 14:25:00 | The Day 14 Challenge in the 14 Days of Fortnite asks you to open 14 Chests. Here's how to do it and what you'll get as a reward. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fdavidthier%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2F14-days-of-fortnite-final-challenge-how-to-search-14-chests-and-earn-the-reward%2F.json | en | It's been a good run, these 14 Days of Fortnite. We've had what I might consider one of the greatest cosmetics that Epic Games has made yet, we've had some creative challenges, we've had an epic New Year's celebration, and we even had a snowy Christmas Day with a light snowfall over the entire map. Now, it's time to close things out. It's the last day of the 14 Days of Fortnite, with a pretty straightforward challenge that shouldn't be too hard to complete.
The day 14 challenge asks you to search 14 chests, which is just about the most straightforward challenge you can do in the game. Chests are found more or less everywhere, and you'll get a couple in any given game even if you aren't particularly trying.
If you just downloaded this thing on your new gaming platform, however, you're looking for a glowing golden chest that randomly spawns in structures or by trees and rocks. The easiest way to find it is with a grand, shimmery sort of noise: you'll know it when you hear it, it sounds like treasure. Just follow that for your chest. If you're playing on mobile, you'll see a little golden indicator with a treasure chest icon in the direction of the chest. You may need to build up into an attic or onto a ledge to get it.
Your reward for completing this challenge isn't bad: it's the "equalizer" glider, with flashing LEDs to match either DJ Yonder or DJ Bop: DJ Yonder was in the Season 6 battle pass, and DJ Bop is in the Item Shop right now. Both fit the New Year's Eve theme pretty handily.
Epic has stepped up its game for limited time event in recent months. The 14 days of Fortnite was a treasure trove of free items for players new and old, and that came hot on the heels of the expansive Fortnitemares event, which flooded the map with AI-controlled zombies. It bodes well for the year to come: Fortnite was arguably the biggest gaming story of 2018, but there's no sign that it's slowing down any time soon. | www.forbes.com | '14 Days Of Fortnite' Final Challenge: How To Search 14 Chests And Earn The Reward | https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2019/01/01/14-days-of-fortnite-final-challenge-how-to-search-14-chests-and-earn-the-reward/ | 2019-01-01 |
Shanon Lee | 2019-01-01 05:45:28+00:00 | 2019-01-01 04:37:00 | Along with allegations of sexual misconduct from various women, the Lifetime documentary addresses Kelly's relationship with late R&B star Aaliyah. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fshanonlee%2F2018%2F12%2F31%2Fdisturbing-details-of-r-kellys-relationship-with-aaliyah-resurface-in-new-documentary%2F.json | en | Ahead of the January 3rd premiere of Lifetime’s new documentary, Surviving R. Kelly, reports of the defamed R&B star's marriage to late singer Aaliyah have resurfaced.
R&B singer and producer R. Kelly secretly married a then 15-year-old Aaliyah in 1994, the same year her solo album debuted. Kelly met Aaliyah at the age of 12 and produced music for her, three years later they tied the knot. Though Kelly denies reports, the press uncovered a marriage certificate. The marriage was reportedly annulled, but Kelly continues to deny their nuptials - claiming they were close friends.
Aliyah was tragically killed in a plane crash at the age of 22.
Along with allegations of sexual misconduct by various women, the documentary includes the testimony of a former backup singer that claims Kelly had sex with Aaliyah on a tour bus occupied by his entourage when she was only 15 and he was 27.
For decades, Kelly has been accused of sexually abusing girls and women - often under the guise of offering to them help with their music career. In 2009, Kelly was acquitted of child pornography charges after a jury trial. Most recently, he was accused of imprisoning women in a sex cult.
Kelly continues to release music and perform in concerts across the country, though mounting sexual assault allegations have diminished his popularity. In September, a concert at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater was canceled. Though reps claimed it was due to inclement weather, low ticket sales may have also played a factor. | www.forbes.com | Disturbing Details Of R. Kelly's Relationship With Aaliyah Resurface In New Documentary | https://www.forbes.com/sites/shanonlee/2018/12/31/disturbing-details-of-r-kellys-relationship-with-aaliyah-resurface-in-new-documentary/ | 2019-01-01 |
Jane Claire Hervey | 2019-01-01 05:45:33+00:00 | 2019-01-01 04:13:00 | To be a leader is to be a creator. Whether you're a builder of timelines, a maker of company of culture or a designer of operations, leadership requires vision. You have to inspire others to do the work. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fjaneclairehervey%2F2018%2F12%2F31%2F5-lessons-in-creative-leadership-to-take-into-2019%2F.json | en | To be a leader is to be a creator. Whether you're a builder of timelines, a maker of company of culture or a designer of operations, leadership requires vision. You have to inspire others to do the work.
This year, I had the pleasure of interviewing so many incredible creative women from all over the globe, from actress and creative entrepreneur Karyn Parsons to music video director Hannah Lux Davis. And with every interview, I heard stories of resilience—lessons in brave creative leadership, resourceful decision-making and bold ambition.
So, as we head into 2019, I'd like to share the five key lessons I gleaned from the 51 pieces I wrote on creative entrepreneurship in 2018. I hope you learn just as much from these five entrepreneurs as I did.
1.) Show up and set the tone.
When you're leading a team or self-employed, it's on you to show up for your staff and for yourself. You have to push through moments of disappointment and doubt. You must show up and do the work. "On a daily basis, as an artist—or generally people who are creative-inclined—we’re just self-critical. There are times when everyday feels like a failure. There are times when I go to the studio and I am just sitting there and everything feels wrong. Or I feel like my career is falling apart and I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. At some level, there’s a part of you that has to treat it like a job. You have to go in and you have to sit there and you’re going to stare at your work even if you don’t make it. You have to work through it. You can’t stop. You can’t give up. My grand theory is that if you don’t give up, you can’t fail," artist and painter Hiba Schahbaz said.
2.) Invest in your operations. Invest in your team.
In order to establish a solid company culture, you must understand your business' values and you must have the capacity to articulate these values to others. So, don't skimp on the foundation of your business. Take time on your mission, your goals and your team. "My personal leadership style is to invest in really great, well-matched team members, give them the tools to do their job and then the freedom to be creative with their own approach while offering support when needed," Meg Erskine, CEO and co-founder of Open Arms Studio said.
3.) Stay focused and lean.
When you're running your own business, it can be easy to compare your entrepreneurial journey to others. And when we compare, we oftentimes go after milestones or symbols that have nothing to do with our company's actual success. So, stay focused. "Keep your overhead low and diversify your income streams. There may be pressures to live beyond your means–wait on all that. Until you are making passive income, have steady funds for three years or more, or you win the lottery, keep that overhead low. Any extra income should be saved or invested," DJ and creative entrepreneur Jasmine Solano said.
4.) Create the business you'd like to see in the world.
When you feel like giving up, remember why you started. As an entrepreneur, you have the ability to create something new for yourself and your team everyday. Take advantage of that privilege. "Our gut feelings are actually a really big part of how we operate. We’re discerning in the kinds of projects we take on board and which collaborators we decide to work with, but we tend to know when a thing feels right and when it works for us and we try not to overthink it. We move forward and we take action. In terms of starting this company, as well, we all had a desire to rethink the corporate structure we operate within in the film industry. Sure, you can sit in an office from nine to five or nine to ten, but you can also work from home one day. There are many different ways to work, and for us it is really about that, the work. It’s about getting the job done, and making sure that everyone who works with us and everyone who works at the company is happy and has a healthy work-life balance," film producer and co-founder of Nowhere Studio, Maria Kongsved, said.
5.) Remember—your future, or your company's future, is not limited by the scope of others' opinions.
You will face rejection. You may not get the client you want, you might fail at a big project, or you may realize you need to change course. That's part of the process. "I’m a badass woman and I am a good artist. I’m not going to let someone who doesn’t make art define my art. What artists share with the public is a reflection of our true selves. And everybody doesn’t like everybody in real life, and it needs to be looked at that way. Just because you don't get the gig you want, it just might mean that gig is not for you. And every time I forget that, the universe just hits me with someone better than the thing I wanted so badly," singer-songwriter and lead singer of The Suffers said. | www.forbes.com | 5 Lessons In Creative Leadership To Take Into 2019 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/janeclairehervey/2018/12/31/5-lessons-in-creative-leadership-to-take-into-2019/ | 2019-01-01 |
Jim Blasingame | 2019-01-01 17:45:06+00:00 | 2019-01-01 16:46:00 | The Information Age can level the playing field for small businesses and empower them as never before. But it can take them down if they become victims of its worst aspects, like getting caught up in Availability Cascade. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fjimblasingame%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fthe-real-price-of-free-information%2F.json | en | Standing here on the threshold of the third decade of the 21st century, we've watched the Digital Age transmogrify into the Information Age. Now awash with a digital record of everything that's ever been said, written or happened, from area news to Aristotle's ethical teachings, the barrier to whatever else we need or want to know is literally no higher than the tap of a finger. And if being up-to-the-minute isn't fast enough, we now have the world, and parts of the cosmos, available in real-time.
And all of this information is a good thing—until it isn't. In his song "Against the Wind," Bob Seger lamented that deadlines and commitments made him have to decide, "What to leave in, what to leave out." As digitally driven information morphs from handy to firehose overload, we have to learn how to consume it with increasing discernment—what to leave in, what to leave out.
As the children of the Information Age, we're constantly and increasingly at risk of becoming victims and/or purveyors of a potentially dangerous phenomenon: Availability Cascade. It occurs when we're exposed to something so much—a maxim, a meme, misinformation or disinformation—that we begin to accept it as truth and reality, and worse, act on it without confirming accuracy or relevance. Here's an old story from the Analog Age that demonstrates the power of Availability Cascade.
A busy baker saw this headline on a newspaper: "Economy headed for recession." Reacting to this "information," he cut his flour order in half. In a matter of days, the local miller was compelled to reduce his wheat order from nearby farmers, who cancelled equipment orders with the manufacturer, who laid-off employees who now couldn't afford to eat at the restaurants that purchased the baker's bread, causing bread orders to crumble. In the economy, Availability Cascade is a circular process, like a tornado.
By the way, the day the baker cancelled his flour order, he had plenty of business. But now, out of business and locking up his shop for the last time, he happened to notice the paper where he'd previously seen the gloomy headline. Looking closer, this time at the date, he was shocked to see that the newspaper was decades old. Turns out, it had been part of a display his antique store neighbor was creating. By not checking the information against the reality in front of his very eyes, he became both the creator and victim of Availability Cascade.
Out here on Main Street, the baker in our world is Wall Street. Headlines like "Recession in 2019?" or "Will the Fed continue to raise rates?" or "Is Brexit Deal in Jeopardy?" or "Will there be a trade war?" are actual potential hazards. But when stock indexes move hundreds of points up and down in a single day on these headlines—for several days—they become the baker. Their thousand-point, single-day gyration hysteria produces a byproduct called, you guessed it: Availability Cascade. And like the baker, overreaction by the markets" has the potential to create a recession that wasn't going to happen. It's another example of the disconnect between Wall Street and the Main Street economy—where you and I operate and from which real GDP performance is measured.
Today, it seems most information is free. But the information you can depend on, and use safely, isn't. Remember, Availability Cascade is just two-dimensional information until someone gives it life and legs by acting on it without jaundiced eye verification and skeptical ear due diligence. Today, free and easy "Breaking News" comes with a price: the responsibility to become discerning consumers of Information Age information. Especially today, in particular right now, regarding economic news and reporting.
Small business owners, the Information Age can level the playing field and empower us as never before. But it can take us down if we become victims of its worst aspects, like getting caught up in Availability Cascade. We can do our part to avoid talking ourselves into a recession with three steps:
1. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions about the fundamental economic conditions in front of you.
2. Spend more time listening to what customers need and want.
3. Spend less time listening to talking heads and the wildebeest herds known as Wall Street.
Write this on a rock ... If things are good with your business, say that—out loud—to whoever will listen. There's no law against a good news Availability Cascade? It could happen. | www.forbes.com | The Real Price Of Free Information | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimblasingame/2019/01/01/the-real-price-of-free-information/ | 2019-01-01 |
Stefan Becket | 2019-01-01 21:44:35+00:00 | 2019-01-01 20:58:57 | Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida, said the child was taking part in a "hands-on, educational experience" with the zoo's southern white rhinos | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Fchild-falls-into-rhinoceros-exhibit-at-brevard-zoo-in-melbourne-florida%2F.json | en | The rhinoceros enclosure at Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida. Brevard Zoo
A child was taken to the hospital after stumbling into a rhinoceros exhibit at a Florida zoo and coming into contact with one of the animals, officials said Tuesday.
Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida, said the child was taking part in a "hands-on, educational experience" with the zoo's southern white rhinos when he or she apparently fell between steel poles separating guests from the rhino yard. The zoo is about 50 miles southeast of Orlando.
In a statement, the zoo said "the snout of at least one of rhinoceroses made contact with the child." Spokesman Elliot Zirulnik told CBS affiliate WKMG-TV the snout is defined as the area below the animal's horn.
The child was rescued and taken to the Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in Orlando, WKMG reported. The child's condition and the nature of the injuries is unclear. The child's mother was also transported to a local hospital for unspecified treatment.
"Our number one concern is the safety and welfare of our guests and our hearts go out to the family," the zoo's executive director Keith Winsten said. "Safety has always been of paramount importance to us and we are suspending these encounters until we have thoroughly reviewed our processes and procedures to ensure this cannot happen again."
The zoo said the "Rhino Encounters" had been held daily without incident for about a decade.
Brevard Zoo is home to four southern white rhinos, including two males and two females, according to its website. Frankie, a 16-year-old, 5,200 pound male, arrived at the zoo in October. | www.cbsnews.com | Child falls into rhinoceros exhibit at Florida zoo | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/child-falls-into-rhinoceros-exhibit-at-brevard-zoo-in-melbourne-florida/ | 2019-01-01 |
Sally Adams | 2019-01-01 11:55:02+00:00 | 2019-01-01 11:00:10 | From black coffee to a hair of the dog – here's the science behind popular hangover remedies | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Ffive-popular-hangover-cures-reviewed-by-experts%2F.json | en | Sally Adams is a lecturer in Health Psychology at University of Bath in the U.K. Craig Gunn is a PhD Candidate at University of Bath.
It's a common misconception that hangovers are mainly the result of dehydration. An evening of heavy drinking can lead to inflammation of the stomach and intestines, poor-quality sleep and the production of toxic substances that lead to vomiting, sweating and an increased heart rate. Research also suggests that hangovers can hamper the ability to concentrate and remember information.
What research has not given us, though, is credible evidence for a "hangover cure." The revels of New Year's Eve will leave many bleary-eyed and reaching for a remedy, so here's the evidence behind what works – and what doesn't.
1: Water
Dehydration is one of the most frequently reported symptoms of hangover. Alcohol is a diuretic – in other words, it makes us urinate more often. Having around four drinks can eliminate between 600 and 1,000mL of water from your body.
How much water do you really need to stay healthy?
Heavy alcohol consumption can also cause sweating, vomiting and diarrhea, which also cause the body to lose fluids. As a result, dehydration leads to symptoms including thirst, weakness, dry mouth and light-headedness.
Drinking water may relive some of these symptoms, but dehydration is also typically accompanied with electrolyte imbalance. A combination of water and an electrolyte supplement can therefore tackle some of the symptoms of your hangover – but by no means all of them.
2: The old-fashioned fry-up
Perhaps one of the most traditional remedies for a hangover is a plate of greasy bacon and eggs. But is the fry-up the holy grail of cures it promises to be? Foods such as bacon, eggs and even broccoli contain an amino acid called cysteine, which scientists claim can decrease the amount of the toxic chemical acetaldehyde, which is produced as your body metabolizes alcohol.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
Acetaldehyde contributes to hangover symptoms such as increased heart rate, nausea and vomiting, but there is very limited research supporting the benefits of certain foods as hangover cures. That said, eating a meal with protein, fat and carbohydrate before alcohol consumption has been shown to slow the absorption of alcohol, so as the old saying goes it may good to "line your stomach."
