BARNSTABLE (CBS) — A skydiving instructor and student were killed in a training jump on Cape Cod Sunday afternoon, officials said.

 The skydivers, jumping in tandem, crashed into a garage on Race Lane in Marstons Mills beyond the intended landing area of the Cape Cod airfield authorities said. The victims were both adults males, according to Massachusetts State Police.

 “We responded to the scene and we observed two people – the instructor and the student – laying on the ground beside the garage,” Barnstable Police Sgt. Ben Baxter said. “It appears they did hit the garage.”

 Both of the skydivers were rushed to Cape Cod Hospital, but did not survive.

 The Federal Aviation Administration and the district attorney’s office are also investigating. The identities of the victims have not yet been released.

 It was not clear if an equipment malfunction was to blame.

 Neighbors tell WBZ-TV that skydivers are a fairly common site at the airfield, but this time something went wrong. One person living close by said she saw the two men parachuting, but then heard a frightening sound.

 “Unfortunately I don’t know what happened, but I heard a thud,” the neighbor said. “The parachute looked deployed.”

 MORE LOCAL NEWS FROM CBS BOSTON ||||| Authorities in Barnstable, Massachusetts, confirm an instructor and a student are dead after attempting to land at Cape Cod Airfield. (Published Monday, Sep 29, 2014)

 UPDATE: Officials identified the victims on Sept. 29.

 A skydiving instructor and a student are dead after a skydiving accident on Cape Cod, officials confirm.

 Police in Barnstable, Massachusetts, found the victims next to a garage at 885 Race Lane in the Barnstable village of Marston Mills, across the street from Cape Cod Airfield.

 "It appears they did hit the garage," said Barnstable Police Sgt. Ben Baxter. "The Mass. State Police will be investigating, along with our detective division."

 The two male victims jumped in tandem, attached together. They were both transported by ambulance to Cape Cod Hospital, where they were pronounced dead.

 A Boston MedFlight helicopter had been asked to stand by in case either patient needed to be taken to a trauma center.

 Officials are working to determine what went wrong. There is a skydiving school at Cape Cod Airfield, but it is not yet known whether the victims were from there.

 NECN will have more as this story develops.

Summary: – The Federal Aviation Administration and local authorities are probing the deaths of two skydivers yesterday evening. The instructor and student, both adult males, were found next to a garage across the street from the Cape Cod Airfield, reports NECN. "We responded to the scene and we observed two people—the instructor and the student— laying on the ground beside the garage," a police spokesman tells CBS. "It appears they did hit the garage." The pair were jumping in tandem, and it's not clear whether there was an equipment malfunction.


Move over salt. Step aside, saturated fat. There’s a new public enemy in the pantry, and it’s … sugar.In a provocative commentary coming out in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature, Dr. Robert Lustig and two colleagues from UC San Francisco argue that the added sugars in processed foods and drinks are responsible for so many cases of chronic disease and premature deaths that their use ought to be regulated, just like alcohol and tobacco.To those who view sugar as more of a treat than a poison – and especially to libertarian-minded people who oppose government regulation in general – Lustig’s proposal is certainly a nonstarter. Public health advocates have spent years trying to enact a soda tax to discourage consumption of added sugar, and none of their efforts is close to succeeding.But if you set aside both political reality and your sweet tooth, you have to admit that Lustig makes some good points.For starters, he and coauthors Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis of the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies at UCSF aren’t claiming that sugar should be illegal or removed from the diet completely. They are focused on added sugars, which they define as “any sweetener containing the molecule fructose that is added to food in processing.”In this country, the average American consumes 222 calories worth of sugar from sugar cane and sugar beets each day, along with 165 calories with of sugar from high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture . But the proposed regulations wouldn't make any distinction between these sweeteners -- any caloric sweetener that contains fructose would be subject to scrutiny.Why? Because even the United Nations recognizes that the greatest threat to public health now comes from non- communicable diseases , including diabetes heart disease and cancer . Together, these play a role in more than 35 million deaths each year. And they get a big boost from the choices people make about tobacco, alcohol and diet.Of these three “risk factors,” only tobacco and alcohol are currently subject to regulation, the authors write. Of course, these differ from food in that they are not necessary for survival. But added sugars – and the items made with them – aren’t necessary either.When it comes to alcohol, there are four criteria that justify government regulation, according to the 2003 book “Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity”:* It’s unavoidable in society.* It’s toxic.* It can be abused.* It’s bad for society.“Sugar meets the same criteria,” Lustig and colleagues write, “and we believe that it similarly warrants some form of societal intervention.”The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization says that in 2007, Americans consumed more than 600 calories' worth of added sugar each day. And the damage it does goes beyond supplying empty calories. In fact, it may not be excess fat that causes diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and other manifestations of metabolic syndrome – there’s scientific evidence that suggests sugar itself is to blame. After all, 20% of obese people don’t have these diseases, but 40% of normal-weight people do.“For both alcohol and tobacco, there is robust evidence that gentle ‘supply side’ control strategies which stop far short of all-out prohibition – taxation, distrbution controls, age limits – lower both consumption of the product and the accompanying health harms,” the UCSF trio writes. “Consequently, we propose adding taxes to processed foods that contain any form of added sugars.”Though this is a pipe dream in the U.S. (despite the authors’ attempt to call their proposal “the possible dream”), they do note that Canada and some countries in Europe already impose small taxes on some artificially sweetened foods. Denmark, the country that imposed a “fat tax” last year, is now eyeing a sugar tax as well.Short of taxes, there are other things regulators can do to discourage consumption of added sugar. “States could apply zoning ordinances to control the number of fast-food outlets and convenience stores in low-income communities, and especially around schools,” the authors argue.States could also impose a “drinking age” for buying soda, sports drinks and other sugar-sweetened beverages. (The authors suggest age 17.)And how about “a limit – or, ideally, ban – on television commercials for products with added sugars”?At a minimum, the U.S. Food and Drug Administrationcould remove fructose from its list of items Generally Recognized as Safe . That would force food makers to seek an FDA review of products with added sugars.“The food industry knows that it has a problem,” the authors write. “With enough clamour for change, tectonic shifts in policy become powerful.”A link to the commentary (which is behind a paywall) is online here An earlier version of this post said that most added sugar consumed in the U.S. is in the form of high fructose corn syrup, or HFCS. It should have said that Americans consume more HFCS than people in other countries. In 2010, the average American consumed 34.8 pounds of HFCS and 47 pounds of cane and beet sugar, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.Return to the Booster Shots blog ||||| SUMMARY

 Sugar consumption is linked to a rise in non-communicable disease

 Sugar's effects on the body can be similar to those of alcohol

 Regulation could include tax, limiting sales during school hours and placing age limits on purchase

 Last September, the United Nations declared that, for the first time in human history, chronic non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes pose a greater health burden worldwide than do infectious diseases, contributing to 35 million deaths annually.

 This is not just a problem of the developed world. Every country that has adopted the Western diet — one dominated by low-cost, highly processed food — has witnessed rising rates of obesity and related diseases. There are now 30% more people who are obese than who are undernourished. Economic development means that the populations of low- and middle-income countries are living longer, and therefore are more susceptible to non-communicable diseases; 80% of deaths attributable to them occur in these countries.

 ILLUSTRATION BY MARK SMITH

 Many people think that obesity is the root cause of these diseases. But 20% of obese people have normal metabolism and will have a normal lifespan. Conversely, up to 40% of normal-weight people develop the diseases that constitute the metabolic syndrome: diabetes, hypertension, lipid problems, cardiovascular disease andnon-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Obesity is not the cause; rather, it is a marker for metabolic dysfunction, which is even more prevalent.

 The UN announcement targets tobacco, alcohol and diet as the central risk factors in non-communicable disease. Two of these three — tobacco and alcohol — are regulated by governments to protect public health, leaving one of the primary culprits behind this worldwide health crisis unchecked. Of course, regulating food is more complicated — food is required, whereas tobacco and alcohol are non-essential consumables. The key question is: what aspects of the Western diet should be the focus of intervention?

 In October 2011, Denmark chose to tax foods high in saturated fat, despite the fact that most medical professionals no longer believe that fat is the primary culprit. But now, the country is considering taxing sugar as well — a more plausible and defensible step. Indeed, rather than focusing on fat and salt — the current dietary 'bogeymen' of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the European Food Safety Authority — we believe that attention should be turned to 'added sugar', defined as any sweetener containing the molecule fructose that is added to food in processing.

 Over the past 50 years, consumption of sugar has tripled worldwide. In the United States, there is fierce controversy over the pervasive use of one particular added sugar — high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). It is manufactured from corn syrup (glucose), processed to yield a roughly equal mixture of glucose and fructose. Most other developed countries eschew HFCS, relying on naturally occurring sucrose as an added sugar, which also consists of equal parts glucose and fructose.

 Authorities consider sugar as 'empty calories' — but there is nothing empty about these calories. A growing body of scientific evidence is showing that fructose can trigger processes that lead to liver toxicity and a host of other chronic diseases1. A little is not a problem, but a lot kills — slowly (see 'Deadly effect'). If international bodies are truly concerned about public health, they must consider limiting fructose — and its main delivery vehicles, the added sugars HFCS and sucrose — which pose dangers to individuals and to society as a whole.

