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20121121224003

Good urban architecture takes all forms, and sometimes it catches you by surprise - as with Mission Bay's newest building, a 627-space parking garage that doubles as a sliced metallic collage or a monochromatic quilt. Traditionalists will recoil at a 10-story cube wrapped in silvery rows of teardrop-shaped aluminum blades lined up so that the rows are solid from some perspectives and see-through from others. San Franciscans who loathe private automobiles will question why another parking garage should even exist. But there's kinetic beauty in a structure that's designed to be glimpsed on the move, or out of the corner of your eye, and to shift in tone the next time you look. It taps into a basic truth - that smart buildings fuse the reality of what they do with the potential of where they are. Here, the location is a site on the 16th Street traffic corridor across from the backside of UCSF-Mission Bay. Interstate 280's ramps cut by on the west. The east side of the block contains the 289-bed UCSF Mission Bay Medical Center, which opens in 2015 and so far is another institutional-looking piece of Mission Bay, complete with beige walls of precast concrete. While the parking garage exists to serve the hospital, they look nothing alike. Instead, the architects at WRNS Studio treated the garage as a self-contained presence on the evolving urban landscape. The garage begins with an open ground floor beneath a layer of perforated white aluminum. From there on up, the cladding stacks eight rows of panels 10 feet high that contain blades in a dusky tone dubbed Champagne bronze. All the blades on a given panel line up the same way, but there are five distinct alignment patterns ranging from straight-out to all-but-shut. As a vertical counterpoint, taller fins of white aluminum occasionally break the rhythm of horizontal steel. Assemble the varied panels in seemingly random procession and it's as though energy is rippling in place. Drive north on I-280 and the walls seem to fan open as you pass; the walk along 16th reveals a mosaic with sections that glow or fade as clouds pass and the sun heads west. "We could have set all the blades at a certain angle, but then there would be angles from which you could see inside the whole time," said Kyle Elliot of WRNS, who led the design effort. "We wanted a layered sense of translucency where the dynamics are always changing." What makes this more than a gimmick is the care with which the pieces have been arranged, and the attention paid to how people might encounter the whole. Viewed by an observer on foot, the garage is as inviting as a stand-alone garage can be: The circulation areas have walls of rich white ceramic tile, while the corners where elevators are located are skinned in such a way that users can easily see their destination, the hospital to the east. As for the skin, it is deep and dense enough to look like something more than a veil across a concrete hulk. Give the credit to WRNS, which has made a specialty of site-appropriate garages. This is the firm's second in Mission Bay. The first, at 450 South St., has walls of angled white stucco that play up the contrast between shadows and light. It is meant to be viewed all at once, as though it were a billboard-sized canvas; the newcomer eventually will sit behind other buildings on the block, so the fragmented tone makes sense. These days, garages have a certain cachet in the world of prestige architecture. One of the most talked-about buildings of 2010 was a Miami garage by Herzog & de Meuron, known here as designers of the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum. The Florida city is also in line for a garage by Zaha Hadid, who not only won the 2004 Pritzker Architecture Prize but has been proclaimed "the Lady Gaga of Architecture" by Glamour magazine. The difference in San Francisco is that the medical center garage isn't meant to dazzle outsiders. It was done on a design-build basis by WRNS and the construction firm Rudolph and Sletten on a $15.75 million budget. It exists mainly for the use of families visiting their children, as worthy a role as a parking garage can play. But a garage, or any other sizable structure, also has a role to play in the larger city. And when you see this one rise to the challenge, you wonder why other buildings in this part of Mission Bay can't strike a wide positive note as well. John King is The San Francisco Chronicle's urban design critic. E-mail: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron

http://web.archive.org/web/20121121224003id_/http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Mission-Bay-garage-s-architectural-edge-4031173.php

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Mission Bay garage's architectural edge

Good urban architecture takes all forms, and sometimes it catches you by surprise - as with Mission Bay's newest building, a 627-space parking garage that doubles as a sliced metallic collage or a monochromatic quilt. Traditionalists will recoil at a 10-story cube wrapped in silvery rows of teardrop-shaped aluminum blades lined up so that the rows are solid from some perspectives and see-through from others. [...] there's kinetic beauty in a structure that's designed to be glimpsed on the move, or out of the corner of your eye, and to shift in tone the next time you look. [...] the architects at WRNS Studio treated the garage as a self-contained presence on the evolving urban landscape. From there on up, the cladding stacks eight rows of panels 10 feet high that contain blades in a dusky tone dubbed Champagne bronze. The circulation areas have walls of rich white ceramic tile, while the corners where elevators are located are skinned in such a way that users can easily see their destination, the hospital to the east.