3: Caffeine
One of the reasons we feel so awful after drinking is down to the effects that alcohol has on our sleep. Alcohol-induced sleep can be shorter and poorer quality, but the tiredness you feel can be reversed by the nation's favorite stimulant – caffeine.
Evidence suggests that people who regularly drink caffeine develop a physical dependency to the drug, which explains why some people need their morning fix. But for these people, a cup of tea or coffee during a hangover may not be enough to address the deficits in thought processes and reaction times.
There's also evidence to suggest that people who don't usually have caffeine do not have the same effects of improved performance and alertness seen in regular users.
4: Hair of the dog
During a hangover, many people will say "I'm never drinking again" – but others swear by the "hair of the dog" to relieve their symptoms. The fact is, drinking during a hangover can be downright dangerous. Vital organs such as the liver need time to repair the damage caused by a session of heavy drinking. In the U.K., government guidelines recommend avoiding alcohol for 48 hours after a heavy drinking session.
What's more, using alcohol to "cure" a hangover could be indicative of an alcohol use disorder. Evidence suggests that getting more frequent hangovers is associated with an increased likelihood of developing problems with alcohol. It's not clear whether the hangover itself is what causes the problem drinking, or repeated heavy alcohol use. Regardless, as far as hangover cures go, this one is not recommended.
5: Medicine
Recently it seems more and more pharmaceutical products are being marketed to drinkers which claim to relieve hangover symptoms. These products often claim to work by increasing the speed at which one's body gets rid of the toxic chemical acetaldehyde. They also claim to reduce inflammation and address the chemical changes in our brain causes by alcohol that can impact our thought processes.
It should hardly come as a surprise that there is currently no evidence that any conventional or complimentary medicine can cure a hangover. It is unclear whether this is because these cures do not work or because their effectiveness has not been fully tested.
So, although these popular remedies may offer some relief from the symptoms of hangover, there's no evidence-based treatment or "cure." A hangover is a complex combination of physical and psychological symptoms, which are caused by several different processes in the body and brain.
What's more, few hangover treatments address impairments in concentration, memory and reaction times, or the low mood and increased anxiety frequently reported by sufferers. The only surefire way to avoid "the morning after the night before" is to drink alcohol in moderation – or not drink it at all.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. | www.cbsnews.com | Five popular hangover cures, reviewed by experts | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/five-popular-hangover-cures-reviewed-by-experts/ | 2019-01-01 |
Ian Stewart | 2019-01-01 20:54:43+00:00 | 2019-01-01 | Bolsonaro's path to the presidency was nearly cut short in September when he was stabbed while on the campaign trail, but he continued to rally supporters from his hospital bed. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2F681429911%2Fright-wing-populist-jair-bolsonaro-sworn-in-as-president-of-brazil%3Futm_medium%3DRSS%26utm_campaign%3Dnews.json | en | Right-Wing Populist Jair Bolsonaro Sworn In As President Of Brazil
Enlarge this image toggle caption Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images
A far-right populist who has been called the Donald Trump of Brazil has been sworn in as President of Latin America's most populous country.
Jair Bolsonaro, a retired Army captain who has no executive experience, has promised to crack down on criminals, roll back environmental regulations, restrict abortions and relax gun laws in Brazil.
Under tight security and with much ceremony, Bolsonaro took office Tuesday in the country's capital city, Brasilia; in the streets, firefighters misted enthusiastic crowds with water as they cheered on their new president.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo joined the conservative leaders of Israel and Hungary at the swearing-in. President Trump congratulated Bolsonaro on Twitter.
Bolsonaro's path to the presidency was nearly cut short in September when he was stabbed in a knife attack while on the campaign trail. But he continued to rally supporters from his hospital bed.
As NPR's Philip Reeves reports, Bolsonaro's landslide October election marked a hard turn right for a region that has had leftist leaders for decades.
His huge victory delivered a humiliating riposte to political pundits who, for much of his campaign, portrayed Bolsonaro as a showboating maverick who was about as likely to become president as he was to play in Brazil's star-studded soccer team. Bolsonaro, 63, takes charge amid a wave of optimism about his presidency among Brazilians who yearn for a solution to the country's chronic epidemic of crime and corruption. They warm to his promise of restoring traditional Christian family values and are profoundly disillusioned by the leftist politicians who have governed Brazil in recent years.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images Sergio Lima/AFP/Getty Images
But his right-wing politics have made others in Brazil nervous.
Some gay Brazilians rushed to marry before Bolsonaro took office; while he now says he doesn't have a problem with homosexuals, he previously called himself a proud homophobe and said he's rather have a dead son than a gay son.
Bolsonaro also directed his incoming foreign minister to cancel a global environmental conference the country was set to host, as NPR's Merrit Kennedy has reported. Speaking with the Associated Press, Bolsonaro said "environmental politics can't muddle with Brazil's development."
On Saturday, Bolsonaro tweeted that he would work to ensure every citizen without a criminal background can own a gun; he had previously said "good guys" with guns would help reduce violent crime in the country.
Bolsonaro has spoken admiringly of Brasil's military dictatorship in the 20th century, and promised a "cleansing" of his political opponents that would "wipe them off the map." But after his inauguration he spoke of peace for the people of Brazil and promised to respect democracy, according to Reuters.
"We have a great nation to rebuild," Bolsonaro said. | www.npr.org | Right-Wing Populist Jair Bolsonaro Sworn In As President Of Brazil | https://www.npr.org/2019/01/01/681429911/right-wing-populist-jair-bolsonaro-sworn-in-as-president-of-brazil?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news | 2019-01-01 |
Reid Frazier | 2019-01-02 01:20:40+00:00 | 2019-01-01 | The air is getting dirtier around the country's largest coke fuel plant near Pittsburgh. But the push to clean up pollution is complicated when residents depend on the industry that's causing it. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2F681197037%2Fpittsburgh-struggles-for-clean-air-as-nearby-towns-pollution-worsens%3Futm_medium%3DRSS%26utm_campaign%3Denvironment.json | en | Pittsburgh Struggles For Clean Air As Nearby Town's Pollution Worsens
The air is getting dirtier around the country's largest coke fuel plant near Pittsburgh. But the push to clean up pollution is complicated when residents depend on the industry that's causing it.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Since the passage of the Clean Air Act, air quality throughout the country has steadily gotten better but not everywhere. In one community near Pittsburgh, air pollution has actually been getting worse. Read Frazier of The Allegheny Front explains why.
REID FRAZIER, BYLINE: From her front porch, Collette Williams points out the lights from U.S. Steel's big plant a half-mile away.
COLLETTE WILLIAMS: So if you stand, like, on that over here or, like, if you look right in between that building right there, you can see the mill right there.
FRAZIER: The mill is U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works. The region's steel industry is a shell of what it once was. But the Clairton Works, about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh, remains North America's largest producer of coke, a key component of steelmaking. It's basically pure carbon made from baking coal at high temperatures. The process can create a lot of pollution.
WILLIAMS: That's, like, a white smoke. And then over there is, like, a dark smoke.
FRAZIER: According to the EPA, the air here is some of the worst in the country. It's a big concern for Williams, whose 13-year-old son SaVaughn has severe asthma. A long list of daily medications keeps his lungs open.
WILLIAMS: So that's his albuterol solution. That's what goes in a machine.
FRAZIER: About three years ago, his asthma started flaring up, leading to ER visits, more doctors and more medication. Around this time, regulators say, the plant's air pollution got worse. It's impossible to say whether SaVaughn's problems were linked to the Coke Works. But one research team found asthma rates for kids in Clairton are double the countywide rate.
WILLIAMS: I'm really hurt and upset about my son because he can't be a normal kid. He can't run around and go play and stay over other kids' houses because I don't know how his asthma is going to react.
FRAZIER: There are around 20 coke plants in the U.S. And many have violated clean air laws. In Clairton, it's been a problem for decades. Regulators reached major settlements with U.S. Steel over the plant's pollution violations in 1979, 1993, 2007, 2008, 2014 and 2016. But after every agreement, the plant would again fail to meet requirements.
JIM KELLY: Well, apparently, what we were doing in the past wasn't working.
FRAZIER: Jim Kelly is deputy director at the Allegheny County Health Department. In June, it tried something new. It issued an order threatening to idle parts of the plant if U.S. Steel didn't cut pollution.
KELLY: We're just not seeing that dedication to maintain the facility and maintain just good, basic operational practices.
FRAZIER: Chip Babst is an attorney for U.S. Steel, which is appealing the county's penalty.
CHIP BABST: To be honest, I would have to characterize it as aggressive and adversarial.
FRAZIER: Parts of the plant date to the '50s. Babst says the company has invested a lot to retrofit some older equipment. Environmental groups want the Coke Works to replace older units if it's going to stay open. But Babst doesn't think the plant needs new equipment to meet its requirements.
BABST: I mean, I guess you could always say new is better, but new is very, very expensive.
FRAZIER: The company says idling part of its operation would force dozens of layoffs and could damage expensive equipment. One man is especially worried about all of this.
RICH LATTANZI: My name is Mayor Rich Lattanzi, city of Clairton.
FRAZIER: Mayor Lattanzi works at another U.S. Steel plant nearby that processes steel made with coke from Clairton. The Coke Works makes up a third of the tax base of his city, which has been shrinking for decades.
LATTANZI: Do you realize what happened to the city of Clairton and the city school district if we closed that mill down? We would not be here today. We'd be like a ghost town.
Not a problem. I'm a safety guy.
(LAUGHTER)
FRAZIER: Lattanzi takes me on a drive by the plant and points up a hillside. He's 54 and remembers when pollution from the operation was so bad, this hill was bare. Now it's covered in trees.
LATTANZI: Years ago, nothing was able to grow - nothing. Even this right here's crazy to have trees here. It was all, like, stones and nothing.
FRAZIER: He says he wants clean air, too, but wants the plant to stay open. A decision on whether parts of the plant will have to be idled is expected in a few months. For NPR News, I'm Reid Frazier in Clairton, Pa.
(SOUNDBITE OF AUDITIVE ESCAPE'S "LIGHT RADIO")
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. | www.npr.org | Pittsburgh Struggles For Clean Air As Nearby Town's Pollution Worsens | https://www.npr.org/2019/01/01/681197037/pittsburgh-struggles-for-clean-air-as-nearby-towns-pollution-worsens?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=environment | 2019-01-01 |
Paulana Lamonier | 2019-01-01 13:15:23+00:00 | 2019-01-01 12:00:00 | The Haitian-American media mogul, author, and wife isn’t letting any obstacle or success stand in her way of reaching her purpose. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fplamonier%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fmona-scott-young-love-and-hip-hop%2F.json | en | For as long as I can remember I wanted to be in the media industry. If you check my Uniondale High School senior yearbook you’ll see I saw myself as a radio personality in 10 years – this June I’ll have hit my benchmark. I may not be like Angie Martinez, but I’m proud of the career I’ve created for myself as a journalist.
As the first-born child of Haitian immigrants initially I struggled with my dream, our parents aren’t known to be accepting or supportive of artistic endeavors. When it comes to your livelihood pursuing a respectable career like education and medicine is expected – journalism is a dream or serious hobby at most.
When I’d receive pushback or doubt from my parents I’d look to those in media I could relate to and follow their lead. At the top of this list was Mona Scott-Young a fellow Haitian-American, I felt she could understand the unique position I found myself - she knew the hurdles that come along with challenging cultural and societal expectations, yet still made it out on top.
After being in Los Angeles for the past few months shooting the fifth season of “Love & Hip Hop: Hollywood”, Scott-Young is back to her old stomping grounds of where it all started for the “Love & Hip Hop” brand — New York.
As her brand and interests evolve, personally and professionally, she is able to call the shots, creating the media and life she wants. “There’s a little bit more gravitas to this season, but I think it’s what people love and expect from New York, which is kind of our centerpiece and cornerstone city in the franchise,” Scott-Young tells me with excitement and vigor.
Nine years of providing entertainment, launching and reigniting careers of many in the music industry such as: Cardi B., K. Michelle, Joe Budden, Amara La Negra, Ray J., and expanding to cities across America; Atlanta, Miami, and Hollywood. Despite critiques on its portrayal of Black women in a bad light , Scott-Young sees the Love & Hip Hop brand as an opportunity maker.
“To have a franchise that represents our culture, our people and to have that kind of staying power and the ability to invent and reinvent as we expand into different cities to me that’s probably what I’m proudest of,” she said confidently. “[It’s] the ability to provide the jobs both in front of and behind the scenes... to women and people of color as well.”
For those unaware of Scott-Young and her industry resume “Love & Hip Hop” isn’t the first time she’s proved her business acumen. The entrepreneur and producer is the CEO of her multi-media entertainment company, Monami Entertainment and co-owner of Music Management Company – previously called Violator Management - where she’s managed iconic artists like Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes, helping artists secure deals with notable brands who were already benefiting from urban culture, but had yet to invest their money in urban artists.
Even with all this under her, she’s not slowing down - in true Mona fashion. With the true hustler spirit that she says was inherited from her mother, a functionally illiterate and ambitious woman who gave Scott-Young the ability to push through adversity that came her way.
Without a college degree, music, or Hollywood pedigree Scott-Young has created a media empire and is now an author of her first dramatic novel, “Blurred Lines” co-authored with Courtney Parker. She continues to reshape the narrative of what a Black woman can do, signing an overall production deal with Lionsgate where she has in development working on unscripted series and biopics.
In our phone interview, Scott-Young and I talk about the #MeToo Movement in hip-hop, reinventing yourself after 30, R. Kelly and how she considers this chapter of her life her second act. And on her days off she’s spending time with her family.
Paulana Lamonier: You’ve been behind the scenes in music and a music manager for some time. Do you think the #MeToo Movement will have the same impact on hip-hop as it’s having in Hollywood?
Mona Scott-Young: Well, that's kind of a loaded subject, right? Hip-hop is always known for the misogynistic lyrics, the treatment of women lyrically, and the struggle that they've had, finding a place for themselves as artists. So that certainly is an issue that exists, has always existed, and continues to exist in the culture.
But I think what we've also seen in terms of female artists is a taking back of that power, right? Dating back to Lil Kim, all the way through to Cardi and Nicki, everything that they've done for women in the game, asserting themselves, their power, and their positioning in the game. It's been a movement that has been some time in the making with women positioning themselves to take back their power.
When it comes to what happens at an executive level — it's not as widely talked about. I think that there are some instances where you hear about women in hip-hop, on the business front being exposed to and experiencing some of the same things that we're seeing in Hollywood. We've talked a lot about the struggles for women in hip-hop, especially in light of what we're seeing with a resurgence in women in hip-hop. But we also kind of talking about “what happened” in the studio for female artists and hip-hop. So, it does exist. No, it hasn't been tackled or addressed in the same way. I think that we're going to see some more of those stories bubbling up. And, we're even going to highlight one of those stories this season.
Lamonier: Some women are very tight-lipped and seeing the R. Kelly situation, although people know what is happening, people still try to separate the man from the artist.
Scott-Young: But you know, I think what has been evident in what we're seeing in Hollywood is that the two are one and the same when you're talking about artistry. Music at its purest form is supposed to be a reflection of the person creating that music and if you believe that person is who they are in their music, then that means that music you're supporting is a reflection of the person who created it. So I don't think you can separate the two in that way. We just have to start holding people accountable for their actions, their thoughts, and the things that they believe in , in a way that hopefully exposes some of the stuff that like you said, there have been excuses made for repeatedly.