 Table 1: Deadly effect

 Excessive consumption of fructose can cause many of the same health problems as alcohol. Full table

 No ordinary commodity

 In 2003, social psychologist Thomas Babor and his colleagues published a landmark book called Alcohol: No Ordinary Commodity, in which they established four criteria, now largely accepted by the public-health community, that justify the regulation of alcohol — unavoidability (or pervasiveness throughout society), toxicity, potential for abuse and negative impact on society2. Sugar meets the same criteria, and we believe that it similarly warrants some form of societal intervention.

 First, consider unavoidability. Evolutionarily, sugar was available to our ancestors as fruit for only a few months a year (at harvest time), or as honey, which was guarded by bees. But in recent years, sugar has been added to nearly all processed foods, limiting consumer choice3. Nature made sugar hard to get; man made it easy. In many parts of the world, people are consuming an average of more than 500 calories per day from added sugar alone (see 'The global sugar glut').

 SOURCE: FAO

 Now, let's consider toxicity. A growing body of epidemiological and mechanistic evidence argues that excessive sugar consumption affects human health beyond simply adding calories4. Importantly, sugar induces all of the diseases associated with metabolic syndrome1, 5. This includes: hypertension (fructose increases uric acid, which raises blood pressure); high triglycerides and insulin resistance through synthesis of fat in the liver; diabetes from increased liver glucose production combined with insulin resistance; and the ageing process, caused by damage to lipids, proteins and DNA through non-enzymatic binding of fructose to these molecules. It can also be argued that fructose exerts toxic effects on the liver that are similar to those of alcohol1. This is no surprise, because alcohol is derived from the fermentation of sugar. Some early studies have also linked sugar consumption to human cancer and cognitive decline.

 Sugar also has clear potential for abuse. Like tobacco and alcohol, it acts on the brain to encourage subsequent intake. There are now numerous studies examining the dependence-producing properties of sugar in humans6. Specifically, sugar dampens the suppression of the hormone ghrelin, which signals hunger to the brain. It also interferes with the normal transport and signalling of the hormone leptin, which helps to produce the feeling of satiety. And it reduces dopamine signalling in the brain's reward centre, thereby decreasing the pleasure derived from food and compelling the individual to consume more1, 6.

 Finally, consider the negative effects of sugar on society. Passive smoking and drink-driving fatalities provided strong arguments for tobacco and alcohol control, respectively. The long-term economic, health-care and human costs of metabolic syndrome place sugar overconsumption in the same category7. The United States spends $65 billion in lost productivity and $150 billion on health-care resources annually for morbidities associated with metabolic syndrome. Seventy-five per cent of all US health-care dollars are now spent on treating these diseases and their resultant disabilities. Because about 25% of military applicants are now rejected for obesity-related reasons, the past three US surgeons general and the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff have declared obesity a “threat to national security”.

 How to intervene

 How can we reduce sugar consumption? After all, sugar is natural. Sugar is a nutrient. Sugar is pleasure. So too is alcohol, but in both cases, too much of a good thing is toxic. It may be helpful to look to the many generations of international experience with alcohol and tobacco to find models that work8, 9. So far, evidence shows that individually focused approaches, such as school-based interventions that teach children about diet and exercise, demonstrate little efficacy. Conversely, for both alcohol and tobacco, there is robust evidence that gentle 'supply side' control strategies which stop far short of all-out prohibition — taxation, distribution controls, age limits — lower both consumption of the product and the accompanying health harms. Successful interventions share a common end-point: curbing availability2, 8, 9.

 Taxing alcohol and tobacco products — in the form of special excise duties, value-added taxes and sales taxes — are the most popular and effective ways to reduce smoking and drinking, and in turn, substance abuse and related harms2. Consequently, we propose adding taxes to processed foods that contain any form of added sugars. This would include sweetened fizzy drinks (soda), other sugar-sweetened beverages (for example, juice, sports drinks and chocolate milk) and sugared cereal. Already, Canada and some European countries impose small additional taxes on some sweetened foods. The United States is currently considering a penny-per-ounce soda tax (about 34 cents per litre), which would raise the price of a can by 10–12 cents. Currently, a US citizen consumes an average of 216 litres of soda per year, of which 58% contains sugar. Taxing at a penny an ounce could provide annual revenue in excess of $45 per capita (roughly $14 billion per year); however, this would be unlikely to reduce total consumption. Statistical modelling suggests that the price would have to double to significantly reduce soda consumption — so a $1 can should cost $2 (ref. 10).

 Other successful tobacco- and alcohol-control strategies limit availability, such as reducing the hours that retailers are open, controlling the location and density of retail markets and limiting who can legally purchase the products2, 9. A reasonable parallel for sugar would tighten licensing requirements on vending machines and snack bars that sell sugary products in schools and workplaces. Many schools have removed unhealthy fizzy drinks and candy from vending machines, but often replaced them with juice and sports drinks, which also contain added sugar. States could apply zoning ordinances to control the number of fast-food outlets and convenience stores in low-income communities, and especially around schools, while providing incentives for the establishment of grocery stores and farmer's markets.

 Another option would be to limit sales during school operation, or to designate an age limit (such as 17) for the purchase of drinks with added sugar, particularly soda. Indeed, parents in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, recently took this upon themselves by lining up outside convenience stores and blocking children from entering them after school. Why couldn't a public-health directive do the same?

 The possible dream

 Government-imposed regulations on the marketing of alcohol to young people have been quite effective, but there is no such approach to sugar-laden products. Even so, the city of San Francisco, California, recently banned the inclusion of toys with unhealthy meals such as some types of fast food. A limit — or, ideally, ban — on television commercials for products with added sugars could further protect children's health.

 Reduced fructose consumption could also be fostered through changes in subsidization. Promotion of healthy foods in US low-income programmes, such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (also known as the food-stamps programme) is an obvious place to start. Unfortunately, the petition by New York City to remove soft drinks from the food-stamp programme was denied by the USDA.

 “Sugar is cheap, sugar tastes good and sugar sells, so companies have little incentive to change.”

 Ultimately, food producers and distributors must reduce the amount of sugar added to foods. But sugar is cheap, sugar tastes good and sugar sells, so companies have little incentive to change. Although one institution alone can't turn this juggernaut around, the US Food and Drug Administration could “set the table” for change8. To start, it should consider removing fructose from the Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) list, which allows food manufacturers to add unlimited amounts to any food. Opponents will argue that other nutrients on the GRAS list, such as iron and vitamins A and D, can also be toxic when over-consumed. However, unlike sugar, these substances have no abuse potential. Removal from the GRAS list would send a powerful signal to the European Food Safety Authority and the rest of the world.

 Regulating sugar will not be easy — particularly in the 'emerging markets' of developing countries where soft drinks are often cheaper than potable water or milk. We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby, and will require active engagement from all stakeholders. Still, the food industry knows that it has a problem — even vigorous lobbying by fast-food companies couldn't defeat the toy ban in San Francisco. With enough clamour for change, tectonic shifts in policy become possible. Take, for instance, bans on smoking in public places and the use of designated drivers, not to mention airbags in cars and condom dispensers in public bathrooms. These simple measures — which have all been on the battleground of American politics — are now taken for granted as essential tools for our public health and well-being. It's time to turn our attention to sugar. ||||| Contains Nonbinding Recommendations

 December 2004

 Additional copies are available from:

 Office of Food Additive Safety, HFS-200

 Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

 Food and Drug Administration

 5100 Paint Branch Parkway

 College Park, MD 20740

 (Tel) 301-436-1200 (Updated phone: 240-402-1200)

 http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/guidance.html

 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

 Food and Drug Administration

 Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN)

 December 2004

 Contains Nonbinding Recommendations

 This guidance represents the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) current thinking on this topic. It does not create or confer any rights for or on any person and does not operate to bind FDA or the public. An alternative approach can be used if such approach satisfies the requirements of the applicable statutes and regulations. If you want to discuss an alternative approach, please contact the FDA staff responsible for implementing this guidance. If you cannot identify the appropriate FDA staff, contact the appropriate number listed on the title page of this document.

 This list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) is intended to be a convenient place to find answers to common questions about the food ingredient classification known as "generally recognized as safe" or "GRAS." This FAQ addresses common questions about the regulatory process and regulatory considerations regarding whether the use of a food substance is GRAS. For more information about the GRAS program, please contact Dr. Paulette Gaynor (301-436-1192)(Updated phone: 240-402-1192) in the Office of Food Additive Safety, or email questions to premarkt@fda.hhs.gov. See additional contact information at the bottom of this page.

 What does "GRAS" mean? "GRAS" is an acronym for the phrase Generally Recognized As Safe. Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act), any substance that is intentionally added to food is a food additive, that is subject to premarket review and approval by FDA, unless the substance is generally recognized, among qualified experts, as having been adequately shown to be safe under the conditions of its intended use, or unless the use of the substance is otherwise excluded from the definition of a food additive. For example, substances whose use meets the definition of a pesticide, a dietary ingredient of a dietary supplement, a color additive, a new animal drug, or a substance approved for such use prior to September 6, 1958, are excluded from the definition of food additive. Sections 201(s) and 409 were enacted in 1958 as part of the Food Additives Amendment to the Act. While it is impracticable to list all ingredients whose use is generally recognized as safe, FDA published a partial list of food ingredients whose use is generally recognized as safe to aid the industry's understanding of what did not require approval.