20131001220025

Sidney Blumenthal, author of ''The Permanent Campaign,'' is writing a book on the economic and intellectual roots of Reaganism. By Sidney Blumenthal s Washington sweltered through a July heat wave, Richard S. Beal was working on the outline of a Presidential speech. Beal is not a speechwriter - he is a pollster, an expert in market research. And the speech he was working on was President Reagan's State of the Union address, which is to be delivered only next January. ''We lay out the scenarios for winning and losing,'' says Beal. ''Our work concerns the identification of issues, goals and principles at the macro level.'' By analyzing polling results, he believes he can tell what public views on what questions are likely to prevail at a given time in the future; this helps the President decide how to proceed. ''The whole issue of running the Presidency in the modern age is control of the agenda,'' he says. ''We deal with what ought to be the buildup of things six to nine months out. It's a process question.'' Ronald Reagan is governing America by a new strategic doctrine - the permanent campaign. He is applying in the White House the techniques he employed in getting there. Making more effective use of media and market research than any previous President, he has brought into the White House the most sophisticated team of pollsters, media masters and tacticians ever to work there. They have helped him to transcend entrenched institutions like the Congress and the Washington press corps to appeal directly to the people. Just as the methods are new, the language is new. Unlike the old politicos who talked of party bosses delivering the goods and mobilizing the party faithful, Reagan's men converse about ''open windows'' (the relative openness of public opinion to Presidential initiatives), ''targets of opportunity'' (events or issues that can be quickly taken advantage of), ''sequencing'' (the timing and order of a series of actions), ''resistance ratios'' (the degree to which the public accepts Reagan and what he is doing) and the need to be ''proactive'' rather than reactive. The new order was not, of course, created overnight. It has been evolving with the growth of television, which enabled political leaders to reach the voters more efficiently than through precinct captains; and Presidents from John F. Kennedy on have been relying increasingly on computers and pollsters in following the fluctuations of voter sentiment. But with Reagan - the leader as ''Communicator in Chief'' - the new politics is in full flower. Reagan's stunning success in shaping public opinion and transforming his ideas into law has derived to great extent from the new techniques. This does not mean that the President goes by the polls rather than by his own conservative ideology. The polls don't change his beliefs or shape his policies; they tell him how to plan his strategy. And the planning is generally precise enough to encompass what he will do and say six months, or more, in advance. Private polling for politicians bears only a faint resemblance to the standard, publicly reported horse-race polls on who is ahead and who is slipping. Political polling is a scouting operation seeking to identify groups that feel intensely on any issue. It reveals which groups are wavering on which issues for which reasons. It tells which issue s can be prudently avoided and which can be pressed, and it suggests ways to blunt, divert or win over the opposition. Polling has become an essential guide for the distribution of a politician's financial and political resources, the basis on which he constructs his image. Consider, for example, Reagan's Presidential campaign. On Oct. 9, 1980, the candidate was handed an internal memo, ''Seven Conditions of Victory.'' The author was Richard B. Wirthlin, whose firm, Decision Making Information, is under contract to the Republican National Committee and who has been conducting polls for Reagan since 1968. Wirthlin advised: ''Focus campaign resources to reinforce the Governor's image strengths that embody the Presidential values a majority of Americans think are important. ... At the same time, we must minimize the perception that he is dangerous and uncaring.'' The candidate took Wirthlin's advice. The polls had revealed that many moderates whose votes were needed for victory had difficulty visualizing the Republican candidate as President. Reagan's television ads proceeded to stress what Wirthlin called ''leader perceptions,'' and Reagan's inauguration as Governor of California in 1967 was depicted in docudrama fashion, underlining the themes of competence, credibility and decisiveness. And when Reagan addressed the camera, he was a talking head - cool, calm, dry. The object was to make him appear more Presidential than President Carter; this would enable him to fend off Carter's scathing attacks and gain the adherence of the necessary ''voter cohort targets,'' in the language of the memo. Immediately after Reagan won the Presidency, his campaign began turning itself into a governing operation. Wirthlin was named planning director of the transition office. On his recommendation, Reagan created an Office of Planning and Evaluation, and Richard Beal, Wirthlin's assistant for the last eight years (and a former professor of international relations at Brigham Young University), was put at its head. Wirthlin supervised the preparation of a memo, ''Initial Action Plan,'' outlining a strategy for ''establishing direction'' instead of just reacting to events, and the memo provided the basis for what became known internally as ''The First 90 Days Project.''

http://web.archive.org/web/20131001220025id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1981/09/13/magazine/marketing-the-president.html?

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MARKETING THE PRESIDENT

Sidney Blumenthal, author of ''The Permanent Campaign,'' is writing a book on the economic and intellectual roots of Reaganism. By Sidney Blumenthal s Washington sweltered through a July heat wave, Richard S. Beal was working on the outline of a Presidential speech. Beal is not a speechwriter - he is a pollster, an expert in market research. And the speech he was working on was President Reagan's State of the Union address, which is to be delivered only next January. ''We lay out the scenarios for winning and losing,'' says Beal. ''Our work concerns the identification of issues, goals and principles at the macro level.'' By analyzing polling results, he believes he can tell what public views on what questions are likely to prevail at a given time in the future; this helps the President decide how to proceed.