Lamonier: You've accomplished so much, pivoting from music, television, consumer brands, and now books. When it comes to pivoting, what is it the first thing that you do when you want to try something new?
Scott-Young: It depends on the direction that I'm going in, but it always has to have some connection to where I am. As much as I love to explore and to be fearless moving into different areas, I never want to do it in a vacuum where it doesn't make sense. I recognize and respect the fact that you have to put in the work from square one every step of the way. Starting out in television, there was the opportunity for me to attach myself in a way that doesn’t happen in this industry. There was a cache to having celebrity clients and the ability to get what they call a vanity credit, but it was really about me understanding the business, learning about the business from the ground up, being a real contributor to the business.
And that's what I think I've managed to do the same thing when I transitioned into consumer products with Myx - this wasn't a celebrity attachment or ancillary business for me. It was a real company that we were starting from the ground up, I made it my business to learn as much as I could. I was up at 6:00 AM talking to sales teams before they went out into the field -I am never complacent and I never take any of my past success for granted as I move into a new business endeavor. I give the venture the attention, care, research, the knowledge base, and the hard work necessary to give it the best chance for success.
Lamonier: Do you have any interests outside of entertainment and media?
Scott-Young: I'm working on an entertainment based cruise, but it really ties together. Just the audience that I tapped into and the world that I've navigated both in music and in television. I’m taking that and creating an experience for those fans. I'm looking [to launch] in 2019, top of 2020 - It’s called the “I Love Hip Hop Cruise”.
Lamonier: You know, you're always working. I read that after you delivered your child you were trying to respond to emails. What does an off day look like?
Scott-Young: So it's really something that I've been I'm affording myself because I do recognize that life is precious and fleeting. Every single day that goes by the day you can't get back, I work at maximizing those days and giving it my all. But I recognize the need to fuel myself in the form of just a mental unplugged day or surrounding myself with friends and family, which is really important to me. They'll leave laughing when you say that, the minute that I have some down time, I want to bring everyone together and have a party. I'm cooking and hosting, but for me, that's really what makes me happy.
There’s so much that I want to accomplish and put in motion, I understand that's going to require my focus and my time as well. I don't want anything that I am involved in to not get that focused attention from me, so it’s a juggle and struggle that I recognize. I don't put unrealistic expectations on myself, I don't beat myself up when I'm not able to give the same kind of time to everything that I get dragged to every single day. I try to find that balance and sometimes I'm successful at it and other times, again, it's a struggle.
Lamonier: What would you call this chapter in your life right now?
Scott-Young: You know I'd refer to it as my second life, right? I've had the great fortune of being successful and impactful in music and here I am moving into a completely different genre of entertainment, hopefully having that same, not only measure of success but impact. It's an exciting chapter for me I have been blessed to have the opportunities that are presenting themselves. I think that there are so many things that I have been developing and focusing on that are finally coming to fruition. It's been an amazing ride so far, but I'm really excited and looking forward to this second phase of my life.
Lamonier: Tell me, what’s it’s been like writing your book “Blurred Lines” with Courtney Parker? How has the reception been and is there a part two coming out?
Scott-Young: We're still getting out of the gate by selling the book. We made the choice to sell the book directly, so it is available on Monami Direct , which is our own platform because eventually, the goal is to continue to build on the services and the products that we offer to MonamiDirect, so that we can not only have that engagement with the fans and the audience and the consumer base, we can open up the dialogue between them and between us and them.
We have had great reception to the book. We're going into the holidays, I'm hoping people purchased the book as a gift. It was a new business venture for me both on the selling side, and on the creative side. Courtney and I had a lot of fun conceptualizing and putting those ideas to paper. It was a fun process. I do think that the best case scenario would be to adapt this into a television or a film project. So that's kind of the long-term goal.
Lamonier: You’ve done so many interviews, what is one question you wished someone asked you?
Scott-Young: I talk a lot about, [maybe] where I am now versus where I thought I'd be. One of the things I like to do is leave folks who are curious about me with this idea that, you know, the sooner we recognize who we are, what our capabilities are and our mission, our purpose is, you know, the better off we are.
We spend a lot of time thinking about what [other] people think about us, but I'm talking about what we believe about ourselves, what we think about ourselves? I never had the benefit of a college education. And so for me, that was always this doubt that's nestled in the back of my head and I never really understood how that has manifested itself and held me back.
And it wasn't until, you know, as an adult, I really came to understand that this thing that I didn't have did not define what I was capable of. And once I understood and embraced that, I felt like it freed me up to really fully realize my potential. And even now, every single day I marvel and really enjoy surprising myself about the kinds of things that I tackle and accomplish every single day, let alone, you know, the bigger picture. So I always wanted to say to people, and this isn't about the cliché, love yourself. This is really about getting to know yourself, understanding yourself, identifying what those unique gifts are, and then believing in them, you know. Fuel them, utilize them, turn them on with the switch - whatever that thing is that allowed you to be the best you, get to that as soon as you can, however you can.
Once you're in that space, once you stepped into this space, once you recognize, own and embrace that space, that's when you're really kind of living... And that's really the phase of my life that I'm enjoying right now.
Lamonier: I know you were raised by a Haitian mother, in what ways has your Haitian-American background helped your career?
Scott-Young: My mother was functionally illiterate. And I've talked about that openly because I recognize how difficult and frustrating it must have been for her. She was the most dynamic, driven, ambitious person that I knew growing up. I have a lot of those same traits myself, but I have the education to navigate the world in a way that allows me to accomplish those things.
Realizing that with all of those hurdles that she had to overcome, she still was able to provide a nice home, clothing, and an education for us with stability, and security. I realized that nothing is unattainable. I come from the DNA of someone who navigated every obstacle that had been thrown at her and still managed to not only be successful in her own life, but raise children that were successful as well. It’s not just a philosophy that I adopt, I recognize that it's in my DNA.
Lamonier: Lastly, Forbes came out with their 30 under 30 list. As someone who achieved so much after 30 and continues to achieve more, what’s your advice to those pressed to be successful under 30?
Scott-Young: The comparison to other people and their accomplishments is never the path to success because it puts you in a position where you're putting too much pressure on yourself and judging too harshly. So for those who have achieved under the age of 30, God bless you and more power to you.
For those who are still in the process of finding that place where they're fully able to realize their potential and seize success that they're destined for, I say keep going. It's certainly never too late. Until you’re six feet under you have the ability to course correct, to take control and to change your life in whatever way you see fit. Maximize your gifts and your potential. Do yourself proud so that you can go to sleep at night knowing that you have done the best that you could do it in every waking moment of your life. | www.forbes.com | Unscripted and Unafraid: "Love & Hip Hop" Exec Mona Scott-Young is Creating Life on Her Terms | https://www.forbes.com/sites/plamonier/2019/01/01/mona-scott-young-love-and-hip-hop/ | 2019-01-01 |
Mfonobong Nsehe | 2019-01-01 13:14:56+00:00 | 2019-01-01 12:49:00 | Pan African Tobacco Group (PTG), Africa’s largest indigenous producer of cigarettes and other Tobacco products, reached a milestone recently by celebrating its 40th anniversary. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fmfonobongnsehe%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fafricas-largest-tobacco-company-celebrates-40-years-in-business%2F.json | en | Pan African Tobacco Group (PTG), Africa’s largest indigenous producer of cigarettes and other Tobacco products, reached a milestone recently by celebrating its 40th anniversary.
Rwandan multi-millionaire businessman Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa founded the company in 1978 when he began manufacturing cigarettes in Burundi in 1978 after a successful stint as a commodity trader across Africa. Ayabatwa subsequently established a manufacturing plant in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1984, and later expanded into the South African market in 1991. Between 1996 and 2011, PTG commenced manufacturing in Angola, Uganda, Tanzania, the United Arab Emirates, Nigeria and South Sudan. The company's latest addition is the processing plant in Arua, Northern Uganda, established in 2013.
At a glamorous ceremony in Ras Al Khaimah on the 16th of December, PTG recognized the hard work and dedication of its employees and managers, especially those individuals who have been with the company since its founding.
"It gives me great pride in recognizing the commitment of PTG employees, our clients, and business partners in celebrating our company's 40th anniversary. We have come a long way since the business was started forty years ago. And are very excited about our future as PTG continues to thrive," Ayabatwa said in a private conversation with this reporter.
Ayabatwa also expressed his gratitude to the communities as well as government functionaries in the countries where PTG does business.
“Forty years ago, we took the first step of building a uniquely indigenous African company not driven only by the profit motive but in seeking to work with families and communities so that they can improve their own livelihoods. Public authorities also greatly facilitated our work for which we are most thankful," he said.
Ayabatwa, who is one of Africa’s most notable philanthropists, said his most memorable accomplishment has been working with families and communities in the various regions in which PTG does business. "Poverty has long been an endemic problem in Africa. It has been my lifelong goal to provide opportunities especially for African youth," Ayabatwa said. "Having been denied a formal education after the eighth grade, I had to work that much harder to prove myself. I do not want any child to experience that. This is why PTG works with communities to make it easier for young people to get the education they need to succeed. Education is the ticket from poverty."
Operating across Africa and in the United Arab Emirates, PTG is a homegrown company with deep roots in each sub-region of the continent. In PTG’s forty-year history, the company evolved to become one of Africa’s indigenous manufacturers of consumer goods. PTG has manufacturing facilities and assets in Angola, Burundi, DR Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania, Ugandan and the United Arab Emirates. The company employs more than 4,000 people on a full-time basis across all its operations.
Contact me through email at mfon.nsehe @ gmail.com or via Twitter @MfonobongNsehe | www.forbes.com | Africa's Largest Tobacco Company Celebrates 40 Years In Business | https://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2019/01/01/africas-largest-tobacco-company-celebrates-40-years-in-business/ | 2019-01-01 |
Grace Segers | 2019-01-01 20:05:31+00:00 | 2019-01-01 19:55:48 | Democratic congressional aides expressed skepticism about the briefing, saying the agenda for the session is unclear | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Ftrump-invites-congressional-leaders-to-white-house-for-briefing-on-border-security%2F.json | en | President Trump has invited congressional leaders of both parties to the White House on Wednesday for a "briefing" on border security, according to a congressional source. Wednesday marks the 12th day of the partial government shutdown as the president and Democrats remain at odds over Mr. Trump's insistence on $5 billion for improving security on the border.
Democrats are set to take over the House on Thursday, with Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi set to be elected speaker. Mr. Trump invited Pelosi and incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to Wednesday's meeting, as well as Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his number two, Sen. John Thune, have also been invited, as have Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and whip Dick Durbin.
Democratic congressional aides expressed skepticism about the briefing, saying the agenda for the session is unclear. One aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said the invitation "appears to be more of a White House stunt" than a "serious attempt to have a discussion."
The last meeting between Democratic leaders and Mr. Trump occurred three weeks ago.
Pelosi and Schumer unveiled the outline of their bill to end the partial government shutdown when Democrats take control of the House. But the bill includes only $1.3 billion for border security, far short of Mr. Trump's request of $5 billion. The White House said Monday he will reject it.
Mr. Trump tweeted on Tuesday that he was willing to make a deal with Pelosi.
"Border Security and the Wall 'thing' and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let's make a deal?" Mr. Trump wrote.
Steven Portnoy contributed reporting. | www.cbsnews.com | Trump invites congressional leaders to White House for "briefing" on border security | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-invites-congressional-leaders-to-white-house-for-briefing-on-border-security/ | 2019-01-01 |
Declan Eytan | 2019-01-01 05:45:01+00:00 | 2019-01-01 04:56:00 | Following the September 2018 announcement of luxury group Michal Kors Holdings acquiring the Versace fashion house for a sum exceeding $2.1 billion, the American conglomerate announces on Monday it has completed the takeover. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fdeclaneytan%2F2018%2F12%2F31%2Fmichael-kors-holdings-finalizes-versace-acquisition-changes-name-to-capri-holdings%2F.json | en | Following the September 2018 announcement of luxury group Michal Kors Holdings acquiring the Versace fashion house for a sum exceeding $2.1 billion, the American conglomerate announces on Monday it has completed the takeover. The addition of Versace to its portfolio, coincides with the luxury group’s decision to change its name to Capri Holdings, starting January 2.
Donatella Versace salutes during the Versace fashion show in New York, Sunday, Dec. 2, 2018. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki) photo credit: ASSOCIATED PRESSThe company that is publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker Kors – soon CPRI - is betting on Versace to help grow group revenues to $8 billion in the long term. In addition, Capri Holdings aims to increase Versace’s global retail footprint from 200 to 300 stores, accelerate e-commerce and omni-channel development, plus expand accessories and footwear from 35% to 60% of revenues.
“With the acquisition of Versace, we have now created one of the leading global fashion luxury groups in the world,” John Idol, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Michael Kors Holdings, said in a statement. A statement, in which Idol also explained that the name Capri was inspired by the Italian island’s glamorous reputation. The Chairman of the group which brand portfolio includes Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo, adds “The acquisition of Versace is an important milestone for our group. Versace was founded in 1978. For over 40 years, Versace has represented the epitome of Italian fashion luxury, a testament to the brand’s timeless heritage. We are excited to have Versace as part of our family of luxury brands, and we are committed to investing in its growth. With the full resources of our group, we believe that Versace will grow to over $2.0 billion in revenues. We believe that the strength of the Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo brands, and the acquisition of Versace, position us to deliver multiple years of revenue and earnings growth.”
As part of the deal between Michael Kors Holdings and the famed Italian luxury brand, the Versace family shall receive €150 million of the purchase price in shares of Capri Holdings Limited. Donatella Versace, sister of late Versace founder Gianni Versace, shall stay on as the brand’s Chief Creative Officer. In this new chapter, Versace’s management team will continue to be led by Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Akeroyd, who Capri Holdings’ Chairman credits for driving growth and success for the Italian luxury brand worldwide.
Versace Chief Creative Officer, Donatella Versace, concludes “It has been more than 20 years since I took over the company along with my brother Santo and daughter Allegra. I am proud that Versace remains very strong in both fashion and modern culture. Versace is not only synonymous with its iconic and unmistakable style, but with being inclusive and embracing diversity, as well as empowering people to express themselves. Santo, Allegra and I recognize that this next step will allow Versace to reach its full potential.” | www.forbes.com | Michael Kors Holdings Finalizes Versace Acquisition, Changes Name to Capri Holdings | https://www.forbes.com/sites/declaneytan/2018/12/31/michael-kors-holdings-finalizes-versace-acquisition-changes-name-to-capri-holdings/ | 2019-01-01 |
Andrew Husband | 2019-01-01 23:45:00+00:00 | 2019-01-01 22:59:00 | Netflix quietly pulled an episode of 'Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj' that was critical of Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman from subscribers in that country. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fandrewhusband%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fnetflix-patriot-act-hasan-minhaj-saudi-arabia-episode%2F.json | en | While Netflix subscribers across the globe were busy perusing the new Comedians of the World special on New Year's Day, critics were alarmed to discover that the streaming giant had pulled an episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj for viewers in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, as The Hollywood Reporter notes, the platform had removed the hit show's second episode, which is all about Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his influence, at the request of the country's government.
"Now would be a good time to reassess our relationship with Saudi Arabia," Minhaj, a former correspondent for The Daily Show, says in the episode, which is still available for viewing in North America. "And I mean that as a Muslim, and as an American."
The episode, which dives into Mohammed bin Salman's (or MBS's) growing power in and outside of Saudi Arabia, starts with the alleged killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Many intelligence sources, including those here in the United States, have laid the blame directly on the Saudi Crown Prince.
"Just a few months ago, [MBS] was hailed as the reformer the Arab world needed, but the revelations about Khashoggi's killing have shattered that image," Minhaj continues. "It blows my mind that it took the killing of a Washington Post journalist for everyone to go, 'Oh, I guess he's really not a reformer.' Meanwhile, every Muslim person you know was like, 'No shit, he's the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.'"