 What are the criteria for GRAS status? Under sections 201(s) and 409 of the Act, and FDA's implementing regulations in 21 CFR 170.3 and 21 CFR 170.30, the use of a food substance may be GRAS either through scientific procedures or, for a substance used in food before 1958, through experience based on common use in food. Under 21 CFR 170.30(b), general recognition of safety through scientific procedures requires the same quantity and quality of scientific evidence as is required to obtain approval of the substance as a food additive and ordinarily is based upon published studies, which may be corroborated by unpublished studies and other data and information.

 Under 21 CFR 170.30(c) and 170.3(f), general recognition of safety through experience based on common use in foods requires a substantial history of consumption for food use by a significant number of consumers.

 In what way are the criteria for the use of a substance to be GRAS similar to that for the approved use of a food additive? Regardless of whether the use of a substance is a food additive use or is GRAS, there must be evidence that the substance is safe under the conditions of its intended use. FDA has defined "safe" (21 CFR 170.3(i)) as a reasonable certainty in the minds of competent scientists that the substance is not harmful under its intended conditions of use. The specific data and information that demonstrate safety depend on the characteristics of the substance, the estimated dietary intake, and the population that will consume the substance.

 In what way are the criteria for the use of a substance to be GRAS different from that for the approved use of a food additive? A GRAS substance is distinguished from a food additive on the basis of the common knowledge about the safety of the substance for its intended use. As FDA discussed in a proposed rule to establish a voluntary notification program for GRAS substances (62 Fed. Reg. 18938; April 17, 1997), the data and information relied on to establish the safety of the use of a GRAS substance must be generally available (e.g., through publication in the scientific literature) and there must be a basis to conclude that there is consensus among qualified experts about the safety of the substance for its intended use. Thus, the difference between use of a food additive and use of a GRAS substance relates to the widespread awareness of the data and information about the substance, i.e., who has access to the data and information and who has reviewed those data and information. For a food additive, privately held data and information about the use of the substance are sent by the sponsor to FDA and FDA evaluates those data and information to determine whether they establish that the substance is safe under the conditions of its intended use (21 CFR 171.1).

 For a GRAS substance, generally available data and information about the use of the substance are known and accepted widely by qualified experts, and there is a basis to conclude that there is consensus among qualified experts that those data and information establish that the substance is safe under the conditions of its intended use. (proposed 170.36 (c)(4)(i)(C))

 If an ingredient is GRAS for one use, is it GRAS for all uses? Not necessarily. Under section 201(s) of the Act, it is the use of a substance, rather than the substance itself, that is eligible for the GRAS exemption (62 Fed. Reg. 18939; April 17, 1997). A determination of the safety of the use of an ingredient includes information about the characteristics of the substance, the estimated dietary intake under the intended conditions of use, and the population that will consume the substance (proposed 21 CFR 170.36 (c)(1)(iii)). Dietary intake of a substance depends on the food categories in which it will be used and the level of use in each of those food categories. For information about how FDA estimates dietary intake of a food substance, see FDA's document entitled "Estimating Exposure to Direct Food Additives And Chemical Contaminants in the Diet" Some uses of a food substance are intended for a narrowly defined population, such as newborn infants who consume infant formula as the sole item of the diet; in such a circumstance, there may be special considerations associated with that population but not with general use of the food substance.

 Is a substance that is used to impart color eligible for classification as GRAS? The short answer is "No." Under section 201(s) of the Act, the GRAS provision applies to the definition of a food additive. There is no corresponding provision in the definition (in section 201(t) of the Act) of a color additive. However, under section 201(t)(1) and 21 CFR 70.3(f), the term color additive means a material that is a dye, pigment, or other substance made by a process of synthesis or similar artifice, or extracted, isolated, or otherwise derived from a vegetable, animal, mineral, or other source, and that is capable (alone or through reaction with another substance) of imparting color when added or applied to a food; except that such term does not include any material which FDA, by regulation, determines is used (or intended to be used) solely for a purpose or purposes other than coloring. Under 21 CFR 70.3(g), a material that otherwise meets the definition of color additive can be exempt from that definition on the basis that it is used or intended to be used solely for a purpose or purposes other than coloring, as long as the material is used in a way that any color imparted is clearly unimportant insofar as the appearance, value, marketability, or consumer acceptability is concerned. Given the construct of section 201(t)(1) of the Act and 21 CFR 70.3(f) and (g), the use of a substance that is capable of imparting color may constitute use as both a color additive and as a food additive or GRAS substance. For example, beta-carotene is both approved for use as a color additive (21 CFR 73.95) and affirmed as GRAS for use as a nutrient (21 CFR 184.1245); in some food products, beta-carotene may be used for both purposes.

 Is a substance that is used as a dietary ingredient of a dietary supplement eligible for classification as GRAS? Under section 201(s) of the Act, the ingredients whose use is GRAS are excluded from the definition of a food additive. That definition of food additive also specifies that the term "food additive" does not include a dietary ingredient of a dietary supplement described in section 201(ff) of the Act or intended for use in a dietary supplement. Thus, it is meaningless to refer to a GRAS exclusion from the food additive definition for dietary ingredients that are already excluded from that definition. However, some dietary ingredients that may be used in a dietary supplement may also be GRAS for use in a conventional food (e.g., vitamin C; calcium carbonate).

 Must FDA approve GRAS substances? No. If the use of a food substance is GRAS, it is not subject to the premarket review and approval requirement by FDA.

 What is GRAS affirmation? GRAS affirmation is a process that FDA developed in the 1970s. In response to concerns raised by new information on cyclamate salts, then-President Nixon directed FDA to re-examine the safety of substances considered to be GRAS. FDA announced that the agency would evaluate, by contemporary standards of the time, the available safety information regarding substances considered to be GRAS. If the revaluation of current data confirmed that use was GRAS, FDA would promulgate a new GRAS regulation, affirming that finding. FDA also established procedures whereby an individual could petition FDA to review the GRAS status of substances that would not have been considered as part of the agency's GRAS review.

 Does FDA currently have a program to affirm that one or more uses of a food substance are GRAS? In a proposed rule that FDA published in 1997 (62 Fed. Reg. 18938; April 17, 1997), FDA explained why the agency could no longer devote resources to the voluntary GRAS affirmation petition process that is described in 21 CFR 170.35(c) and proposed to abolish that process and replace it with a notification procedure. The agency has not yet issued a final rule however, and the petition procedure remains in the agency's regulations. However, at this time FDA is not committing resources to the review of GRAS affirmation petitions.

 What is the GRAS notification program? The GRAS notification program is a voluntary procedure that is operating under a proposed rule issued in 1997 (62 Fed. Reg. 18938; April 17, 1997). The notification program is intended to replace the GRAS affirmation process by providing a mechanism whereby a person may inform FDA of a determination that the use of a substance is GRAS, rather than petition FDA to affirm that the use of a substance is GRAS. The submitted notice includes a "GRAS exemption claim" that includes a succinct description of the substance, the applicable conditions of use, and the statutory basis for the GRAS determination (i.e., through scientific procedures or through experience based on common use in food). A GRAS notice also includes information about the identity and properties of the notified substance and a discussion of the notifier's reasons for concluding that the substance is GRAS for its intended use.

 If I choose to notify FDA of my GRAS determination, how do I do so? FDA described the procedure for submitting a GRAS notice in the proposed rule to establish the notification procedure (62 Fed. Reg. 18938; April 17, 1997). Because the proposed rule is a lengthy document, our Internet site has a specific link to the part of the proposed rule that describes the procedure. You can find both the complete proposed rule and the link to the procedure on the main page of the GRAS notification program.

 Where do I send my GRAS notice? You should send your GRAS notice to the Office of Food Additive Safety (HFS-255), Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, 5100 Paint Branch Parkway, College Park, MD 20740. [Note that our office moved since we issued the proposed rule to establish a GRAS notification procedure and, thus, the address where you should send your GRAS notice is different from the address that we published in the proposed rule that describes the procedure].

 If I submit a GRAS notice, how long will it take for me to receive a response from FDA? Our goal is to respond to most GRAS notices within 180 days.

 If I submit a GRAS notice about a food substance, must I wait until I receive a response from FDA before I market that substance? No. If one is correct in determining that the intended use of an ingredient is GRAS, use of the ingredient is not subject to any legal requirement for FDA review and approval. Your decision to submit a GRAS notice is voluntary, and FDA's response to a GRAS notice is not an approval. You may market a substance that you determine to be GRAS for a particular use without informing FDA or, if FDA is so informed, while FDA is reviewing that information (62 Fed. Reg. 18951; April 17, 1997). We recognize, however, that some firms prefer to know that FDA has reviewed its notice of a GRAS determination, without raising safety or legal issues, before marketing.

 Does FDA have a list of substances that are used in food on the basis of the GRAS provision? FDA has several lists of GRAS substances. Importantly, these lists are not all-inclusive. Because the use of a GRAS substance is not subject to premarket review and approval by FDA, it is impracticable to list all substances that are used in food on the basis of the GRAS provision. 21 CFR Part 182 contains the remnants of a list, which FDA established in its regulations shortly after passage of the 1958 Food Additives Amendment. The list is organized according to the intended use of these substances. As part of the agency's comprehensive review of GRAS substances in the 1970s, FDA affirmed that the use of some of the ingredients on this original GRAS list is GRAS, and moved the affirmed uses of the substance to 21 CFR Part 184.

 21 CFR Part 184 contains a list of substances that FDA affirmed as GRAS as direct food ingredients for general or specific uses. This list derives from the agency's 1970s comprehensive review of GRAS substances and from petitions that FDA received to affirm the GRAS status of particular uses of some food ingredients.

 21 CFR Part 186 contains a list of substances that FDA affirmed as GRAS for certain indirect food uses.

 FDA's Internet site also contains a list of substances that have been the subject of a notice to FDA - i.e., when a firm has notified FDA about its view that a particular use of a substance is GRAS. You can access this summary of GRAS notices, along with FDA's response, from the GRAS Notification Program page.

Summary: – Tobacco, alcohol, and ... sugar? Yes, according to professors at UC San Francisco, sugar should be regulated like tobacco and alcohol in order to cut down on ailments like heart disease, high blood pressure, and fatty liver disease, the Los Angeles Times reports. “For both alcohol and tobacco, there is robust evidence that gentle ‘supply side’ control strategies" such as "taxation, distribution controls, [and] age limits" are beneficial to society, they write in the journal Nature. Sugar also "meets the same criteria" as alcohol for government regulation, they say: It's unavoidable, it's toxic, it can be abused, and it's bad for you. Canada and a few European countries are already taxing certain artificially sweetened foods, and Denmark is considering a sugar tax. So the USDA should at least stop listing fructose on its "Generally Recognized as Safe" list, they argue: “The food industry knows that it has a problem. With enough clamour for change, tectonic shifts in policy become powerful.”


Germany's Deutsche Boerse AG, the company that runs the stock exchange in Europe's largest economy, could soon take over the New York Stock Exchange.

 Specialist Evan Solomon, left, resumes trading in shares of NYSE Euronext on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in "advanced... (Associated Press)

 Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in "advanced discussions" about a potential business combination with... (Associated Press)

 Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in "advanced discussions" about a potential business combination with... (Associated Press)

 NYSE signage adorns the top of trading posts on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in "advanced discussions" about a potential... (Associated Press)

 FILE - In this Feb. 2, 2011 file picture, traders work in the Frankfurt stock exchange , Deutsche Boerse. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext confirms it's in "advance discussions" about a potential... (Associated Press)

 Traders gather at the post that handles shares of NYSE Euronext as they wait for trading to resume, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext... (Associated Press)

 Traders gather at the post that handles shares of NYSE Euronext as they wait for trading to resume, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2011. Stock market operator NYSE Euronext... (Associated Press)

 NYSE Euronext Inc., which also operates exchanges in Europe, said Wednesday it is in "advanced discussions" about a possible merger with Deutsche Boerse, owner of the Frankfurt stock exchange.

 The new company would have dual headquarters in New York and Frankfurt. The announcement came hours after news of a $2.9 billion merger between the London Stock Exchange and TMX Group Inc., parent company of the Toronto Stock Exchange.

 Deutsche Boerse shareholders would hold 59 to 60 percent of the combined company. NYSE Euronext said it expected the two market operators to combine their businesses under a new legal entity incorporated in the Netherlands.

 NYSE Euronext's shares jumped 14 percent to close at $38.10 in New York.

 The New York Stock Exchange is already the world's largest stock market. But its parent, the $9.9 billion NYSE Euronext, isn't even the largest exchange company in the U.S. That title belongs to the $20 billion CME Group Inc. CME runs the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where wheat, corn and pork belly futures are traded, as well as a number of other exchanges.

 "The real motivation here is really about competing with the CME Group," said Larry Tabb, founder and CEO of the Tabb Group. Increased competition has made stock trading less profitable. So the answer is to get bigger, he said.

 But the thought of a German company taking over the NYSE could run into trouble with Congress, Tabb said. "It's going to get interesting," he said.

 The NYSE Group, operator of the New York Stock Exchange, bought Euronext for $10.2 billion in 2007. The combined company handles stock and derivative markets in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris as well as the NYSE Liffe derivatives market.

 Deutsche Boerse, whose predecessor was founded in 1585, operates the stock market in Europe's largest economy. It also runs Europe's largest derivative exchange, the Eurex.

 Aite Group analyst Simmy Grewal said more mergers may be on the way. Shares in other exchanges jumped on the news. The Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., the IntercontinentalExchange and CBOE Holdings Inc. all gained more than 4 percent. CME Group rose 1 percent.

 Deutsche Boerse AG chief executive Reto Francioni would become the new group's chairman, and NYSE's CEO Duncan Niederauer, based in New York, its CEO.

 The new company's executive committee would be drawn equally from the current leadership of both companies.

 For Deutsche Boerse, the deal would represent a breakthrough in its aim to strengthen its international profile. Deutsche Boerse had been in merger talks with NYSE Euronext three years ago, but no deal was reached.

 In 2006, the company tried to buy Euronext NV in a bid to build a pan-European stock exchange, but it eventually gave up, clearing the way for NYSE to merge with Euronext, which then formed the world's first trans-Atlantic stock exchange.

 In 2005, a Deutsche Boerse takeover bid for Britain's London Stock Exchange Group PLC did not succeed.

 ___

 Craft reported from New York. Greg Keller contributed from Paris. ||||| (See Corrections and Amplifications item below.)

 After 219 years as the citadel of American capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange was near an agreement to be acquired by Deutsche Börse AG in a deal that would create the world's largest financial exchange.

 With the parent of the New York Stock Exchange and Germany's Deutsche Borse in advanced talks to merge, Aaron Lucchetti and Dennis Berman look at the likely impact on Wall Street as the financial capital of the world.

 If a deal is reached and regulators approve, the combined company would trade more stocks and futures than any rival in the world and more options than any U.S. exchange. The takeover would culminate a decade of tie-ups by exchanges around the world eager to find new sources of growth and catch up with smaller rivals that have been quicker to embrace new and lucrative kinds of trading.

 For New York, the move is symbolic of the city's fading dominance on the world stage as other countries are drawing investors directly to their markets. The move also is a recognition that securities trading today goes on at all hours and in all time zones, making the actual bricks and mortar of Wall Street far less important than before.

 "New York is going to be important, but it's not the financial center. Capital markets are everywhere now," said Michael LaBranche, CEO of LaBranche & Co, the family-run firm that traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for 87 years before it sold that part of its business to Britain's Barclays Capital in 2010.

 Antitrust experts cautioned that the proposed deal could face tough regulatory scrutiny in Europe, as the new behemoth would dominate share and derivatives trading in the European Union—and in Washington, where tempers may rise over a crown jewel of the economy falling into foreign hands.

 The exchanges, which are presenting the deal as a merger of equals, said the combination would leave 60% of the company in the hands of Deutsche Börse shareholders, with NYSE Euronext shareholders holding the remaining 40%. The combined company, with a putative market capitalization of some $25 billion as of Wednesday, would be incorporated in the Netherlands and split its headquarters between Frankfurt and New York.

 Deutsche Börse Chief Executive Reto Francioni would become chairman, and NYSE Euronext chief Duncan Niederauer would be the new company's CEO under a board drawn equally from both companies.

 The proposed all-stock deal is driven by growing competition from purely electronic exchanges, not only in stock trading but also in more-profitable derivative contracts such as options and futures. It lets NYSE and Deutsche Börse fight back against rising competitors such as CME Group Inc. and private exchanges known as "dark pools" run by big securities firms.

 A deal would extend NYSE's lead as the largest share-trading venue in the world, adding the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to the New York Stock Exchange and the four European exchanges owned by NYSE.

 The new entity would supplant CME Group as the world's largest futures exchange and create the biggest U.S. options group, as measured by contract volume. NYSE Euronext's two options platforms, combined with Deutsche Börse's International Securities Exchange market, amounted to about 40.5% of the U.S. options market last month.

 NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse are in advanced merger talks, a combination that would create one of the world's largest share- and derivatives-trading platforms. Aaron Lucchetti has details.

 Interest over a merger between Singapore and Australia's exchanges has been reignited after Deutsche Börse neared an agreement to buy the NYSE. WSJ's Jake Lee talks to Hong Kong Bureau Chief Peter Stein on possible tie-ups between Asian exchanges.

 Global stock listing and U.S. stock trading would be based in New York, people familiar with the situation said. The global derivatives business would be led from Frankfurt, and Paris would host the technology arm and European stock trading.

 The merger marks the NYSE's second European deal in just five years. In 2006, the NYSE beat out Deutsche Börse to buy Paris-based Euronext, which boasts exchanges in Amsterdam, Paris and elsewhere.

 In 2008 and again in 2009, following their bidding war for Euronext, the German exchange and NYSE discussed a possible merger. But talks foundered because of internal management disputes at Deutsche Börse and disagreements about where a merged company would be based.

 The two sides had been planning to announce a deal next week, but put out a statement Wednesday disclosing the talks after word leaked out on a German online financial site, said people familiar with the matter. The companies are in advanced talks, though no terms have been set. Directors will need to sign off on the deal—and a host of regulatory challenges awaits on both sides of the Atlantic.

 The plan is likely to trigger an in-depth probe at the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, said Simon Holmes, partner and head of the EU and Competition department in the London office of international law firm SJ Berwin. "It would be a very complicated deal likely to require a detailed … investigation by the European antitrust regulator," Mr. Holmes said.

 The plan drew a cautious, low-key response from American politicians and regulators faced with control of an iconic U.S. institution. The Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment all would have a role in signing off on any deal.