Per Financial Times, Netflix confirmed that Saudi Arabia's Communications and Information Technology Commission had officially requested that the episode be taken down for subscribers in its region "because it allegedly violated the kingdom's anti-cyber crime law." The streamer also issued an official statement on the matter:
"We strongly support artistic freedom and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request -- and to comply with local law."
Neither Minhaj nor anyone affiliated with Patriot Act has spoken out about the matter on social media or elsewhere. However, some -- like writer Mark Agee -- have shared or retweeted links to news coverage of the matter from Financial Times and elsewhere.
To be fair to Netflix, the company's decision to err on the side of caution and "comply with local law" is a legally defensible position in the grand scheme of things. Considering the nature of Khashoggi's alleged murder and the many other valid criticisms levied against MBS and his government, however, the streamer's decision to remove the episode from its Saudi Arabian catalog raises more questions than not.
The move also adds to Patriot Act's growing notoriety, both at home and abroad, and will surely influence Minhaj and company when they return with all new episodes later this year. | www.forbes.com | Netflix Pulls 'Patriot Act With Hasan Minhaj' Episode Critical Of Saudi Arabia | https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewhusband/2019/01/01/netflix-patriot-act-hasan-minhaj-saudi-arabia-episode/ | 2019-01-01 |
Emmie Martin | 2019-01-01 14:18:42+00:00 | 2019-01-01 08:02:09 | Now retired from swimming, Olympian Michael Phelps still has big goals. To stay motivated, he keeps a hand-written list of what he wants to achieve in his closet, so that he sees his goals every day. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2018%2F12%2F20%2Fmichael-phelps-strategy-for-reaching-his-goals.html.json | en | Michael Phelps knows what it feels like to achieve his goals. As the most decorated Olympian of all time, he's earned 23 gold medals, three silver and two bronze.
Now retired from swimming, Phelps is concentrating on his next chapter, which includes work with Colgate's Save Water campaign, which aims to reduce water consumption by 50 billion gallons per year, as well as being a dad to his two sons. But he still has big goals for himself.
To stay motivated, Phelps keeps a reminder of what he wants to achieve in his closet so he sees it as he gets dressed every day, first thing in the morning.
"I write my goals down on a piece of paper and they're there where I can see them because I have to have a reason, I have to see something for why I'm getting up in the morning and what I'm doing that day," he tells CNBC Make It.
No one else sees Phelps's hand-written goals. It's something he does purely for himself because, "not every day do I want to get out of bed, not every day do I feel great. So I want to see exactly what I'm doing and why I'm putting myself through this."
To Phelps, achieving his goals is the definition of success. And each individual accomplishment adds up to something greater, he says.
"For me in the sport of swimming, the star at the end is changing the sport, and then everything else is in the middle," he explains. "All the medals, records, everything else came, but the big goal was just changing the sport." | www.cnbc.com | Michael Phelps' strategy for achieving his goals | https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/20/michael-phelps-strategy-for-reaching-his-goals.html | 2019-01-01 |
Christopher Null | 2019-01-01 14:45:34+00:00 | 2019-01-01 14:00:00 | Razer Blade 15 is one of the best gaming laptops. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fforbes-finds%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Frazer-blade-15%2F.json | en | Razer has made a name for itself by producing highly capable gaming laptops that still manage to be svelte in design and construction. Can a real gaming computer successfully combine portability and bleeding-edge performance? Let’s give Razer’s flagship computer, the Blade 15, a spin.
Design
It’s right there in the name: the Blade is all about keeping things thin and portable, though at 23mm thick, the Razer Blade 15 was surprisingly not quite the thinnest machine in this roundup, nor was it the lightest. The machine’s overall design is an exercise in restraint. Aside from bright, color-tunable backlighting (and the boldly green Razer logo on the back of the lid), the laptop is almost demure. Built entirely from a single block of aluminum that is precision milled and finished in anodized matte black, it’s like the 2001 monolith – if it ran Windows. The keyboard is quite flush but spacious (though the somewhat smallish keys and quirky arrow key layout take some time to get used to), and an enormous touchpad fills at least a third of the palmrest space. Altogether, it’s a very attractive system that nonetheless doesn’t call too much attention to itself.
Features
Razer’s Synapse software gives you ample control over the keyboard backlighting, letting you assign colors on a key by key basis (at least with the advanced model of the laptop, reviewed here). The base model is also color-tunable, but the entire keyboard has to be set to the same color, though you can use Synapse to let those colors shift, “breathe,” or otherwise change over time. Audio includes two (non-name-brand) speakers situated to either side of the keyboard, which give it plenty of oomph but nothing earth-shattering. Oher thoughtful features, like a braided power cable, add to the luxe design and feature set.
Specs
The Blade 15’s specs are solid across the board. The 2.2GHz Core i7-8750H CPU (eighth generation) and 16GB of RAM are standard, as is the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 GPU. The 512GB SSD included here isn’t massive, and while a secondary hard drive would be beneficial for many users, it’s probably a fair tradeoff given the streamlined design of the unit. Port selection is almost as good as it gets, with three traditional USB ports, one USB-C jack, full-size HDMI output, and a mini DisplayPort jack. The lack of an Ethernet port is reasonable given the thickness of the machine, but an SD card slot is somewhat missed. All ports are located on the sides of the machine, keeping the back completely clear.
Performance
The Razer Blade 15 turned in mixed benchmarking results during performance testing. On general application tasks (including web page rendering, business productivity applications, and digital media creation work), it outperformed all other machines in the roundup by a small, 6 percent margin. However, on graphics and gaming tests, the Blade often took a back seat. Its VRMark score was the lowest in the roundup (15 percent below average), but its other scores hovered much closer to typical. Screen brightness is solid, a nice companion to the vivid keyboard backlighting. A selection of benchmark scores follows.
Battery
With 6 hours, 29 minutes of run time based on a full-screen video playback test, the Razer Blade 15’s battery had much more longevity than I was expecting. Things aren’t as great when the laptop is under load, but even active, unplugged gamers shouldn’t have any trouble keeping their streak alive when an outlet is far away.
Conclusion
While it’s a bit heavier than it looks, the Razer Blade 15 is a solid, powerful laptop with plenty to recommend it. Performance doesn’t quite brush the bleeding edge, but it powered through most of my tests without much trouble. At a price of $2099, it’s definitely one of the pricier laptops in this comparison, but that pricing is not so expensive as to be outrageous. Gamers with an elevated sense of style should put this unit near the top of their consideration list.
Shop Now | www.forbes.com | Razer Blade 15 Review | https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbes-finds/2019/01/01/razer-blade-15/ | 2019-01-01 |
Ian Stewart | 2019-01-02 00:26:13+00:00 | 2019-01-01 | The Saudi government asked Netflix to remove an episode of the comedian's show Patriot Act that was critical of the regime over the death of Jamal Khashoggi. Netflix said it was following local law. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2F681469011%2Fnetflix-drops-hasan-minhaj-episode-in-saudi-arabia-at-governments-request%3Futm_medium%3DRSS%26utm_campaign%3Dstoriesfromnpr.json | en | Netflix Drops Hasan Minhaj Episode In Saudi Arabia At Government's Request
Enlarge this image toggle caption Matthew Eisman/Getty Images for Ozy Media Matthew Eisman/Getty Images for Ozy Media
Last fall, the world watched as Saudi Arabia's official story about the death of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi changed, and changed again. A series of contradictory claims and denials came even as evidence emerged that Khashoggi's murder had been ordered by the country's crown prince.
Many people were angry, and that included the American comedian Hasan Minhaj, who blasted the Saudi government on his Netflix news-comedy show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj.
"This is the most unbelievable cover story since Blake Shelton won sexiest man alive," Minhaj joked to his audience.
But the Saudi government isn't laughing.
Last week, it had Netflix remove the episode in that country. As the Financial Times first reported, a Saudi regulator cited a law that prohibits the "production, preparation, transmission, or storage of material impinging on public order, religious values, public morals, and privacy, through the information network or computers."
In a statement to NPR, a Netflix spokesperson said, "We strongly support artistic freedom and removed this episode only in Saudi Arabia after we had received a valid legal request — and to comply with local law."
The episode was also posted to the show's YouTube page, which is reportedly still accessible inside Saudi Arabia. Google, which owns YouTube, didn't immediately respond to questions about whether it had also heard from the Saudi government.
YouTube
In the episode, Minhaj called Saudi Arabia's actions a "cover-up" and went on to question the deep financial and political ties between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, the country's involvement in Yemen and crackdowns on women's rights advocates.
In an interview with The Atlantic about his show, Minhaj said he and his family discussed the potential repercussions of his criticism of the Saudi government, and that he now has fears about his own safety.
News of Netflix's decision was met with some criticism, including from the Washington Post's global opinions editor, Karen Attiah, who called it "quite outrageous."
This isn't the first time Netflix has removed episodes of a show at the request of a foreign government. According to a Netflix spokesperson, Singapore objected to three Netflix shows — Disjointed, Cooking on High and The Legend of 420 — because they have positive portrayals of drug use which is highly restricted in the country. | www.npr.org | Netflix Drops Hasan Minhaj Episode In Saudi Arabia At Government's Request | https://www.npr.org/2019/01/01/681469011/netflix-drops-hasan-minhaj-episode-in-saudi-arabia-at-governments-request?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=storiesfromnpr | 2019-01-01 |
Ana Rosado | 2019-01-01 08:41:23+00:00 | 2019-01-01 07:25:01 | An informal history of New York's downtown scene, as seen through the lens of Blondie co-founder and guitarist, Chris Stein. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2Fstyle%2Farticle%2Fchris-stein-blondie-new-york%2Findex.html%3Futm_source%3Dfeedburner%26utm_medium%3Dfeed%26utm_campaign%3DFeed%253A%2Brss%252Fcnn_latest%2B%2528RSS%253A%2BCNN%2B-%2BMost%2BRecent%2529.json | en | Written by Ana Rosado, CNN
As co-founder and guitarist of the seminal new wave band Blondie, Chris Stein had an all-access pass to one of New York's most exciting cultural periods. And now he's offering a personal look at this bygone era in his new book, "Point of View: Me, New York City, and the Punk Scene."
The project serves as an informal history of the city's downtown scene in the 1970s. Among snapshots of derelict buildings and unsuspecting passersby are captivating portraits of William Burroughs, Andy Warhol and Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry, alongside other creative fixtures of the time.
Stein may be better known for his musical endeavors, but his relationship with photography stretches back to his childhood in Brooklyn.
"I've always photographed what was around," he said in a phone interview. "I started screwing around with little cameras -- Brownie cameras as they called them when I was a kid."
1 / 6 Iggy Pop pictured during 1977's The Idiot Tour with David Bowie and Blondie. Scroll through to see more of Chris Stein's images. Credit: Chris Stein
Influenced by his friend Dennis McGuire, an apprentice of photographer and Warhol contemporary Diane Arbus, Stein began taking his practice more seriously at the age of 18. But his first break -- as a photographer, at least -- came a few years after co-founding Blondie in the early '70s. Iggy Pop and David Bowie invited the band to open for them on 1977's The Idiot Tour, and Stein was on call to capture the action.
"Bowie was a little cautious about having his picture taken," he recalled. "I don't think he actually thought I was a real photographer. He was more controlling about the stuff he put out of himself, so we have a couple of shots of him. But the stuff with Iggy -- he was down for anything."
An evolving city
As well as providing a record of a scene Stein helped build, his photos tell the story of New York's transformation.
"The city in 1970 was physically similar (to how it is now) in many ways, but the atmosphere was extremely different," he writes in his book. "It was much less crowded. There weren't many tourists. It was darker and there was more magic around."
Since then, he said, the city has changed significantly. Stein expresses particular disdain for Soho's "high-end shopping mall" look and the Meatpacking District's "plastic surgery" gentrification.
The magic of soul and funk in the seventies
The shiny skyscrapers of today's New York stand in stark contrast to the run-down neighborhoods in Stein's images -- and to his self-proclaimed love of "old, falling down, dusty stuff."
"I've always been attracted to the decay falling down," he said. "I don't know where that attraction comes from."
Fittingly, perhaps, the book ends with images of dust clouds, debris and transfixed observers in the aftermath of 9/11.
"There was about a year of very communal feelings, of togetherness, in the city afterward," Stein said of the terror attacks in his book. "And then, as if a switch was pulled, New York City began its ascent (or descent) to becoming the almost final form of a vast corporate world center."
From the book "Point of View" by Chris Stein. Credit: Chris Stein
Yet, despite his evident reservations, the guitarist expresses affection for the city at the heart of the punk and new wave scenes.
"It's different," said Stein, who still lives in West Village. "But there's still some freaky people around," he concluded. | www.cnn.com | An ode to New York: Vintage photos of the city's punk heyday | https://www.cnn.com/style/article/chris-stein-blondie-new-york/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Most+Recent%29 | 2019-01-01 |
Dominic Dudley | 2019-01-01 17:44:56+00:00 | 2019-01-01 16:52:00 | After Airbus and Boeing orders were halted due to U.S. sanctions, the delivery of 40 planes from Sukhoi are now also “out of the question” say officials | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fdominicdudley%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Firanian-plan-to-buy-russian-jets-collapse%2F.json | en | A plan for Iranian airlines to buy Russian-built passenger jets appears to have collapsed as a result of U.S. sanctions, marking a further set-back for the country's beleaguered aviation sector.
Iranian airlines have been struggling to find ways to replace their ageing fleets ever since President Donald Trump announced in May 2018 that he was going to pull the U.S. out of the Iranian nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions.
Prior to that, in the brief period when most international sanctions on Iran were lifted, the country's airlines had ordered hundreds of new planes worth tens of billions of dollars from Boeing and Airbus.
However, since U.S. sanctions were reimposed both Boeing and Airbus have had to halt deliveries – during the brief respite from sanctions only three Airbus planes were handed over and none from Boeing. The U.S. trade restrictions affect both aircraft built in the U.S. and those from anywhere else which have a significant proportion of U.S. parts in them.
As a result, Iran has been searching for other options. The idea of buying planes from Moscow-based JSC Sukhoi was first mooted in early 2018. At the time, Iranian officials suggested the Superjet-100 aircraft would not need clearance from the U.S. as it had few American parts.
However, reports from Iran now suggest that view was overly-optimistic. According to a statement by Maqsoud Asadi Samani, secretary of the Association of Iranian Airlines, a deal for Iran Air Tours to buy 20 Superjets has now been put on ice. “The arrival of the planes is out of question for now,” he told the Iranian Labor News Agency on January 1.
The sticking point is that more than 10% of the parts in the Superjets are sourced from the U.S., which means that Sukhoi requires the approval of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the arm of the U.S. Treasury that monitors sanctions compliance, before it can sell its planes to Iran. That consent has not been forthcoming.
Aseman Airlines had also agreed to buy 20 of the Superjets, which have a list price of around $50.5m each. The two contracts were worth a little over $2bn in total.
The Superjet-100 would, in any case, only have met part of the fleet requirements of Iran’s airlines, given its limited size. It can carry up to 98 passengers, meaning it is not an alternative to the larger jets from Airbus and Boeing.