 Shareholders and those concerned about the Big Board's competitive status applauded the news. NYSE rose 14% to $38.10, while shares of Deutsche Börse were halted in Frankfurt after rising 1.7% to €58.42.

 But for those who remember the glory days, when the New York Stock Exchange was the unchallenged center of world finance, there was trouble containing the dismay.

 The NYSE "is not the same iconic place that it was in its heyday," said William Higgins, a 74-year-old retired NYSE trader, who still owns about 70,000 shares of the company. He recalls when the NYSE was a private club and traders gained entry by buying a "seat" that entitled them to do business there. "It doesn't mean life won't go on, but to those of us who have been called New Yorkers, to not have that air of sophistication, the sense that 'this is where things get done,' it's sad."

 According to lore, New York stock trading can be traced to 1792, when traders signed an agreement under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street. Since then, the exchange has grown into a symbol of American capitalism where thousands of global companies are listed.

 For two centuries, trading was face-to-face, conducted between individuals on the exchange floor. When the World Trade Center was attacked in 2001, the exchange unveiled a huge Stars and Stripes on the front of its building, and a symbol of American resilience was born.

 Today, the great majority of NYSE trading is done electronically. Actual floor trading tends to be so quiet that some traders began spending time in a lounge where they could watch movies during the day. The lounge was closed after a Wall Street Journal article mentioned it. In Frankfurt, the German exchange voted in November to end face-to-face trading entirely in May of this year.

 According to a person familiar with plans, several hundred jobs would likely be cut over time, but most of the cost cutting would be in technology, and fewer than 100 jobs would be cut in New York. Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext said a combination could generate €300 million in annualized savings, some 10% of their cost base.

 To avoid nationalistic concerns over the name, one idea is to avoid using the word Deutsche or the acronym NYSE, said one person familiar with the plans, who stressed that no decision has been made.

 "I wish them luck. I hope they know what they are doing," said veteran stock trader Alan "Ace" Greenberg, a former Bear Stearns Cos. chairman who now is vice-chairman emeritus at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

 Corrections & Amplifications

 The potential purchaseof NYSE Euronext by Deutsche Börse AG could generate €300 million ($408 million) in annual cost savings, the companies said. In addition, the American Stock Exchange was acquired by NYSE Euronext in 2008. An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the cost-savings target was $300 million, and a graphic accompanying the continuation of the article incorrectly said the American Stock Exchange had been acquired by Nasdaq OMX Group

 Write to E.S. Browning at jim.browning@wsj.com, Jacob Bunge at jacob.bunge@dowjones.com and Aaron Lucchetti at aaron.lucchetti@dowjones.com

Summary: – The raucous cathedral of American capitalism, the New York Stock Exchange, is about to be bought by the Germans. If regulators approve the deal, the acquisition of NYSE Euronext (which owns the NYSE) by Deutsche Börse AG (which owns the Frankfurt stock exchange) would create the world's largest financial exchange. The move is bound to face intense scrutiny from regulators in Europe, where the new operation would dominate trade, and in Washington, where acquisition by a foreign company will pique nationalist sentiment, reports the Wall Street Journal. Deutsche Börse would own 60% of the combined company, estimated to be worth some $25 billion, while NYSE Euronext shareholders would hold 40%. The operation's incorporation papers would be filed in the Netherlands, and its headquarters would be split between New York and Frankfurt. The AP notes that while the NYSE is already the world's largest stock market, NYSE Euronext isn't the largest exchange company in the US. That title belongs to the $20 billion CME Group, which runs the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. "The real motivation here is really about competing with the CME Group," said the head of a financial markets' research and strategic advisory firm. Increased competition has made stock trading less profitable. So the answer is to get bigger, he said.


“Selfies at Funerals! A page on Tumblr has been creating quite an uproar," says a man on Good Morning America while reading a script, clearly not uproar’d himself. But this scary man seems quite upset indeed:

 Terrifying, right? Perhaps you have some questions.

 Why is all this text here in blue?

 It’s the Tumblr template and I don’t know how to change it. I hate it too.

 Why did you—

 Sorry to I interrupt but I see where you’re going. Please check out the press page, and in particular, listen to the interviews on "Q” and “The List,” which should provide plenty of context.

 Will you keep updating this Tumblr?

 Probably not. I like to think of it as a standing statement: Everyone who’s ever visited will have seen the exact same thing (except for this post, which came a few weeks after launch.) But if someone wants to offer me a lot of money to keep it going—or to do anything else, I suppose—you have my full attention.

 So what now?

 Follow me on Twitter. Or, take a selfie at a funeral and be mocked globally. Those are your only two options. ||||| 5 years ago

 Updated 11:06 a.m. ET, 12/11/2013

 (CNN) – Nelson Mandela's memorial service Tuesday was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime event where dozens of world leaders join thousands of South Africans in a massive stadium, all to honor the anti-apartheid icon.

 Instead, it turned into a media sensation...about a selfie.

 Follow @politicalticker Follow @KilloughCNN

 Halfway through the ceremony, President Barack Obama could be seen helping Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt as the two squeezed in with British Prime Minister David Cameron to take a smiling photo of themselves with a camera-phone

 Sitting next to them was first lady Michelle Obama, who was clearly not taking part in the photo-op.

 AFP Photographer Roberto Schmidt, from about 150 meters away, caught the moment. And as soon his photo went public, it went viral.

 Twitter and Facebook feeds lit up with the photo. News outlets quickly blasted it out online and on television. It all sparked a surging debate: Was the selfie a cute moment, or a tasteless act?

 The reaction

 "Did the President really take a selfie at a funeral? It appears the First Lady did not approve," Republican strategist and conservative firebrand Erick Erickson tweeted early Tuesday.

 Did the President really take a selfie at a funeral? It appears the First Lady did not approve. — Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) December 10, 2013

 Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh spent a portion of show hammering the President for taking part in the selfie and shaking Cuban President Raul Castro's hand at the same event. Obama, Limbaugh argued, was trying to make the memorial service all about himself.

 "He doesn't care, folks," Limbaugh said. "This is his stage. I mean, this whole week is about Barack Obama. You understand, that's really what this all means. That's what this soap opera script is. It's not the death of Mandela anymore. This is about Barack Obama assuming Mandela's place as a great whatever on the world stage."

 Some tabloids in Britain, Denmark and the U.S. were afire with speculation, as more photos came out and showed the three world leaders playfully interacting, with the first lady still sitting idly by.

 "UK papers making hay with Obama selfie & FLOTUS's face. Daily Mail calls PM Helle Thorning-Schmitt "the flirty Dane," Jon Williams tweeted.

 UK papers making hay with Obama selfie & FLOTUS's face. Daily Mail calls PM Helle Thorning-Schmitt "the flirty Dane" pic.twitter.com/dckRYIb1MS — Jon Williams (@WilliamsJon) December 10, 2013

 Karl Erik Stougaard, online managing editor at the Danish newspaper Politiken, told BBC on Wednesday that the Danish press consider the now-famous selfie "humorous" and a "very fun story."

 "I don't see anyone complaining or criticizing the Danish prime minister for taking a selfie at the memorial,' he said, joking that the Danish don't have their own word for "selfie" and stole the English version.

 In fact the word "selfie" didn't become a household name until just the last couple of years, as camera phones–combined with photo sharing sites like Instagram–made it easier to instantly spread the photos far and wide.

 This year the phenomenon also became a fun pastime for celebrities, who are more used to being photographed from a distance than an arms-length away. Selfies by people like Kim Kardashian, Kanye West and Beyoncé– even the Pope - further amplified the selfie movement.

 Nearly a year ago Obama's own daughters, Sasha and Malia, stole the show at their father's inauguration parade when they were seen taking selfies. The First Lady herself snapped a photo of her and the family dog at the White House.

 And in August of this year, Oxford Dictionaries cemented the word in the English language, giving it a spot in the dictionary after finding that usage of the term had increased by 17,000% within the previous year.

 'Simply acting like human beings'

 Schmidt, the AFP photographer, said he was flummoxed at the reaction to the selfie and found nothing distasteful about posing for a self-photo at this particular memorial service.

 "All around me in the stadium, South Africans were dancing, singing and laughing to honour their departed leader," Schmidt wrote in a blog post. "It was more like a carnival atmosphere, not at all morbid. The ceremony had already gone on for two hours and would last another two. The atmosphere was totally relaxed – I didn't see anything shocking in my viewfinder, president of the US or not. We are in Africa."

 Responding to interpretations that Michelle Obama was peeved at her husband for lightheartedly engaging with his European counterparts–even perhaps flirting with the Danish prime minister–Schmidt cautioned that "photos can lie."

 "In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included," he continued. "Her stern look was captured by chance."

 In what's become the year of the selfie, Schmidt also questioned the new social media whirlwind in which photos that show such levity become the center of heated debate.

 "At the time, I thought the world leaders were simply acting like human beings, like me and you," he said. "For me, the behaviour of these leaders in snapping a selfie seems perfectly natural. I see nothing to complain about, and probably would have done the same in their place." ||||| In politics, image is king, and every politician knows it. President Obama knows it more than most, having been caught in one or two pictures that hand his opponents, rightly or wrongly, a gift of a story. You may recall a small controversy over candidate Obama not putting his hand on his heart during the playing of the national anthem. The moment he bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia also became a conservative cause célèbre.

 So it's surprising to see the president caught in a three-way selfie at Nelson Mandela's memorial service in South Africa, even if the other two people in the picture are the British and Danish Prime Ministers. The now iconic picture above, snapped by an AFP photographer, speaks more than its thousand-word allotment — largely because Michelle Obama appears to be the only one showing any decorum.

 It doesn't take a David Axelrod to look at that and say, "Ouch. Not good." Especially not in the context of Selfies at Funerals, a Tumblr designed to shame the hundreds of (mostly) teenagers who liven up their sad days with egotistical snapshots. In the wake of the Obama funeral selfie, the Tumblr declared it could not top that, and promptly shut down at the height of its fame.

 But this is the Internet age, where you don't just get a few lines of caption underneath a damning picture on your front page. You get the whole story whether you like it or not. So here's an object lesson in mitigating circumstances, suitable for sharing with anyone who decided to spin their own story on the basis of this picture.

 First of all, this wasn't strictly a funeral; certainly not the solemn dressed-in-black occasion we often associate with the term. It was a four-hour stadium-sized memorial celebrating the life and works of the beloved Madiba, a riot of colorful dancing and singing. Think New Orleans meets the World Cup.

 Secondly, it seems to have been a day for presidents and VIPs to take snaps of themselves. Witness Bush and Bono on Instagram (which wasn't technically a selfie, unless the former president has extraordinarily long arms):

 Funeral selfie: George W. Bush posted this Instagram picture of him with Bono at the #MandelaMemorial pic.twitter.com/Sfu3LAPA6K — Kety Shapazian (@KetyDC) December 10, 2013

 Thirdly, consider the context of the shot itself. In other photos, we can see the leaders joking around, switching seats, looking bored — all the things you might find it hard to avoid doing if you were stuck in a stadium for four hours. Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt appears to have been the first one to crack and pull out her smartphone. We can relate.

 Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly in this case, it was Thorning-Schmidt taking the picture. If a major European leader asked you to get in on a quick snapshot, it would be churlish (and diplomatically inept) to refuse — especially if the sober British Prime Minister David Cameron was already in on the fun.

 For the picture to be truly complete, you'd need to add speech balloons. Perhaps Thorning-Schmidt is saying, "Let's commemorate this amazing moment and the life of an incredible man with a joyous group photo." Maybe Michelle is thinking, "Man, I wish there were room for me in that picture."

 The point is, we don't know the full context of what would be, for almost any other three people in the world, a private moment. Without that knowledge, a rush to judgment dishonors the memory of a man who spent decades fighting a society that systematically rushed to judgment.

 Image may be king in politics, but it's high time that king was dethroned.

 Nelson Mandela Memorial

 Image: Roberto Schmidt AFP Getty ||||| President Obama was caught taking a selfie with the prime ministers of Britain and Denmark at the Nelson Mandela memorial in South Africa, creating a small uproar online.

 President Obama took a selfie with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt while seated in the audience at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service in South Africa on Tuesday.

 Yes, you’re right, that’s a lead sentence that we did not really envision writing when we got up this morning, but we go where the news flows, and there you are.

 Photos of the smiling trio taking their self-portrait are all over the Internet at the moment. Many of them show Michelle Obama looking off to one side, as if she can’t believe the misbehavior of her seatmates.

 Some critics thought that the world leader photo-op was in poor taste given the context. “So Obama & Cameron & Danish PM displaying similar levels of gravitas today as 14 yr olds on the school bus,” was a typical Twitter comment.

 Some journalists thought the mass coverage of the photo event was worse than the event itself.

 “You guys know this makes the media look bad, right?” tweeted Politico’s media columnist Dylan Byers.

 At the risk of looking bad, though, we’ve got these thoughts.

 It was a memorial, not a funeral. The massive event was meant to celebrate the great life of Mr. Mandela. There was singing, dancing, jumping throughout the crowd. When Mr. Obama spoke, spectators swayed and clapped behind him. The atmosphere was anything but stiff and funereal.

 Leave Michelle out of it. Look, it’s impossible to really tell if she’s peeved, not paying attention, or (most likely) just got snapped at the micro-second she was looking in another direction. We’ve seen enough photo meetings to know it’s easy to construct a narrative where none exists. We don’t really have any idea what the first lady is thinking at the moment.

 The president is always on stage. For those who think the shot irrelevant, we’d say the US president is always in the public eye. His every public move is captured on film, his every public action surveyed for possible meaning. Look no further than Obama’s handshake with Raul Castro at the memorial; was he too friendly to a repressive Cuban leader? Was he just he trying to put Mr. Castro off-balance? Was it just a handshake? Inquiring minds want to know.

 Most presidential moments are predictable, preplanned. The selfie moment was not. It was a bit of genuine ad hoc get-togetherness among world leaders. It’s interesting to see that such powerful people can act like three friends at a sporting event. The media’s not going to cover that? Right.

 It's all about us. However, we will note that the US media is (unsurprisingly) US-centric, so wherever the president goes, the story is framed through their experience. At Mandela’s memorial that means Obama’s speech and action will be the central aspect of many American stories.

 This provincialism can be seen in the fact that some US broadcasters at first said the woman in the selfie shot was unidentified. Then some expressed surprise the Danish PM was a woman.

 Ms. Thorning-Schmidt has in fact been the head of government of Denmark, a NATO ally, since 2011. Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg is also a woman, by the way. Then there’s Angela Merkel, German chancellor.

 So perhaps a northern European leader who is a women shouldn’t be, you know, a shock? ||||| We knew “funeral selfies” were all the rage for the young, dumb and impressionable … but President Obama took one, too? Here’s the president, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and Danish Prime Minister Helle-Thorning-Schmidt taking a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service. How very gauche of them at a solemn occasion. I know funerals are boring, but this is not a good look. See, even Michelle is pretending she doesn’t know you. [Mediaite] [Image via Mediaite]

Summary: – One of the stranger stories out of today's memorial service for Nelson Mandela was the Internet furor that erupted when Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt took a selfie with President Obama and Britain's David Cameron. Lot of commenters, of course, picked up on the fact that a somber-looking Michelle Obama isn't in on the fun. (She looks "mortified," says the Stir.) Or they pounced on Obama for acting inappropriately given the circumstances. Ease up, writes Chris Taylor at Mashable. This was a celebratory memorial service, remember, not a funeral. "In other photos, we can see the leaders joking around, switching seats, looking bored—all the things you might find it hard to avoid doing if you were stuck in a stadium for four hours." The upshot is that we don't know the full context, and "without that knowledge, a rush to judgment dishonors the memory of a man who spent decades fighting a society that systematically rushed to judgment." As for Michelle's reaction, don't read too much into it, adds Peter Grier at the Christian Science Monitor. "It’s impossible to really tell if she’s peeved, not paying attention, or (most likely) just got snapped at the micro-second she was looking in another direction," he writes. "We’ve seen enough photo meetings to know it’s easy to construct a narrative where none exists." (Yeah, but her reaction in other shots looks "dare we say disapproving," observes Caitlin Dewey at the Washington Post.) All that said, the creator of the "Selfies at Funerals" Tumblr may have gotten the last word. He quickly posted the image, then declared the Tumblr finished. "Our work here is done."


The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine

 This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds)

 The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. ||||| Have you heard the one about the kid who got his mom to call his boss and ask for a raise? Or about the college student who quit her summer internship because it forbade Facebook in the office?

 Yep, we’re talking about Generation Y — loosely defined as those born between 1982 and 1999 — also known as millennials. Perhaps you know them by their other media-generated nicknames: teacup kids,for their supposed emotional fragility; boomerang kids, who always wind up back home; trophy kids — everyone’s a winner!; the Peter Pan generation, who’ll never grow up.

 Now this pampered, over-praised, relentlessly self-confident generation (at age 30, I consider myself a sort of older sister to them) is flooding the workplace. They’ll make up 75 percent of the American workforce by 2025 — and they’re trying to change everything.

 These are the kids, after all, who text their dads from meetings. They think “business casual” includes skinny jeans. And they expect the company president to listen to their “brilliant idea.”

 When will they adapt?

 (Michael Byers for The Washington Post)

 They won’t. Ever. Instead, through their sense of entitlement and inflated self-esteem, they’ll make the modern workplace adapt to them. And we should thank them for it. Because the modern workplace frankly stinks, and the changes wrought by Gen Y will be good for everybody.

 Few developed countries demand as much from their workers as the United States. Americans spend more time at the office than citizens of most other developed nations. Annually, we work 408 hours more than the Dutch, 374 hours more than the Germans and 311 hours more than the French. We even work 59 hours more than the stereotypically nose-to-the-grindstone Japanese. Though women make up half of the American workforce, the United States is the only country in the developed world without guaranteed paid maternity leave.

 All this hard work is done for less and less reward. Wages have been stagnant for years, benefits shorn, opportunities for advancement blocked. While the richest Americans get richer, middle-class workers are left to do more with less. Because jobs are scarce and we’re used to a hierarchical workforce, we accept things the way they are. Worse, we’ve taken our overwork as a badge of pride. Who hasn’t flushed with a touch of self-importance when turning down social plans because we’re “too busy with work”?

 Into this sorry situation strolls the self-esteem generation, printer-fresh diplomas in hand. And they’re not interested in business as usual.

 The current corporate culture simply doesn’t make sense to much of middle-class Gen Y. Since the cradle, these privileged kids have been offered autonomy, control and choices (“Green pants or blue pants today, sweetie?”). They’ve been encouraged to show their creativity and to take their extracurricular interests seriously. Raised by parents who wanted to be friends with their kids, they’re used to seeing their elders as peers rather than authority figures. When they want something, they’re not afraid to say so.