The latest set-back means Iranian aviation officials will have to go back to the drawing board as they look for ways to refresh their fleets. The country is estimated to require as many as 500 new aircraft, but with most of the world’s major manufacturers essentially out of reach, it has few options. Officials have reportedly been considering buying planes from Ukraine’s Antonov although its range of aircraft are, like the Sukhoi jet, also limited in size. | www.forbes.com | Iranian Plan To Spend $2B On Russian Passenger Jets Collapses Due To U.S. Sanctions | https://www.forbes.com/sites/dominicdudley/2019/01/01/iranian-plan-to-buy-russian-jets-collapse/ | 2019-01-01 |
Reid Frazier | 2019-01-01 14:00:32+00:00 | 2019-01-01 | The air is getting dirtier around the country's largest coke fuel plant near Pittsburgh. But the push to clean up pollution is complicated when residents depend on the industry that's causing it. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2F681197037%2Fpittsburgh-struggles-for-clean-air-as-nearby-towns-pollution-worsens%3Futm_medium%3DRSS%26utm_campaign%3Dbusiness.json | en | Pittsburgh Struggles For Clean Air As Nearby Town's Pollution Worsens The air is getting dirtier around the country's largest coke fuel plant near Pittsburgh. But the push to clean up pollution is complicated when residents depend on the industry that's causing it. | www.npr.org | Pittsburgh Struggles For Clean Air As Nearby Town's Pollution Worsens | https://www.npr.org/2019/01/01/681197037/pittsburgh-struggles-for-clean-air-as-nearby-towns-pollution-worsens?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=business | 2019-01-01 |
Paul Tassi | 2019-01-01 16:15:31+00:00 | 2019-01-01 14:52:00 | Why is all year 1 armor in Destiny 2 useless? There are plenty of ways to give it perks and rolls and make it useful again. Here's how. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Finsertcoin%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fheres-why-destiny-2-cant-bring-back-year-1-armor-yet-and-how-to-fix-that%2F.json | en | One common refrain among Destiny players is that it makes little sense to keep making old gear irrelevant at this rapid of a pace. When armor received random rolls in year 2, for instance, the solution was not to just give all current sets random rolls and actual perks, but instead to just leave them with…literally nothing, allowing only year 2 armor and beyond to roll with actual perks.
What this means is that everything players worked to earn in year 1 is functionally useless, because having armor with no perks is a recipe to be at a huge disadvantage in every activity. But that means leaving tons and tons of sets behind. Ones from every destination, old Eververse sets, sets from Zavala and Shaxx, from the raid and Trials and Iron Banner. Those damn Solstice sets that we grinded for ages for. None of that is useful, and even if you can require it from collections, there’s no actual point in doing so without perks.
The problem is that you can’t just flip a switch and grant everything rolls all of a sudden because of the way the current economy and acquisition system is set up.
Right now for say, planetary vendors, you can simply buy individual pieces of armor directly from them. Even if you disallowed random rolls on those pieces, you can also turn in materials for engrams, materials that Spider now sells for legendary shards. What that would mean is that it would only cost you a handful of shards to keep rolling and rolling and rolling for god tier loot with the exact perks you wanted, but changing the Spider economy would mess things up for say, infusion.
Raids, Trials, Eververse and Iron Banner stuff are each their own issues, but Bungie isn’t even attempting to try and find a fix for any of it. So I will, because this is just way, way too much stuff to leave behind, and the more stuff there is try and acquire, the more engaged players will be. More so than getting their 98th Tangled Web set, that’s for sure.
Planetary Vendors – No longer sell individual pieces of gear, and no longer accept materials for random engrams. Give each a “heroic” bounty that gives out one piece of planetary gear a day (not powerful, just themed). Give planetary set rewards at the end of adventures that take place there. Have an increased chance to drop planetary sets when on patrol or running strikes in those areas. You could even add planetary gear to the Prime Engram loot pool so give Rahool more of a selection.
Raids – Just let people run the old raids and raid lairs and have gear drop like normal. You don’t get raid gear fast enough to make this a farming problem, so if people really want to hunt for good rolls on old gear this way, let them. Who cares.
Year 1 Crucible, Iron Banner and Vanguard sets – Allow players to pick between turning in tokens for old sets or new ones. If you want to encourage people to give the new set a shot, make getting the old set like, twice as expensive or something in terms of how many tokens gets you a piece. But it would still be a way to acquire stuff. Also periodically drop old gear as rewards in those activities.
Trials – I do not have a great answer for this one. Given that Trials no longer exists, these sets may have to stay dead. You could do something crazy like offer Xur 150 shards for one random piece of Trials gear you’ve already acquired, now with rolls, but this is a tough one given that the activity is just not in the game at all.
Escalation Protocol – Literally nothing needs to change. Just let people keep grinding it for random EP gear, it’s probably the best damn armor in the game. I never completed it enough to get full sets back when it was relevant, but at 650 power I sure have now even with just a couple randoms, and it’s a bummer that gear is just pointless now (outside of the weapons).
Solstice Gear – Another tough one because this was a one-time-only event. At the very least, just give everyone random rolls on the pieces they still have. They might suck, but at least they’d have the potential to use them. I’m not sure how more rolls would work for these unless there was some sort of grand re-roll mechanic for everything, but that’s an issue for another day.
Eververse/Holiday sets – You may have heard my philosophy that putting armor in Eververse at all is BS and all of this stuff should just be in the general loot pool. Put all old sets in there now with random rolls, and stop doing limited time only sets that are literally impossible to effectively farm for rolls.
The other, easier solution to all of the above is just to allow armor transmogrification, meaning you can pay some currency to make any rolled armor you want look like any piece of gear you’ve acquired. This may be the easiest fix if you don’t want to jump through all the above hoops, and I’ve already written about that extensively.
I don’t know if I’ve covered every old armor set in the game here, but that’s a good chunk of them. There is a way to make this work, and it really makes no sense that A) Bungie would take so time designing this stuff and B) players would take so much time earning it only to have be made irrelevant in a year’s time. That isn’t how loot-based games like this are supposed to work, and there are fixes here if Bungie wants to pursue them.
Follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Read my new sci-fi thriller novel Herokiller, available now in print and online. I also wrote The Earthborn Trilogy. | www.forbes.com | Here's Why 'Destiny 2' Can't Bring Back Year 1 Armor (Yet), And How To Fix That | https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2019/01/01/heres-why-destiny-2-cant-bring-back-year-1-armor-yet-and-how-to-fix-that/ | 2019-01-01 |
Ken Silverstein | 2019-01-01 17:44:59+00:00 | 2019-01-01 17:00:00 | America’s energy and environmental path has been cleared mostly because of free market economics, but also because of Donald Trump’s political problems. The states are taking the lead while utilities are embracing the green energy challenges. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fkensilverstein%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fas-trumps-political-clout-teeters-his-energy-policies-are-becoming-irrelevant%2F.json | en | While political uncertainty fills the New Year, energy security, thankfully, does not. The United States is shedding coal-fired power plants and replacing them with natural gas and renewables. And this is being done despite efforts by the president to curtail this course.
Warnings abound — ones that caution that the globe could overheat unless nation-states limit their heat-trapping emissions. Most recently, of course, the United Nations along with the National Climate Assessment have accentuated those findings. And while Donald Trump says that he trust his “gut instinct” more than those of the trained scientists — ditto for high-ranking military officials too — leaders at the local and state levels have taken the primary role.
Trump’s withdrawal of the Paris climate agreement has not stopped the states, with at least 30 of them having created policies to encourage more renewables and more energy efficiency. And, by extension, they are discouraging the use of carbon-heavy fuels such as coal. Among the leaders in this area are California, New York and Washington State. And there’s also New Mexico, New Jersey and Nevada, as well as Washington, D.C. that just passed a green energy goal of 100% by 2032.
“New Jersey’s solar program is a critical component of reaching our goal of 100% clean energy by 2050 and I am extremely proud that New Jersey recently surpassed 100,000 solar installations,” said Governor Phil Murphy. “We are committed to the continued success of our solar program and the growth of this important industry while best serving the ratepayers and our economy.”
U.S. energy-related CO2 emissions dropped 0.9% in 2017 from 2016 levels, says the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s 5.14 billion metric tons less, mostly tied to fewer coal-related emissions, it says. And altogether, CO2 levels are 14% less than they were in 2005. Moreover, the U.S. economy grew by 20%, while U.S. energy consumption fell by 2%, all during the same time period. Natural gas is replacing coal. It is both inexpensive and abundant, and it is half the emissions.
Take Public Service Co. of New Mexico, which has set a goal of replacing much of its coal-generated electricity with renewables and natural gas: by 2032, it says that 70% of its generation will be emissions-free. Similarly, Berkshire Hathaway’s NV Energy has asked its public service commission to add 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity as well as to build 100 megawatts of battery energy capacity in Nevada — the largest green investment that the state has ever made.
“The six new projects position NV Energy to keep its commitment to double renewable energy by 2023 and, importantly, by diversifying our state’s electricity generation portfolio, will reduce the costs to serve customers,” NV Energy’s Chief Executive Officer Paul Caudill said. The utility’s long-term goal is to get to 100% green energy.
Green Wave
To be sure, at least 10 states are against both the Paris climate agreement and the regulatory efforts to curb carbon at home. Ten state attorneys general sent a letter to the president that emphasized the need for portfolio diversity. Alabama, Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin all signed the letter.
Those states are focused on using coal for electricity or producing it for sale. And they are drawing inspiration from a U.S. president who has vowed to rejuvenate coal, including his latest initiative to ease mercury standards — the most insidious emission of them all.
His rationale is that coal facilities are reliable and keep the lights on during harsh weather conditions, although U.S. regulators have said this step is not necessary. There are ample energy reserves, they ruled, even in coal-dependent areas.
"(T)he continued participation of the United States in the Paris Agreement creates significant practical and legal concerns of great importance to our States and our constituents," the attorney generals wrote, according to the State of West Virginia Office of the Attorney General.
Those states, though, are going against the grain: 16,000 megawatts of coal-fired power retired in 2018 — despite efforts by Trump and state attorneys general to reverse the trend, says Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That equates to about 20 coal plants. U.S. coal-fired capacity has fallen by a third since 2010, it adds.
Producing Results
But the solar market has also taken a hit because of the tariffs now in place. For the first time since 2015, quarterly additions of utility-scale solar photovoltaics fell below 1,000 megawatts, says the Solar Energy Industries Association. It does expect, however, that the total installed U.S. solar photovoltaics capacity to double over the next five years, or adding roughly 14,000 megawatts.
“The results of (our energy plan) illustrate that energy needs are changing, and replacing coal supply with renewable energy and more flexible generators will save money for customers in the long run,” says the Public Service of New Mexico, in its Integrated Resource Plan that runs to 2036.
It joins other power companies, including Xcel Energy, which has committed to eliminating its carbon emissions by 2050. It adds that it will be 80% of the way there by 2030, from a 2005 baseline. Meantime, Northern Indiana Public Service Co. — a NiSouce unit — has also vowed to retire early its entire coal fleet, replacing it with wind and solar plants. And, PacifiCorp — another Berkshire company — is doing something similar.
California, Illinois, New Jersey, New York State and Washington State are all promising to produce carbon-free power between 2040 and 2050. While some criticize those jurisdictions for overreaching, their green energy incentives and standards have produced results. Those states are even more compelled to act because of inaction at the federal level — or the withdrawal from domestic carbon reduction efforts as well as those by the global community.
Utilities are meeting the challenges and their long-range planning efforts reflect the changing dynamics: for most, natural gas and renewables are their path forward as they leave coal behind. That means the president’s political clout is teetering while his energy policies are becoming irrelevant. | www.forbes.com | As Trump's Political Clout Teeters, His Energy Policies are Becoming Irrelevant | https://www.forbes.com/sites/kensilverstein/2019/01/01/as-trumps-political-clout-teeters-his-energy-policies-are-becoming-irrelevant/ | 2019-01-01 |
Sarah Whitten | 2019-01-01 14:18:36+00:00 | 2019-01-01 07:02:08 | Less than a year after taking the helm as CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Brian Niccol is still scoring big with investors, fueling the burrito chain's best year since 2013. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2018%2F12%2F31%2Fchipotle-poised-for-best-year-since-2013-thanks-to-ceo-brian-niccol.html.json | en | Less than a year after taking the helm as CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, Brian Niccol is still scoring big with investors, fueling the burrito chain's best year since 2013.
Shares of Chipotle soared nearly 50 percent in 2018 — the stock's best performance since its 80 percent surge in 2013.
But it's struggled to regain customer trust after a series of foodborne illness outbreaks nearly three years ago. Ahead of those events, the stock peaked at $758.61 a share on Aug. 5, 2015.
While Chiptole's stock is currently almost half of that price at about $431 a share, Niccol's presence has reinvigorated confidence in the restaurant's ability to turn itself around. The former Taco Bell CEO's appointment has resulted in a more than 67 percent bump in the company's stock since it was announced in February.
Since joining Chipotle in March, Niccol has championed upgrades to the company's mobile app, its internal software and in-restaurant technology. His goal has been to remove friction in all aspects of the ordering and making process, so that food gets to customers faster.
Niccol's strategy is as much about driving sales as it is about reminding customers who have left the brand what made them fall in love with Chipotle to begin with.
"It takes time to build a culture of accountability," Niccol said on an earnings conference call in July. "We know that when the food is delicious, the feel of the restaurant is great and we remove the friction from the flow of the order processes, no matter the channel, we delight customers."
While the Chipotle has been testing new menu items in limited markets across the U.S, it plans to be more focused in other areas of the business like improving its digital capabilities.
Chipotle has been updating its kitchens with a second-make line. These are buffets similar to the one at the front of the store, but are just for digital orders. The company is also rolling out digital order pick-up shelves, which are meant to prominently display online orders once they have been filled.
Additionally, Chipotle is testing drive-up windows just for guests to pick up digital orders.
These efforts, along with pricier burrito bowls and new marketing campaign which began in September, have bolstered sales. In the third quarter, same-store sales grew 4.4 percent.
Ahead of Chipotle's food safety issues, same-store sales have skyrocketed as much as 19.8 percent as consumers flocked to the restaurant. | www.cnbc.com | Chipotle poised for best year since 2013 thanks to CEO Brian Niccol | https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/31/chipotle-poised-for-best-year-since-2013-thanks-to-ceo-brian-niccol.html | 2019-01-01 |
Nicole Trilivas | 2019-01-01 14:45:27+00:00 | 2019-01-01 13:55:00 | The “Legends of the Lost” host on traveling, executive producing and fighting the patriarchy. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fnicoletrilivas%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fmegan-fox%2F.json | en | The big-name stars of travel have been predominately male. Think: Anthony Bourdain, Bear Grylls, Rick Steves, Levison Wood and countless others. Barring Samantha Brown there are few long-standing female figures in the travel media space despite the fact that women continue to make up the vast majority of travelers.
But is the landscape slowly responding? In 2018, we saw Jennifer Aniston take the role of spokesperson for Emirates; chef and food writer, Samin Nosrat travel the world in the Netflix hit Salt Fat Acid Heat; and most recently, actress Megan Fox become the Travel Channel’s newest star with her show “Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox,” which premiered in December 2018.
Pursuing a passion for ancient cultures, the show—conceived and produced by Fox—follows her journey across the globe to examine ancient myths and mysteries. Here, she talks about how she made it happened.
How did “Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox” come about? Was it your idea from the start?
Yes, it was my idea. I pitched the show for almost two years after having found a production company. We were first greenlit and in pre-production at a streaming service, but unfortunately, that didn’t come to fruition…Then we started all over again. Eventually, it landed in a new format at the Travel Channel.
You’re not only the star of the show but also the executive producer.
I love executive producing! It’s hard to lend your image and voice to something when you have very little or no control over the final product, but in this case, I get to be much more hands on. I feel a tremendous sense of relief from that.
How did you choose what topics and locations to cover?
We chose a format that we felt was best suited for the Travel Channel audience. The idea being, we shed light on new discoveries that are happening around locations the viewer would already be familiar with.
This role isn’t necessarily what the public expected from you, and the first episode, “Viking Women Warriors” almost indirectly addresses this pigeonholing and the pre-conceived notions about you and women in general. Was this intentional?
I pushed to air that episode first because I feel it’s so topical and relevant to the greater conversation we are having as a society right now. I personally relate to having been, as you say, pigeonholed into assuming an identity—not of my own making, but rather the product of the conditioned, collective patriarchal mindset.