 And what the college-educated Gen Y-ers entering the workforce want is engaging, meaningful, flexible work that doesn’t take over their lives. The grim economy and lack of job opportunities don’t seem to be adjusting their expectations downward much, either. According to a recent AP analysis, more than 53 percent of recent college grads are unemployed or underemployed, but such numbers don’t appear to keep these new grads from thinking their job owes them something.

 In a MarchMTV survey of about 500 millennials, called “No Collar Workers,” 81 percent of respondents said they should be able to set their own hours, and 70 percent said they need “me time” on the job (compared with 39 percent of baby boomers). Ninety percent think they deserve their “dream job.” They expect to be listened to when they have an idea, even when they’re the youngest person in the room.

 “Why do we have to meet in an office cross-country when we can call in remotely via Skype?” asks Megan Broussard, a 25-year-old New Yorker who worked at a large PR firm for three years before quitting to become a freelance writer and career adviser. “Why wouldn’t my opinion matter as much as someone else’s who only has a few more years of experience than I do?”

 These desires are not exactly radical. Who wouldn’t want flexibility, autonomy and respect?

 What’s different, says Lindsey Pollak, the author of “Getting From College to Career: Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World,” is how Gen Y-ers are asking for those things. Pollak, a consultant who advises companies on how to deal with Gen Y, says these workers — at least, the well-educated ones who can afford to make demands — want what everyone wants out of a job, they’re just asking for it in a more aggressive way. “And they’re the first ones to leave when they don’t get it,” Pollak says.

 According to surveys, 50 percent of Gen Y-ers would rather be unemployed than stay in a job they hate. Unlike their child- and mortgage-saddled elders, many can afford to be choosy about their jobs, given their notorious reliance on their parents. After all, they can always move back in with Mom and Dad (40 percent of young people will move home at least once, per Pew research), who are likely to be giving them financial help well into their 20s (41 percent of Gen Y-ers receive financial support from their parents after college, according to research from Ameritrade).

 In fact, it’s possible that a bad economy can make being choosy even easier — if more people are struggling to find work and living at home, there’s no stigma to it.

 Nancy Sai, a 25-year-old who works at a nonprofit in Manhattan, spent a year living with her parents and working at a gas station while trying to snag her dream job. Her mom kept bugging her to look for something different — teaching! government! anything! — but Sai held firm. While it took her a year to find the ideal gig, she’s glad she waited. Her job is meaningful, the office environment friendly and welcoming, her bosses forthcoming with feedback. Some of her friends have not been so lucky — one quit her job in politics when her boss refused to give her any time off.

 “She couldn’t separate her work life from her personal life at all,” Sai says. “She quit without another job lined up. She said she felt the most liberated she had in two years.”

 Despite the recession, or perhaps because of it, corporations are eager to hire and retain the best, most talented Gen Y workers. “In this risky economic environment, the energy, insight and high-tech know-how of Gen Yers will be essential for all high-performing organizations,” said a 2009 study on Gen Y from Deloitte, the professional services giant.

 Companies are beginning to heed Gen Y’s demands. Though flextime and job-sharing have been staples of the workforce for a few decades, they are becoming more accepted, even in rigid corporate culture, says Laura Schildkraut, a career counselor specializing in the needs of Gen Y. There has also been a rise in new work policies, such as ROWE, or “results only work environment,” a system in which employees are evaluated on their productivity, not the hours they keep. In a ROWE office, the whole team can take off for a 4 p.m. “Spider-Man” showing if they’ve gotten enough done that day.

 Radical-sounding perks such as unlimited paid vacation — assuming you’ve finished your pressing projects — are more common among companies concerned with attracting and retaining young talent. By 2010, 1 percent of U.S. companies had adopted this previously unheard-of policy, largely in response to the demands of Generation Y.

 The Deloitte study warns that, to retain Gen Y-ers, companies “must foster a culture of respect that extends to all employees, regardless of age or level in the organization.” In other words: Treat your Gen Y workers nicely. But we should be treating everyone nicely already, shouldn’t we?

 Beyond that, Gen Y’s demands may eventually help bring about the family-friendly policies for which working mothers have been leading the fight. Though the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 afforded some protections for working parents, genuine flexibility is still a privilege of the lucky few, and parents who try to leave the office at 5:30 p.m. are often accused of not pulling their weight. Well, guess what? Now everybody wants to leave the office at 5:30. Because they’ve got band practice. Or dinner with their grandma. Or they need to walk their rescue puppy.

 The American workplace has been transformed during economic upswings and downturns. The weekend was a product of labor union demands during the relative boom of the early 20th century. The Great Depression led to the New Deal’s Fair Labor Standards Act, which introduced the 40-hour workweekand overtime pay to most Americans. But now, workplace change is coming from unadulterated, unorganized worker pushiness.

 So we could continue to roll our eyes at Gen Y, accuse them of being spoiled and entitled and clueless little brats. We could wish that they’d get taken down a peg by the “school of hard knocks” and learn to accept that this is just the way things are.

 But if we’re smart, we’ll cheer them on. Be selfish, Gen Y! Be entitled! Demand what you want. Because we want it, too.

 Emily Matchar is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Salon, Gourmet and Outside, among other publications. She is the author of an upcoming book about “new domesticity.”

 Read more from Outlook:

 The new domesticity: Fun, empowering or a step back for American women?

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Summary: – Gen Y millennials have begun arriving in force in the workplace, and given their reputation as self-centered, spoiled brats, this can only be a bad thing, right? Exactly the opposite, writes Emily Matchar in the Washington Post, who at 30 thinks of herself as an "older sister" to millennials. These younger workers are not going to adapt to the workplace as we know it. "Instead, through their sense of entitlement and inflated self-esteem, they’ll make the modern workplace adapt to them," writes Matchar. "And we should thank them for it," because everybody is going to benefit. Go ahead and roll your eyes at them, but it's the rest of us who are the suckers, content to put in too-long hours without complaint and to sacrifice much of our personal lives for the office. Gen Y ain't having it. And considering that they'll make up 75% of the workforce come 2025, business-as-usual is about to change fast. "If we’re smart, we’ll cheer them on," writes Matchar. "Be selfish, Gen Y! Be entitled! Demand what you want. Because we want it, too." Read her full piece here.


Hedge fund operator Robert Mercer almost never talks about himself, and neither do the people who know him. Yet Mercer's money is sure making a lot of noise on the campaign trail.

 The third most generous Republican donor this cycle, Mercer has cut checks for a total of $37 million in the past six years, supporting pro-life candidates, those who deny man-made global warming, as well as helping fund the effort to block construction of a mosque near the site of the September 11 attacks in New York. In fact, this year he gave more to the Koch brothers' organization, $2.5 million, than the Kansas founders, David and Charles, who each chipped in just $2 million to Freedom Partners Action Fund.

 Bloomberg Visual Data

 Yet the man who first made his mark by upending the field of computer linguistics and is now seeking to bend the national political debate in his conservative direction, is a stranger to the electorate he seeks to sway and the public that would be affected should he succeed. He is the ultimate behind-the-scenes kingmaker in the fight for control of the U.S. Senate who almost never talks—publicly or otherwise. An address to computer scientists at an awards ceremony in Baltimore this summer was a rare exception, and he admitted to finding it daunting.

 It was only after he agreed to accept a lifetime achievement award that it dawned on him that he'd have to address attendees for about an hour. "Which, by the way, is more than I typically talk in a month," he said. About 10 minutes into the lecture, he paused, and took a sip of water. "I've just reached one week of speaking," he said, "so I have to take a little drink."

 Asked to share their impressions about Mercer, people who have met him at conservative gatherings said they could recall little about about the man behind the checkbook. "I've only talked to him one time," said James Bopp, a normally outspoken campaign finance attorney who runs the USA Super PAC, a boutique political group backing Republican Pete Ricketts' gubernatorial bid in Nebraska. Bopp's super-PAC has just seven donors, including Mercer. Senator Rob Portman, the National Republican Senatorial Committee's finance chair and a potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate simply said, "I don't have any insights" about the man who is one of two people who've donated to the Portman Victory Committee. The other contributor is Mercer's wife of more than 40 years, Diana. "The conversation I had with him was about the direction of the country. His focus with me was on the economic issues and the fiscal issues," Portman said.

 Mercer declined to comment for this story via his a spokesman, Jonathan Gasthalter. Mercer's daughter Rebekah, who runs the $37.6 million Mercer Family Foundation and sits on the board of at least one conservative non-profit that the family funds, didn't respond to messages seeking comment. Along with her two sisters Jenji and Heather Sue, she operates a pastry store in mid-town Manhattan. (The business, unlike the vast majority of Mercer's projects, has bipartisan support. The shop's website includes rave reviews from former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.) Rebekah Mercer is also a budding political donor, and among the recipients of her largess is Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican.

 In addition to a broader desire to shape national policy, Mercer has business interests in the midterms. His company, Renaissance Technologies, which runs the Medallion fund and has produced 35 percent returns annualized over two decades, was hauled before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in July and quizzed over how the firm calculates its taxes. According to the committee, RenTech has used sophisticated financial maneuvers to lower the amount it's investors paid to the Internal Revenue Service by $6 billion over 14 years.

 “It meant enormous profit for both the banks and the hedge funds,” said Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, a Democrat who chairs the panel. “Ordinary Americans had to shoulder a tax burden of billions of dollars, a burden that was shrugged off by those hedge funds.”

 Gasthalter, also a spokesman for RenTech, said in a statement at the time that the IRS has been reviewing the hedge funds transactions for the past six years. “We believe that the tax treatment for the option transactions being reviewed by the [Senate committee] is appropriate under current law," he said.

 With RenTech's outsized profits, Mercer is earning more than enough to fund political campaigns, and so far this cycle, he's contributed $8.8 million.

 The beneficiaries of that money have been, across the board, Republicans—House candidates, Senate candidates, institutional super-PACs that give to lots of candidates and smaller super-PACs focused on individual candidates and conservative non-profits. Mercer has dipped into state races, including Ken Cuccinelli's 2013 gubernatorial contest in Virginia to which he gave a $600,000 contribution to an outside group. Cuccinelli recalled asking Mercer for support just after Mitt Romney had lost his 2012 presidential bid, when Republican money people were in what he referred to as deep donor depression. "He's very solid and understated," said Cuccinelli, who met with him on a fundraising trip to New York. "You wouldn't know you were talking to someone with that kind of force." Pet causes such as gun rights and charter schools don't seem to be the primary motivator for Mercer, unlike some donors, Cuccinelli said. "He just thinks our country is off track and he's in a position to do something to get it back on track," he said.

 Only once during Mercer's talk in Baltimore did his conservative politics show. He recounted how he worked at a military base during college and he'd re-written an unwieldy computer program to make it faster. The bosses, to his surprise, added more to the program, slowing the computer back down. "The point of government-funded research was not to get answers but to consume the computer budget," he quipped to the crowd. "Which has left me with a jaundiced view of government research."

 Mercer was born in July 1946 and grew up in New Mexico. He was obsessed with computers—writing code in high school even though he didn't have a machine to run it on. In graduate school he studied computer science. "I loved the solitude of the computer lab late at night," he said, during a 2013 talk to computer scientists. "I loved the air conditioned smell of the place. I loved the sound of the disks whirring and the printers clacking."

 Later, he joined IBM and worked at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, focusing on the then-vexing problem of programming computers to recognize speech. He and his IBM colleague Peter Brown both joined RenTech in 1993, where the two men are now co-CEOs. The company's founder, James Simons, is the 54th richest man in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He's also a hefty political donor—to Democrats. In March he wrote a $2 million check to the Senate Majority PAC, dedicated to keeping Democrats in power in the Senate.

 The company was profiled in one chapter of Sebastian Mallaby's book "More Money Than God," which details the world's most successful hedge funds. In it, Mallaby shared only a few observations about Mercer. "He was an icy cold poker player; he never recalled having a nightmare; his IBM boss jokingly called him an automaton." Mallaby wrote. Last year, Mercer's household staff sued him, claiming their wages were improperly docked for failing to replacing shampoo bottles, closing doors improperly and not straightening pictures.

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 Despite Mercer's material success, he political record is mixed. In 2010, he poured money into an Oregon House race to support a man—Republican Arthur Robinson, who was challenging incumbent Representative Peter DeFazio—who's skeptical work on climate change Mercer had funded. DeFazio's campaign put Mercer front and center that year, running radio ads saying Robinson was funded by a secretive donor with Wall Street ties.

 "Oregon isn't a state that likes outside interference," DeFazio said. "Once we focused on who Mercer was we began to move our poll numbers." DeFazio won. This year, Robinson is running again to oust DeFazio, but Mercer hasn't dropped mega-dollars into the race. Robinson declined comment for this story. ||||| Ted Cruz’s presidential effort is getting into the shock-and-awe fundraising business.

 An associate of the Texas senator, a recently announced presidential candidate, tells Bloomberg that a cluster of affiliated super-political action committees was formed only this week, and among them they are expected to have $31 million in the bank by Friday.

 Even in the context of a presidential campaign cycle in which the major party nominees are expected to raise more than $1.5 billion, Cruz’s haul is eye-popping, one that instantly raises the stakes in the Republican fundraising contest.

 “Our goal is to guarantee Senator Cruz can compete against any candidate. ” Dathan Voelter

 Although super-PACs have radically changed the pace at which committees backing presidential candidates can raise money, the Cruz haul is remarkable. There are no known cases in which an operation backing a White House hopeful has collected this much money in less than a week.

 Those involved in the Cruz super-PACS say many of his biggest financial backers haven’t yet made contributions to the new organizations and are expected to do so in the coming months. By law, super-PACS can accept unlimited contributions from individuals.

 From his time as a Senate candidate in 2012, Cruz has been one of the country’s most aggressive and successful super-PAC fundraisers. His political team has calculated from the start of their planning for a presidential campaign that his overall operation would be able to keep pace with rivals in part because of a robust super-PAC operation. They have talked among themselves about the names of numerous wealthy Cruz backers who they fully expect will contribute several million dollars each.

 Still, even some Cruz supporters, and many others who have been skeptical that his candidacy could draw significant financial support, are certain to be stunned by this initial round of contributions.

 While former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is universally expected to easily lead all other Republican presidential candidates in financial backing, a hotly debated topic in political circles has been who would finish second to Bush in money raised by the end of 2015. This week’s apparent lightning strike could help Cruz claim that spot, possibly besting other leading prospects such as Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

 Cruz’s campaign is also expected to raise money competitively at the grassroots level through the Internet and small-dollar contributions, as well as through traditional bundling of so-called hard-dollar checks, which are subject to limits of $2,700 per election per individual. Either of those methods, of course, would require significantly more than a week to generate $31 million.

 According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, the treasurer for the three of the new super-PACS is Dathan Voelter, an Austin, Texas, attorney who is a longtime friend and financial backer of Cruz. A fourth lists as its treasurer Jacquelyn James of Port Jefferson Station, N.Y. All four PACS have a variant of the name “Keep the Promise.”

 A document prepared by the super-PAC organizers says they “are committed to raising the resources necessary to promote Senator Cruz in his efforts to win the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.” The document quotes Voelter as saying, “We’re just getting started … Our goal is to guarantee Senator Cruz can compete against any candidate. Supporters of the Senator now have a powerful vehicle with the resources necessary to aid in his effort to secure the Republican nomination and win back the White House.” The document describes those “leading the financial charge” as “a group of close, personal friends of Senator Cruz, who share his conservative vision for America.”

 According to the source close to Cruz, more than $20 million of the $31 million is expected by Wednesday, with the rest due in by the end of the week. Those cash figures could not be independently confirmed by Bloomberg, and sources declined to provide financial documents to support the claim.

 The group does not plan to reveal the names or number of donors until they are legally required to do so, at the end of the FEC reporting period on July 15.

 According to a person familiar with the workings and financing of the new super-PACs, many of the donors are former backers of George W. Bush and Perry. Bush’s brother, of course, and Perry himself, are seeking the White House now, which makes Cruz’s coup that much more impressive. A Houston-area associate of Cruz’s has led the effort to pull together the donors, many of whom are Texans and New Yorkers.

 The PAC names are “Keep the Promise,” "Keep the Promise I," “Keep the Promise II,” and “Keep the Promise III.” An internal document describing the groups’ intentions says, “Every PAC in the Keep the Promise network will fully comply with all disclosure and recordkeeping obligations set forth in federal law. The use of multiple PACS, however, will allow Keep the Promise to uniquely and flexibly tailor its activities in support of Senator Cruz and afford donors greater control over PAC operations.”

 In a cover letter dated April 6, sent to the FEC along with the formal filings for three of the super-PAC entities, Voelter says that the trio “are affiliated with one another for legal and regulatory purposes.” It lists an Austin post office box as their shared address, and the Fifth Third Bank in Atlanta as the place where funds are being deposited.

 Voelter declined to comment.

 The document from the group says that “Keep the Promise can provide the ‘appropriate air cover’ in the battle against Senator Cruz’s opponents in the Washington establishment and on the political left. We plan to support the effort of millions of courageous conservatives who believe 2016 is our last opportunity to ‘keep the promise’ of America for future generations.”

 This story has been updated to reflect the filing of paperwork for a fourth super-PAC.

Summary: – If other GOP contenders shrugged off Ted Cruz's chances of winning the nomination, it's a safe bet they're reassessing things after four new super PACS announced they'd raised a staggering $31 million to support his new candidacy. "Even in the context of a presidential campaign cycle in which the major party nominees are expected to raise more than $1.5 billion, Cruz’s haul is eye-popping, one that instantly raises the stakes in the Republican fundraising contest," writes Mark Halperin at Bloomberg. The super PACs in question are only a week old, and it's unprecedented to have raised so much so quickly. So who's behind the money? The New York Times identifies the main player as a "reclusive Long Islander" named Robert Mercer. Mercer began his career at IBM but now runs a hedge fund called Renaissance Technologies, and like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson, he is taking advantage of the Citizens United case that loosened restrictions on wealthy donors. He's "a very low-profile guy, but he’s becoming a bigger and bigger player,” says one campaign finance expert. And his backing of Cruz “sends the message to other donors that Cruz is a serious guy,” which in turn encourages other donors. The Times notes that Mercer's hedge fund is under investigation by the IRS, an agency that Cruz would love to abolish. A previous profile of Mercer at Bloomberg describes him as "one of the most powerful men in Republican politics that nobody is talking about."