You’re so open about the fact that you may not have the formal academic background, but you do have the passion for this project. It’s very approachable how you follow your curiosity. How has it been working for you so far?
I started out on this journey feeling pretty confident in my knowledge on most of these subjects, but very quickly after meeting with archeologists and other experts, I realized that there is an enormous disparity between passionately reading about—and exhaustively Googling!—a subject and having actually spent your entire adult life researching and then actively discovering it.
You’ve talked about a transformational experience you had while filming Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in Giza. Have you had any formative experiences while shooting this show?
Yes, I met with a Native American couple that educated me on some of their oral traditions and the legends of giants ruling ancient tribes in America. Giving a platform to the Native American people’s voice is something I’ve become very passionate about, and I hope to be able to do more work in this area in the future.
Where would you like to go and what topics would you like to cover next?
Some of my favorite topics right now would be Göbekli Tepe, [note from the writer: an archaeological site in Turkey dating back to the 10th–8th millennium BCE] and other relevant archeology in that landscape…An interesting trifecta exists here: the Shroud of Turin, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Lost City of Giants.
Check out “Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox” on TravelChannel.com for special show extras including behind-the-scenes photos and exclusive videos. Experience “Legends of the Lost with Megan Fox” on Facebook and follow along on Twitter and Instagram for more exclusive content, updates and special videos. Follow host Megan Fox on Instagram: @meganfox. | www.forbes.com | Talking With Megan Fox, Travel Channel's New Star | https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicoletrilivas/2019/01/01/megan-fox/ | 2019-01-01 |
Jonathan Levinson | 2019-01-01 21:53:41+00:00 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 | A federal database of shell casings was expanded to over 200 local law enforcement agencies this year to let police use it in investigations that match casings with guns. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.npr.org%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2F678408216%2Fballistic-fingerprint-database-expands-amid-questions-about-its-precision%3Futm_medium%3DRSS%26utm_campaign%3Dstoriesfromnpr.json | en | 'Ballistic Fingerprint' Database Expands Amid Questions About Its Precision
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jonathan Levinson /Oregon Public Broadcasting Jonathan Levinson /Oregon Public Broadcasting
At the Portland Police Bureau's North Precinct, Officer Jason Hubert is getting ready to fire a confiscated handgun into a thick metal bullet trap filled a thick sludge called snake oil.
He's about to enter a bullet casing into the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network (NIBIN), a nationwide database of high resolution images of shell casings managed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The NIBIN terminals and data are new investigative tools for hundreds of local police departments, allowing them to match markings on shell casings with casings found at other crime scenes, and sometimes with guns.
Hubert dons his bullet proof vest, eye and ear protection, and checks the weapon to make sure it works properly. After warning the precinct over a PA system of the test fire, a colleague holds out a net to catch the shell casings.
After conducting the test fire, Hubert places the casings under a microscope to choose which one is the best candidate to be imaged. In a dark room, hunched over a microscope, he explains he's looking for the best ejector mark. That's the mark left on the casing as it's expelled from the gun.
"The ejector mark is the fingerprint of the shell casing," says Hubert.
Until this year, the Portland Police would have to send these casings to a crime lab and results would take months to get back. But now investigators are getting results in a matter of hours instead of months. And instead of just being a resource for prosecutors at trial, the NIBIN "match" is being used by investigators to generate leads, despite uncertainty about the precision of the match.
"Ballistic fingerprint" not necessarily unique
NIBIN was started in 1999 and has primarily been used by forensics examiners to testify at trial about the likelihood that a bullet was fired from a particular gun. But that's all changing now. The Department of Justice is allocating money and resources to put NIBIN terminals into the hands of local police departments.
Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon Suzanne Hayden helped get the NIBIN system into police departments so they could be used in local investigations.
"Each firearm that shoots a bullet leaves an imprint that's unique to that firearm," she says.
But some defense attorneys challenge the notion that the markings are unique, and the FBI says even expert testimony can't make that claim with certainty.
Janis Puracal is an attorney and the founder of the Oregon-based nonprofit Forensics Justice Project.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jonathan Levinson/Oregon Public Broadcasting Jonathan Levinson/Oregon Public Broadcasting
"The problem is no one's gone out and actually determined that it could only be matched to that gun to the exclusion of all other guns in the universe," says Puracal, who helps defense attorneys challenge forensic evidence that isn't supported by science. She points out that flawed firearms forensics have led to exonerations in the past.
In 2013 a Mississippi man's life was spared hours before his scheduled execution after the FBI said experts had overstated the science. In a note sent to the district attorney in that case, the bureau clarified that "the science regarding firearms examinations does not permit examiner testimony that a specific gun fired a specific bullet to the exclusion of all other guns in the world."
Claims of certainty, the letter said, "are not supported by scientific standards."
Puracal says using NIBIN as an investigative tool is less problematic than using it in court, but she still takes issue with its use.
That's because a NIBIN match, she says, can lead to cognitive bias in the investigators — a kind of tunnel vision.
"It's the idea that once we start building that narrative and it starts making sense the more things we see that fit into that same narrative," she explains.
Despite these reservations, almost 200 local law enforcement agencies own NIBIN terminals and are using the data as an investigative tool.
Moving cases forward
On a recent night in Portland, Sgt. Steven Wilbon has his eye on a car parked down the street from Jefferson High School. He pulls up and talks to the three people inside about the homecoming game that's just getting out. After a short conversation Sgt. Wilbon tells them to be good and drives off. As he leaves he runs their plates.
A sound effect comes back from the computer; Wilbon says it means the car is stolen. He turns around to go back, calling for backup. Officers approach the car from both sides, telling the people inside to keep their hands visible.
Wilbon said they found three loaded guns in the car. No one had the required conceal-carry permits, and the people in the car had outstanding warrants.
In the past the investigation may have ended with three people arrested and the guns placed in an evidence locker. But, because the Portland police have this new equipment, the casings were immediately entered into NIBIN. And because the Seattle police also use NIBIN, the ATF database indicated a match to shootings in Seattle.
A police department spokesperson in Seattle says it was a lead that moved their case forward — which is exactly how the Department of Justice intends for it to be used.
This story comes to us from Guns & America, a public media reporting project on the role of guns in American life. | www.npr.org | 'Ballistic Fingerprint' Database Expands Amid Questions About Its Precision | https://www.npr.org/2019/01/01/678408216/ballistic-fingerprint-database-expands-amid-questions-about-its-precision?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=storiesfromnpr | 2019-01-01 |
Jamie Waller | 2019-01-01 13:15:26+00:00 | 2019-01-01 11:47:00 | With every end to a year there are predictions and expectations for what the incoming year will bring. Will 2019 be the year investors fall out of love with the big tech giants and turn towards the unsexy businesses? | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fjamiewaller1%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fwhy-investors-will-fall-out-of-love-with-sexy-businesses-in-2019%2F.json | en | With every end to a year there are predictions and expectations for what the incoming year will bring. So following the twists and turns of 2018, what can the business world expect in 2019?
There will potentially be a further decrease in global stock market values, leaving a mass of venture capital fuelled tech businesses without a route to liquidation and thus no means to return value to investors. This is important as many so-called ‘unicorn’ businesses tend to rely on the public markets for the $1billion plus liquidation events or exits.
In the past in the US, only approximately 10% of venture backed businesses completed their exit via an IPO. The past few years however have seen an increasing number of companies stay private for longer. This has led to companies taking on further venture debt in rounds that feature the second half of the alphabet as well as exploiting the secondary venture market where early investors are able to liquidate at a discount. So will the 10% remain 10%? An increase will be needed as keeping companies private for longer increases their value and thus reduces the chanced of a trade sale due to cash demands. Think about it, how many private companies have the cash to buy other companies valued at billions of dollars?
As we head into 2019 there is a greater demand on the public markets to liquidate some of these huge private assets and a decreasing public market and as such less investors and less money. This could be a big problem.
Have some of the huge tech businesses just left it too late?
Many of the tech unicorn type businesses on the public markets are way overvalued and most still can’t prove a business model of profitability. These big public tech businesses will decline in value along with the rest of the public markets (and probably at a faster rate) as will their private counterparts, who more worryingly, have nowhere to go to liquidate. This is compounded by the fact we will see a further slowdown and probably a global recession, kicked off by Brexit in Europe. Brexit won’t be the cause, it will just be the catalyst to getting a delayed recession started that politicians have been trying to prevent for so long.
So if things do pan out this way, what does 2019 hold for entrepreneurs?
Bad times for most, unfortunately. New venture funding will come to a virtual standstill and big business valuations will plummet. Valuable businesses will be sold in fire sales to reduce hedge fund positions and provide liquidity, leaving entrepreneurs who are holding what they think is €100m of stock with nothing due to the mix of preferred stock (which most investors hold) as opposed to common (which most management and entrepreneurs have). Meanwhile some private equity organisations will swarm in on anything with profitability and a potential to service 15%+ debt interest and restructure the organisations, sack the management and take the business through the down cycle to its private sale.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. The smart smaller scale entrepreneurs will do well.
Those that kept control, or took smart venture money from smart long term venture partners will continue to see growth. They will spend the next few years with reduced competition, able to focus on growth while their overvalued competitors concentrate on fighting off their investors who want out, the private equity organisations that want in and the administrators who want to close the doors and return some money to creditors.
These businesses will typically be the ones that did not need $500m of venture funding to get this far. Businesses like consultancy, outsourcing and manufacturing will benefit from the sexy tech that has been developed over the years and streamline their service with more competitive rates by reducing overheads through AI and robotics. In short, they will quietly add billions in value across the world increasing in value while the sexy ones fight to stay alive.
All of this will lead to a change in attitude. Investors will start to fall out of love with tech businesses promising to be the next unicorn and instead find more ‘boring businesses’ offering less risk and promising slow, steady growth far more attractive and stable. This doesn’t mean tech won’t be attractive… but rather than trying to find the next Google, smart investors will focus on finding technologies that can transform traditional industries.
With all this in mind, 2019 is going to be fun. Hold on to your pants it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Where some businesses will suffer others will do extremely well – and these businesses will be traditional, boring, unsexy businesses that have found ways to use technology to steam ahead. | www.forbes.com | Why Investors Will Fall Out Of Love With Sexy Businesses In 2019 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiewaller1/2019/01/01/why-investors-will-fall-out-of-love-with-sexy-businesses-in-2019/ | 2019-01-01 |
Lawrence Carrel | 2019-01-01 05:45:51+00:00 | 2019-01-01 04:38:00 | BlackRock, one of the world's largest asset managers and sponsor of the iShares ETF family, predicts, "a slowdown in global growth and corporate earnings in 2019, with the U.S. economy entering a late-cycle phase, but that the actual risk of a U.S. recession next year is low. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Flcarrel%2F2018%2F12%2F31%2Fblackrock-sees-slower-earnings-growth-but-little-risk-of-recession%2F.json | en | BlackRock, one of the world's largest asset managers and sponsor of the iShares ETF family, released its global economic outlook and identified market themes for the new year.
The New York firm predicts, "a slowdown in global growth and corporate earnings in 2019, with the U.S. economy entering a late-cycle phase," wrote Richard Turnill, BlackRock’s Global Chief Investment Strategist, in the recently released BlackRock 2019 Global Investment Outlook.
BlackRock (BLK) is the largest investment management company in the world, with a market capitalization of more than $86 billion and $6.28 trillion in assets under management, according to Investopedia.
Turnhill said the firm expects "the Federal Reserve’s policy to become more data-dependent as it nears a neutral stance, making the possibility of a pause in rate hikes a key source of uncertainty. Rising risks call for carefully balancing risk and reward: exposures to government debt as a portfolio buffer, twinned with high-conviction allocations to assets that offer attractive risk/return prospects."
While the markets appear to fear that a downturn is near, BlackRock said the actual risk of a U.S. recession next year is low.
"Still-easy monetary policy, few signs of economic overheating and a lack of elevated financial vulnerabilities point to ongoing economic expansion," wrote Turnhill.
However, trade frictions between the U.S. and China looms over the markets. "We see trade risks more fully reflected in asset prices than a year ago, but expect twists and turns to cause bouts of anxiety," wrote Turnhill. "We worry about European political risks in the medium term against a weak growth backdrop. We believe country specific risks may ebb in the emerging world, and see China easing policy to stabilize its economy."
BlackRock forecasts stocks will outperform bonds in 2019, but investors need to buy quality companies that have cash flow, sustainable growth and clean balance sheets. It expects the U.S. to perform best on the global stage, but emerging market equities offer improved compensation for risk.
In the fixed income area, the firm upgraded U.S. government debt as a ballast against any late-cycle risk-off events. It currently prefers short- to medium-term maturities, but is turning more positive on duration. BlackRock said it favors up-in-quality credit.
In terms of total portfolio, it recommends investors stay away from areas with limited upside but hefty downside risk, such as European stocks.
Overall, the firm forecasts equities and bonds will post positive, but small returns in 2019.
"We see growth moderating, but little near-term risk of a U.S. recession," wrote Turnhill. "Corporate earnings growth is slowing but still decent. And bonds are looking more attractive, both as a source of income and as portfolio ballast against any late-cycle growth scares. The end of a decades-long bond bull market means negative stock and bond returns may become more common.... Trade frictions still loom but now appear more baked into asset prices. We are wary of European political risks and assets." | www.forbes.com | BlackRock Sees Slower Earnings Growth, But Little Risk Of Recession | https://www.forbes.com/sites/lcarrel/2018/12/31/blackrock-sees-slower-earnings-growth-but-little-risk-of-recession/ | 2019-01-01 |
Emma Newburger | 2019-01-01 15:17:06+00:00 | 2019-01-01 09:30:52 | A new year means new reads. To help you get your reading list started in 2019, CNBC Make It has collected book recommendations from a range of execs, including some from Square and Twitter. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2018%2F12%2F21%2Ftwitter-square--books-everyone-should-read-in-2019.html.json | en | Author: Hector Garcia, Francesc Miralles
What it's about: This book explores ikigai, a Japanese concept of living and doing with joy, providing a framework for living with purpose.
Why you should read it: "It is an inspiring book that motivates us to continuously strive to find our passion and pursue only what makes us fulfilled," says Rachel Drori, founder and CEO of Daily Harvest, a subscription box company. "I started [Daily Harvest] because of my passion to keep myself and my family healthy, and it grew into an initiative to bring more fruits and vegetables into everyone's life. Reading 'Ikigai' inspires me to keep at it." | www.cnbc.com | 7 books to read in 2019, recommended by execs from Twitter, Square and more | https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/21/twitter-square--books-everyone-should-read-in-2019.html | 2019-01-01 |
Janet Shamlian | 2019-01-02 00:13:04+00:00 | 2019-01-01 23:35:04 | Jazmine Barnes was killed after a gunman in a pickup truck pulled up next to the car she was in and started shooting | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Fjazmine-barnes-mother-of-slain-7-year-old-recalls-shooting-as-manhunt-continues%2F.json | en | In her Houston hospital bed, LaPorsha Washington lay grieving and in shock over the death of her daughter.
"He left us a corpse. We no longer have a joyful 7-year-old running around," she said.
Jazmine Barnes was shot and killed early Sunday when a stranger pulled alongside their car on a service road and opened fire on Washington and her four daughters. The 30-year-old mom was hit in the shoulder.
Police believe the shooter, a white, bearded man in his 40s, was driving a red pickup truck. Security cameras caught a grainy image of the vehicle before the gunfire erupted.
"I replayed this moment in my head over a million times to see, did I cut this man off? Did I make a wrong turn in front of him?" Washington said. "I didn't — he fired at us for no reason."
Washington was able to drive away. When she pulled over to call police, she realized one daughter was hurt by the shattered window glass and Jazmine wasn't breathing. Her little second grader died of a gunshot wound to the head.
Now her family vows the killer will not go unpunished.
"Every crack, every rock, every corner that could be flipped, turn and turned around. We're going to be there," Washington said.
The sheriff is asking for the community's help to identify anyone who might fit the description of the shooter who also owns a red pickup. But that's a challenge in a city like Houston, where similar trucks are common. However, authorities are promising they will bring this individual to justice. | www.cbsnews.com | "He fired at us for no reason": Mother of slain 7-year-old recalls shooting | https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jazmine-barnes-mother-of-slain-7-year-old-recalls-shooting-as-manhunt-continues/ | 2019-01-01 |
Aly J. Yale | 2019-01-01 17:45:09+00:00 | 2019-01-01 17:27:00 | Rising rents and increasing mortgage rates are squeezing housing affordability for everyone. But for residents of HUD-subsidized housing? Housing has never been more expensive. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Falyyale%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fhud-housing-realities-female-led-and-feeling-the-burn%2F.json | en | Rising rents and increasing mortgage rates are squeezing housing affordability for everyone. But for residents of HUD-subsidized housing? Housing has never been more expensive.
According to a new analysis from Porch.com, HUD residents are putting a whopping 29% of their income toward housing — up from 27.9% in 2009.
Monthly, that equates to about $315 in contributions per resident. Compared to the national average rent (which was over $1,400, as of December), it might seem a small number, but HUD residents make just a fraction of the average American’s income. Nationally, the median HUD household makes just $12,906 per year. The average household makes nearly five times that — $61,372.
The majority of HUD households are female-led, putting these residents at an even bigger disadvantage due to the vast wage gap between genders. According to the American Association of University Women, women make about 80 cents for every dollar men make.
“In many states, three-quarters of families receiving federal housing subsidies have a female head of household,” Porch reported. “Female Americans have higher poverty rates than their male counterparts, and half of the children in female-headed households fall below federal poverty thresholds.”
In April, HUD Secretary Ben Carson proposed a plan that would require HUD’s poorest residents to spend 35% of their income on housing, effectively raising monthly costs by $50 to $150 per resident. Carson backed off the rent hike when Congress increased the department’s funding in June.
Currently, about 3 percent of the American population lives in HUD housing. About 10 percent of HUD housing remains unoccupied, with the most vacancies in New York, California, Texas, Pennsylvania and Illinois. In New York, nearly 50,000 HUD units sit vacant.
Much of HUD is currently non-operational or scaled back due to the government shutdown. | www.forbes.com | HUD Housing Realities: Female-led And Feeling The Financial Burn | https://www.forbes.com/sites/alyyale/2019/01/01/hud-housing-realities-female-led-and-feeling-the-burn/ | 2019-01-01 |
Andrew Wagner | 2019-01-01 05:45:21+00:00 | 2019-01-01 04:44:00 | Nearing the midway point of the season, the 25-10 Milwaukee Bucks own the NBA's best record. They've notched some impressive victories along the way but what's more impressive is how they've bounced back from each of their 10 losses. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fandrewwagner%2F2018%2F12%2F31%2Fas-a-new-year-begins-the-bucks-have-the-nbas-best-record%2F.json | en | Regardless of what happens during the New Years' Eve slate of games on the National Basketball Association, the Milwaukee Bucks will begin 2019 with the league's best record.
Sure, there's still way too much basketball remaining before anyone can even think of pulling the crown of the Golden State Warriors' collective heads and absolutely, an uneven number of games played and percentage points have helped the Bucks to this accomplishment, but there's no denying that Milwaukee is in the midst of a special season and regardless of the circumstance, the accomplishment is a point of pride for those in the locker room.
"It means a lot," forward Giannis Antetokounmpo said of Milwaukee's success so far. "This is my first time playing on a team that's No. 1. This is a first for me and I'm pretty sure it is for those guys, as well."
"But at the same time ... we're not satisfied."
They've complied some pretty impressive wins along the way, opening the season with seven in a row -- including a 124-109 rout of then-undefeated Toronto -- to open the season. They went into Golden State and crushed the Warriors, 134-111, in early November then pummeled Portland by 43 just a few weeks later.
In all, the Bucks have won 17 games by at least 10 points, six by at least 20, three by at least 30 and one by at least 40. Their 8.9-points per game differential ranks first in the league, one of several categories Milwaukee leads this season.
To be fair, there have been a handful of stinkers in Milwaukee's 10 losses, most notably a 116-114 home loss to lowly Phoenix on Nov. 23 and more recently, a 94-87 stumble at Miami in which the Bucks scored all of eight points in the opening quarter.
But it's in those losses that the Bucks' real progress and evolution is most visible. More specifically, it's after those losses, as each of the 10 was followed by a victory. A year ago, the Bucks dropped consecutive games on nine separate occasions and were 22-14 in games following losses.
Giannis Antetokounmpo chalks Milwaukee's ability to bounce back as another sign of progress under Mike Budenholzer, who was hired over the summer to take over a team whose development had stagnated under the guidance of Jason Kidd.
"I was watching clips of me from previous years ... looking for ways to get better and what I'm doing differently now," Antetokounmpo said. "What stuck in my head was no matter what I was doing in the game, at the end, we were losing.
"That kind of hurt me. I was like 'man, why are we losing?'. It kind of hurt because this year, we're winning. When you lose, it's a bad feeling. I don't like that bad feeling and as a team we don't like that bad feeling. That's why we don't lose twice in a row; whenever we lose, we just try to play better as a team and get back on track. That's really what a winning team does. When you lose, you can let your emotions take over and start playing bad and bad ... but we just try to get back on track, playing as a team and get better."
When asked how the Bucks have been able to do that, Antetokounmpo paused for a moment then, in a fashion those who have followed him and the Bucks closely over the last few years, came up with the perfect Giannis-esque analogy.
"When you start drinking Coca-Cola, you don't like drinking generic cola; you don't want to go back," said Antetokounmpo -- who for the record has yet to land a soft drink endorsement. "I think that's it. When you start winning, you don't like going back to losing."
It that seems overly simplistic, it's not. Eric Bledsoe noted that not only have the Bucks not lost back-to-back games all year, they also haven't lost to the same opponent twice, something he chalks up to an improved level of focus.
"The focus is there and you can tell," Bledsoe said. "We're having fun and we're relaxed so if we stay like that, everything will be fine.
"We're going to lose games That's the nature of the game. But we can't get down on ourselves; there's always another game. We can sulk over losing or why we lost, we just have to keep moving forward and keep bringing the great energy we've been brining. As long as we do that, everything will take care of itself."
Whatever the reason for the improvement, Budenholzer isn't complaining. Having led good teams himself, and as a longtime assistant under Gregg Popovich in San Antonio, he's seen plenty of good -- even great teams -- and one of their hallmarks has been an ability to contain their losses.
"Those are the high-character, the really highly-competitive teams ... when they've lost a game, they don't let it happen again," Budenholzer said. "When you see one of those teams on your schedule, you don't want to be the team that plays them after they've lost.
"I don't know that we're there yet but it's certainly a quality we want to have in us." | www.forbes.com | As A New Year Begins, The Bucks Have The NBA's Best Record | https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewwagner/2018/12/31/as-a-new-year-begins-the-bucks-have-the-nbas-best-record/ | 2019-01-01 |
John Byrne | 2019-01-01 20:45:07+00:00 | 2019-01-01 19:20:00 | From a rankings fraud at Temple University's Fox School of Business to a charge of sexual assault at Columbia Business School, there was plenty of controversy in 2018 | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fpoetsandquants%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fthe-biggest-b-school-scandals-of-2018%2F.json | en | Each year, some of the world’s most elite business schools are embroiled in scandal. 2018 was no different — from deans resigning or being removed for various reasons, to complaints of hazing at a top school’s welcome week, to the mishandling of diversity and gender issues, we saw it all. But two big storylines in particular cast shadows upon some of the world’s top B-schools: rankings fraud and sexual assault.
This year, Columbia Business School earned headlines in the wrong way. Toward the beginning of the year was the #MeToo trial between a junior professor and senior professor. It was a literal case of what can and should be addressed in the business school setting when it comes to workplace #MeToo lessons. Later in the year, CBS Dean Glenn Hubbard announced he would step down from his job at the end of this academic year. And before year end, a current MBA student at the New York City school came forward with very legitimate proof that her and other female classmates had been sexually assaulted by their male counterparts at various school-related social functions.
And then you have rankings. Sometimes schools go too far in falsifying data, and that was the case with Temple University’s Fox School of Business. It turns out their stellar placement in various online MBA rankings was all a facade based on falsified data reported to U.S. News & World Report.
Below, in no particular order are the scandals and controversies that stood out the most in 2018.
It wasn’t an ideal kickoff to the holiday season for long-term USC Marshall Dean Jim Ellis. In December, the Los Angeles Times first reported he was being terminated effective on June 30th of 2019 — three years ahead of the end of his current five-year term. USC Interim President delivered the news, citing allegations that he failed to properly deal with a series of racial and gender bias complaints at the school over the past eight years.
The news came at an odd time for Dean Ellis, who will remain at Marshall as a faculty member. Earlier this fall, USC’s Online MBA program debuted at the top of the Poets&Quants ranking of online MBA programs. Two months ago, Ellis received a $70,000 bonus from the university. Just one month ago, the school received a stellar ranking, placing 13th in Bloomberg Businessweek’s most recent ranking of full-time MBA programs. To top it off, USC Marshall became the first major elite MBA program to reach gender parity in an incoming class, enrolling 52% women this past fall.
The termination of the highly popular dean has set off a firestorm of controversy — especially among his supporters, many of which are wealthy boosters and benefactors of the school. “Of these complaints, only about 10%—an amount you can count on both hands—were deemed sufficiently worthy of being passed on to the dean for further investigation and resolution,” wrote Lloyd Greif, a major benefactor of the Marshall School in a letter to the university’s board of trustees. “Jim dealt with all of those timely and appropriately. None of the complaints alleged any egregious misconduct, and none of them involved inappropriate behavior by Jim.”
Greif has led the charge to fight for Ellis.
“I was brought up not to look away when you see something wrong,” Greif told P&Q earlier this month. “I recognize there was personal risk in standing up for him. But I’ve got to sleep at night. I can’t let an injustice happen to an innocent man. I am not that kind of fair-weather friend. This is unjust.”
As of mid-December, thousands of people had signed a petition in favor of Ellis and hundreds of letters had been sent to the school on his behalf.
If there’s one MBA program that absolutely prides itself on being a leader and innovator in diversity and inclusivity, it’s the Bay Area-based Haas School of Business. It’s located in Berkeley, the town that led the free speech movement and played very large roles in the push for civil rights and disability rights. The campus has been a beacon for progress for decades. And this past fall, it enrolled just six African-American students into its full-time MBA program. It wasn’t just the small number that was the issue. The school enrolled it’s largest class ever at 291 and admitted 28 African-American applicants, meaning only about a fifth of African-American applicants admitted actually enrolled.
The result led the school to do some soul-searching and look inward as an institution. Stakeholders across the school including the student-led Race Inclusion Initiative, the Haas Alumni Diversity Council, the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, and the Black Business Student Association, created a Haas action plan to confront a perceived lack of inclusiveness at the school and details “necessary actions and concrete plans” for reversing a two-year trend that resulted in a 68% drop in black enrollment in the MBA program. Among the top recommendations: hire a director of diversity admissions and create scholarships available to under-represented minorities, or URMs.
“Our leadership team failed to react quickly or urgently enough,” reads the report, authored by Courtney Chandler, senior assistant dean and chief strategy & operating officer, and Jay Stowsky, senior assistant dean of instruction. “The leadership approached the data using an ‘academic’ lens. We looked at the positive previous eight-year trend of increasing African-American enrollment and saw the sudden decline as a two-year statistical anomaly. Even if historically this may have been within our normal range, it doesn’t make our response acceptable — we should never become comfortable with a norm of underrepresentation.
“We need to live up to all of our Defining Leadership Principles and question the status quo. Our actions need to match our intentions. Our slowness to act broke trust with our students and alumni. We are deeply sorry about this.”
The Hult International Business School is no stranger to catching bad online public relations flack. And this year, the school had another doozy when a former employee posted a very telling — and damning — post on Reddit. Under the heading of “Ex-Employee of Hult International Business School,” the anonymous poster essentially gave readers a play-by-play on how the school finds and closes would-be students for its MBA, Executive MBA, and other master’s programs in business.
At first, the process seems common and innocent enough. Not unlike other schools, Hult tracks people that complete the TOEFL and GMAT. Then, the leads are split into markets by regions of the world, including Europe, Asia, the U.S. and South America and then the cold calls begin and are made by a staff of people who spend their entire days on the phone.
“Closing isn’t done in one call,” the poster added. “First we call to make sure the number is correct, the individual could fit studies in their schedule, and most importantly tht they have some way to bring forth the ca$h needed ($20K-$40K depending on the program). Then, after having assessed all these needs (test scores not being a priority of course) a description is made of how amazing the school and its program are, and an excuse to have another call is set up (‘so that you can discuss with your family,’ ‘so that you can do the math/speak with the bank/etc,’ or the best one ‘at a time where we’ll have more time to speak.’).”
But then it went further when the poster, who describes himself as a Hult staffer who helped recruit students to the school’s programs, then claimed that Hult doctors its employment report for graduates. “Alumni that don’t find a job within three months are given the status of ‘entrepreneurs’ and don’t feature in employment statistics,” he alleged. “Or they are offered a job at Ult or one of its affiliates. This is also done to help the statistics” which claim that 91% of our students find a job within three months.”
The allegations set off furious questions and comments from many other Reddit users and led the school to respond.
“It sounds like a disgruntled former employee has shared some doubts about our stats which is of course unfortunate, but we can’t expect all members of staff to be familiar with the rigorous, standardized process surrounding rankings and accreditation,” said Markus Mandl, Hult’s chief marketing officer. “The fact that we are experiencing continued success in both, our ongoing accreditations process as well as in the premier rankings of business school programs is a testament to the positive impact of our unique approach to global higher education.”
Fake news is one thing, but a fake community and conversations is another. That’s what admissions consultant Daniel Morgan claimed Beat The GMAT has been doing in its online forums. Earlier this year, Morgan claimed that while BTG’s forums are designed to appear as a marketplace of ideas for curious would-be MBA seekers, the exchange of information is being manipulated by fake users that post high volumes of repetitive questions and generic comments, and that don’t interact or respond to questions.
BTG responded to the allegations by saying the site is just trying to keep up with the competition by employing common tactics that actually serve users well by, among other things, regenerating old content. Beat The GMAT claims to be “a social network where MBA applicants, students, admissions officers, GMAT teachers, and MBA consultants openly collaborate and share free advice.” But Morgan, who graduated with an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business in 2012, says they are using dishonest tactics and even employing paid content generators under the title of “moderators.”
“I do think this stuff happens a lot (around the web),” Morgan, a former derivatives trader for Susquehanna International Group and equity analyst for Albert Bridge Capital, said. “I really feel that it’s something that needs to be brought to light. In my mind creating fake profiles to populate a forum with a view of profiting from it is an unethical practice.”
Earlier this year, when The Financial Times released its annual ranking of global MBA programs, a familiar name was absent. The IE Business School was nowhere to be found. The exclusion led to the firing of two staffers and forced resignation of another in an effort to regain the trust of the school’s alumni base.
In a letter to alumni and IE’s senior leaders, the school also said for the first time that it could not rule out the possibility of “wrong doing” by IE staffers that resulted in the newspaper’s decision to remove the school from its ranking for the first time ever. And has reassigned the management of the rankings from external relations to Martin Boehm, dean of the business school.
According to the FT, IE was excluded because of “irregularities” in the alumni survey, claiming that alums outside of the Class of 2014 — the intended alumni group to be surveyed — completed the survey. “We take the integrity of our rankings very seriously and this is not the first time a school has been disqualified,” a spokesperson for the FT told P&Q. “In this case, the quality of the data we received was not good enough. We received surveys completed by people who were not who we thought they were. We alerted IE to this issue and we have asked them to urgently tighten their data collection procedures so that they can be included in future rankings.”
The alumni survey makes up 59% of the ranking’s methodology. The FT has removed schools from its ranking, which launched in 1999, but has never removed a school as highly regarded as IE, which placed eighth in the 2017 ranking.
When INSEAD announced this summer that it would no longer be allowing its orientation, Welcome Week, it set off a tremendous outpouring from alums arguing for and against the controversial event. First reported by The Financial Times, two incoming INSEAD students formally filed complaints about hazing to the Comité National Contre le Bizutage, or French National Committee Against Hazing. The INSEAD newcomers charged that the student-run, one-and-a-half day event put incoming students through uncomfortable initiation activities. We reported a similar story and then the comments and emails to P&Qstaff members ignited.
As the school got a first taste of scandal, clear lines were drawn, and camps emerged both for and against the school’s Welcome Week. Among the more prominent voices calling for the event to be restored is Leonid Bershidsky, an INSEAD alum and Bloomberg columnist who wrote an opinion piece in support of the 35-year-old orientation tradition. “Welcome Week definitely got us out of our comfort zone, and I know many of us felt unsettled and, yes, unsafe or at least uncertain about our future at the school and its demands,” Bershidsky wrote in an essay. “Being forced to look at oneself in a harsh mirror held up by one’s peers could be even more traumatic than a 24-hour workout.”
At issue, was the portion of the week when students join student-run clubs that end up being fake. Some of the clubs put students through some embarrassing and excruciating rites of passage before the already enrolled students reveal to the incoming students the clubs are just made up.
One former student recounted her experience to P&Q and claimed she was asked to meet others at the Forest of Fontainebleau, a 110-square-mile national forest that borders INSEAD’s campus and is comprised of a massive maze-like network of trails with few distinguishing features. “I ran for hours. I climbed for hours,” the former student said, describing a scene more akin to a fraternity initiation than a club at a prestigious business school. “The club leaders would scream in our ears, calling us fat Renaissance rejects.”
Either way, the removal of the event certainly got a heated discussion going. For now, at least, future INSEAD students will not be participating in any hazing in Welcome Week.
It wasn’t a good year for Columbia Business School with some shocking sexually-related cases of harassment and abuse. First was the case of a senior professor — Geert Bekaert — who was accused by a junior professor and his mentee of sexual harassment. But what was in extra shocking was how Bekaert handled the allegations. Soon after learning of the accusations of Enrichetta Ravina, he send a blaze of emails to colleagues around the world calling the young professional, Enrichetta Ravina, a fucking evil bitch, crazy, insane, mentally unstable, paranoid, schizophrenic, and berserk. At one point, Bekaert confessed that he wanted to strangle her.
The trial, which eventually led to a $1.25 million payout for Ravina from Columbia’s B-school and Bekaert, was an unraveling of a once promising faculty partnership. Bakaert, who is 11 years older than Ravina, held some power over Ravina and her career at Columbia, where Ravina left before gaining tenure. Ravina accused Bekaert — one of Columbia Business School’s most senior professors — of abusing his power by sexually harassing her for more than a year, and then sabotaging her academic career when she continually fended off his alleged attempts to get her to go to bed with him.
At one point, she claims, Bekaert, who had a major influence over her ability to publish academic research vital to a forthcoming tenure decision, told her: “If you were nicer to me, your papers would move faster.”
“I’m already as nice as I can be,” she said she responded.
The case shown a spotlight on the abuse of power dynamics in the workplace that have become incredibly common and part of a larger national spotlight of the #MeToo movement.
This past July, as the $30 million case between two Columbia Business School professors was taking place, CBS Dean Glen Hubbard testified in court, calling the dispute “disgraceful,” “unprofessional,” and a “soap opera.”
“I’ve been teaching 35 years. I’ve never seen anything like this,” Hubbard told a New York City courtroom in mid-July. “The most common dispute — and even that I could count fingers on one hand — would be a teaching dispute, you know, who developed what materials for class, but I have never had to referee something like this in 35 years of being an economist.”
Hubbard, who has been Columbia B-School’s dean since 2004, was weary to get in the middle of the dispute before it went to court.
“It was serious,” he later testified, “because that involved their professional lack of communication, and I thought it was a soap opera. Sitting here today, I think it.”
2. Columbia’s Sexual Assault Case And The Administration’s Response
Months after the multi-million dollar sexual harassment case between two professors, another serious case of serious sexual misconduct surfaced at Columbia Business School. In November, a first-year MBA student came to P&Q, alleging she and other classmates had been drugged and raped by other full-time MBA students at Columbia. And what the student, Katie Brehm, did in reaction to the brutal attack was incredibly brave and courageous. The 31-year-old young professional wrote an email to the 70 fellow students in Cluster A, one of several groups assigned to take all of the first-year core classes together.
She wrote the Nov. 7th letter as much for clarity as anything else. Brehm had little recollection of what exactly happened the night she was assaulted at a social event celebrating the end of mid-term exams. She decided to rely on the recollections of her classmates and friends. From what she could piece together, Brehm had become convinced that a tall, white male classmate had slipped a date-rape drug into the Bulleit Bourbon she ordered at the bar and taken advantage of her blackout.
That night ended with a sidewalk spill that led to the diagnosis of a concussion, a rape kit assessment in a New York City hospital that found bruises on her inner thighs and vagina, indicating signs of forced penetration, and endless questioning of friends about what exactly happened at a private party attended by hundreds of Columbia Business School students.
“I have been MIA since the Jane Hotel because I am on short-term medical leave,” she told her classmates. “While it is partially for a concussion, it is predominantly because a fellow CBS student has drugged me three times this semester. I have spent the last two weeks in and out of the hospital, NYPD, and Columbia University gender based misconduct offices. At the Jane Hotel, three female students sustained concussions. If you want to believe that is a coincidence, that is your choice. Not only was I drugged, but I was sexually assaulted. I am not letting whoever did this to me get away with it…”
Even more traumatizing and frustrating for Brehm? Columbia’s lack of response to her plea for justice. There was no follow-up from Dean of Students Zelon Crawford after a 20-minute meeting on Nov. 7, shortly after sending the email to her Cluster A classmates. The dean, she says, never even sent a follow-up email or made a phone call to check up on Brehm to make sure she was okay.
She believes the school is protecting and harboring two criminals. ”They have sat on allegations of drug assisted sexual assault for over three weeks,” says Brehm. She recently hired a law firm that is exploring the potential of a civil suit against the school for failing to promptly and adequately deal with her serious charges and to protect her and the other female students at the school. A spokesperson for Columbia Business School declined to comment for the original story.
2018 started off with a bad bang for Temple University’s Fox School of Business. After placing first for four consecutive years in the U.S. News ranking of online MBA programs, Temple was left off the list. The reason? Falsifying data. The school had reported a slew of falsified data that would boost their place in the rankings. After a investigation that lasted until July, the school announced Dean M. Moshe Porat, who had been dean of the school for over two decades new about the falsified data.
In the immediate aftermath of that embarrassment, the university hired Jones Day to conduct an investigation.
“It is my duty to report that the Fox School, under the leadership of Dean Moshe Porat, knowingly provided false information to at least one rankings organization about the Online MBA,” wrote Temple President Richard M. Englert. “In addition to the misreporting of the number of students who took the GMAT from 2015 to 2018, the average undergraduate GPA was overstated, and there were inaccuracies in the number of offers of admission as well as in the degree of student indebtedness.”
The Jones Day investigative team interviewed 17 Fox employees and reviewed more than 32,000 documents. It concluded that, over the past several years, “Fox provided U.S. News with inaccurate information across multiple data metrics that are part of the publication’s OMBA rankings methodology. And while Jones Day focused on information that Fox provided to U.S. News relating to the school’s OMBA program, the investigation revealed that Fox provided U.S. News with erroneous information relating to other programs as well. On certain occasions, Fox’s reporting of inaccurate information to U.S. News was done knowingly and intentionally for the purpose of improving or maintaining Fox’s standing in the relevant U.S. News rankings.
The investigation sent shockwaves throughout the entire B-school community as cheating had officially become a thing in business school rankings. | www.forbes.com | The Biggest B-School Scandals Of 2018 | https://www.forbes.com/sites/poetsandquants/2019/01/01/the-biggest-b-school-scandals-of-2018/ | 2019-01-01 |
Trent Reinsmith | 2019-01-01 22:15:12+00:00 | 2019-01-01 20:55:00 | Henry Cejudo is set to defend his UFC flyweight title against UFC bantamweight champ T.J. Dillashaw on January 19 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Cejudo's manager doesn't feel Dillashaw will make weight for the fight. He expects Cejudo to face Joseph Benavidez instead. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Ftrentreinsmith%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fhenry-cejudos-manager-thinks-t-j-dillashaw-will-miss-weight-for-ufc-flyweight-title-fight%2F.json | en | The UFC’s debut on ESPN+ is fast approaching. That event, which features a title fight between flyweight champion Henry Cejudo and bantamweight champion T.J. Dillashaw as its main event, takes place January 19 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
At stake in the headlining bout is Cejudo’s flyweight title. That means Dillashaw will need to weigh-in at 125 pounds or lower. There is no one-pound allowance for UFC title fights.
Dillashaw, who began his second reign as the 135-pound champion with a first-round TKO win over Cody Garbrandt at UFC 227, is confident that he can make the weight.
If Dillashaw does fail to hit the 125-pound limit, the UFC has a backup plan in place. Two-time flyweight title challenger Joseph Benavidez will step in and face Cejudo for the title if Dillashaw is heavy. Benavidez is scheduled to meet Dustin Ortiz on the main card of the event.
Cejudo’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, said he feels the fight with Dillashaw is not going to happen.
“I don’t think T.J.’s going to make weight. And if he misses weight by .1 pounds, Joseph Benavidez is going to fight,” Abdelaziz told MMA Fighting. “We’re going to give Joseph a shot. One-hundred percent, if he does not make weight, Joseph Benavidez is getting a title shot. Because I personally don’t think he’ll make it. If he makes it, he’s going to be weak, fragile, and he’s going to have a long, long night with the champ. It’ll be a long night for T.J. He’s a good fighter, but he can’t fight at the pace Henry’s going fight him at 125. He doesn’t have the speed to fight Henry.”
There has been talk that the UFC has plans to shutter the flyweight division. In conversations, UFC President Dana White would neither confirm nor deny those rumblings. However, Abdelaziz said a win by Cejudo will keep the division intact.
“Henry’s going to keep the title. If he wins, he will keep the title,” said Abdelaziz. “If Henry wins, nobody’s going to take this title away from him. Nobody. He’s the king. … He is the defender of the flyweights, and he’s going to win the day for his flyweight brothers.”
Cejudo won the flyweight title in August when he defeated long-reigning champion Demetrious Johnson by split decision. Johnson had defended the title a UFC record 11 times before losing to Cejudo at UFC 227. | www.forbes.com | Henry Cejudo's Manager Thinks T.J. Dillashaw Will Miss Weight For UFC Flyweight Title Fight | https://www.forbes.com/sites/trentreinsmith/2019/01/01/henry-cejudos-manager-thinks-t-j-dillashaw-will-miss-weight-for-ufc-flyweight-title-fight/ | 2019-01-01 |
Evelyn Cheng | 2019-01-02 05:45:45+00:00 | 2019-01-01 23:28:38 | Chinese President Xi Jinping was speaking in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of a policy statement that paved the way for increased communication between China and Taiwan. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnbc.com%2F2019%2F01%2F02%2Fforeign-involvement-in-taiwan-independence-intolerable-chinas-xi.html.json | en | On the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of a thaw in Beijing's relationship with Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping emphasized his position that the island is part of China and that foreigners should not interfere in the matter of Taiwanese independence.
"The issue of Taiwan is part of China's domestic politics. It is a core interest of China, and the ... feelings of the Chinese people, and foreign interference is intolerable," Xi said, according to an official English-language translation broadcast on state media.
Beijing views Taiwan as a province that has gone astray and has no right to international recognition as a separate political entity. Chinese authorities would like to bring the island under their control and they have indicated they would use force, if needed. In the last year or so, the Communist government has increased its pressure on multinational companies to refer to Taiwan as a part of China. | www.cnbc.com | Foreign involvement in Taiwan independence intolerable: China's Xi | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/02/foreign-involvement-in-taiwan-independence-intolerable-chinas-xi.html | 2019-01-01 |
Gary Suarez | 2019-01-01 19:15:03+00:00 | 2019-01-01 18:04:00 | The Christmas Eve released 'X100PRE' also tops the Latin albums chart. | https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fgarysuarez%2F2019%2F01%2F01%2Fbad-bunny-billboard%2F.json | en | Bad Bunny may have started his 2018 underrated, but he kicks off 2019 as one of the biggest and most recognizable contemporary hip-hop stars.
Fueled in no small part by the unconventional Christmas Eve surprise release of his debut album X100PRE, the Puerto Rican hip-hop sensation claims 11 positions on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs, accounting for 22% of the chart's entries this week.
Of these songs, three rank in the top ten, all notably repeating their rankings from the prior week. The Drake collaboration "MIA" takes No. 2 yet again and recent single "Solo De Mí" holds onto No. 6 in its second charting frame. Now 36 weeks into its run on Hot Latin Songs, urbano smash "Te Boté (Remix)" sticks to its familiar No. 4 spot, a place it has largely occupied since "MIA" first began charting there a dozen weeks ago.
As for the remaining eight entries, six X100PRE cuts make their Hot Latin Songs bow this week. Album opener "Ni Bien Ni Mal" impressively debuts at No. 16, while the uncredited Ricky Martin feature "Caro" grabs No. 32 and "Otra Noche En Miami" starts off at No. 36. Then there's "200 MPH" with Diplo (No. 42), "Tenemos Que Hablar" (No. 46) and "La Romana" with Dominican dembow artist El Alfa. Finally, a pair of Bad Bunny's non-album singles as a featured act alongside Latin music vets continue to chart: Marc Antony's "Está Rico" and Jennifer Lopez's "Te Guste."
With the benefit of only four eligible days in the completed qualifying week, several of these songs could've fared even better on the charts had the corresponding X100PRE been released on the preceding Friday as per industry custom instead of on a Monday. Nonetheless, the full-length itself debuts atop Top Latin Albums, knocking Ozuna's popular 2018 outing Aura to second place. It also comes in at No. 29 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
Safe to say, once X100PRE and each of its 15 tracks log a complete seven day frame of consumption, Bad Bunny will assuredly retain that No. 1 on the Latin albums chart next week and improve his ranking on the all-genre one as well. On the singles side, should tracks like "Ni Bien Ni Mal" climb higher, it may be the shake-up that Hot Latin Songs so sorely needs, what with its all-but frozen top five that continues to feature Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee's "Despacito" despite two years on the chart.
Thankfully, even as DJ Snake's "Taki Taki" takes No. 1 for a fourth straight week, there are some strong signs that the chart's top ten is already undergoing some much needed change. Los Ángeles Azules' "Nunca Es Suficiente" at last reaches the single digits, claiming No. 9 after 15 weeks. Having been on Hot Latin Songs just as long, Christian Nodal's "No Te Contaron Mal" follows right behind at No. 10. And a number of other contenders aren't much further down, with Banda Los Sebastianes' "A Través del Vaso" reaching a new peak at No. 12 and Daddy Yankee's "Adictiva" team-up with Anuel AA holding on to No. 13 again. | www.forbes.com | Bad Bunny Logs Nearly A Dozen Simultaneous Billboard Latin Singles | https://www.forbes.com/sites/garysuarez/2019/01/01/bad-bunny-billboard/ | 2019-01-01 |
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