20140920012000

About meI was born in April 1986 in Iraq's capital Baghdad. I am Iraqi in blood and nationality. However, I cannot remember Iraq and I will probably not see it for a few more decades. My family, like many others, were deported from Iraq for political reasons. In the midst of the deportation, my mother and father were split up. A year later, my mother's determination to find her husband and her children led her to find her family in Iran. As a family, we did not stay in Iran for long. Although life was somewhat better there, it was still a struggle. For political reasons similar to those back home we were yet again forced to make the life-altering decision to emigrate. There are only two things I can remember of my childhood in Iran. My very first memory is of a TV show I watched as a child. It taught me what is probably one of the most well-known Iranian nursery rhymes, about a person's facial features. As much as I love being able to sing this rhyme, I also resent it. I resent it because it reminds me of the fact that Iranian was the first language I learnt and it is the only language I have ever forgotten. My other memories are re-lived through the stories my sisters tell me about my life in Iran. We moved to London in 1990 and ever since then we have been trying to make our lives better. Unfortunately, my father passed away five years ago. On the night he died I was fast asleep and oblivious to the screaming that went on in the background. I found out about his death in the morning when I woke up. The first time I saw my father dead was in a hospital in Middlesex wrapped up in a nameless sheet. I feel that since our deportation from Iraq, my family have worked so hard in order to get their lives back and to reclaim some kind of hope. I do not think that we have found that. I feel it is my duty to continue to struggle and eventually prove that my parents didn't go through all the pain and loss for nothing. When I am asked who I am and where I come from I never hesitate to say Iraq. I am an Iraqi; I am not Iranian and I am not British. I am Iraqi and my heart shall always lie with the Iraqi people. My favourite placeAbove all clouds

http://web.archive.org/web/20140920012000id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/oct/19/imagineartafter.art19

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Estrabrak Al-Ansari: biography

About me I was born in April 1986 in Iraq's capital Baghdad. I am Iraqi in blood and nationality. However, I cannot remember Iraq and I will probably not see it for a few more decades. My family, like many others, were deported from Iraq for political reasons.

20140926024619

'Now, more than any other time, people should be pissed off about what's going on in the world. We need photographers who can show them what's really happening.' Photographer Julian Broad has firm views on the role of photojournalism and, as one of the judges for the 2006 Observer Hodge Photographic Award, in association with Olympus, he got to see first-hand how young photographers tackle today's important stories. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the award, which was set up in memory of David Hodge, who sustained fatal injuries while photographing the Brixton riots. It's aimed at photojournalists, aged 29 or under, with entrants submitting portfolios of images that tell a story, rather than just a single photo. 'It's fantastic that the Hodge Award exists, because there aren't as many photographers putting these sorts of stories together as there should be,' says Broad. 'It's much easier to concentrate on one image and make that great.' More than 300 photographers entered this year's competition, and first prize went to 27-year-old Stuart Whipps for Longbridge, which documents the deserted MG Rover car plant near his hometown of Birmingham. 'Stuart's photos were very enticing,' says judge Hannah Starkey, whose photography has been exhibited everywhere from the V&A to the Berlin Photography Festival. 'They seemed well constructed and, when you thought about the story, the emptiness, it was very emotional. Photographing absence is a difficult thing to do.' The winner receives £5,000, an Olympus camera and lens equipment and an all-expenses-paid assignment for The Observer. It will be Whipps's first commission from a national newspaper. He started his winning series of images in 2004, while MG Rover was still in business, but once production stopped he decided to document the workers' absence. 'This project was particularly important to me as my family has a history of working in heavy industry,' he says, 'but to do these photographic studies you need money, so the award will really help.' Whipps thinks this switch of focus from action to atmosphere is one of the big changes in photojournalism in the 20 years since the Hodge started. 'There's been a shift from decisive moments to the pre- and after events. I saw a Bob Dylan documentary a few years ago [World Tours 1966-1974] - there were no Dylan songs on the soundtrack and he wasn't in it, but the film showed everyone important around him. I think there's a parallel between that and what's happening now in documentary photography.' Runner-up Amanda Fisher shared this desire to capture the atmosphere around a life-changing event. Her haunting images of young women having cosmetic surgery investigate the divide between natural female bodies and cultural ideals of femininity. The other winners presented more traditional portfolios and their reports from around the globe recorded the lives of some unique communities. Student Photographer of the Year Stephen JB Kelly looks at youths given a chance to get away from the drugs and gang culture of Hong Kong in 'The Boys of the Zheng Sheng Rehabilitation Centre'; and Olivia Arthur's third-prize-winning portfolio documents the patients in Tibilisi Women's Psychiatric Ward in Georgia - 'Dealing with someone else's suffering takes real commitment,' says Starkey. 'As a photographer, trust is the most important thing you have.' Trust played a key part in the creation of Monica Stromdahl's portfolio, for which she won the Olympus Digital Photographer of the Year Award. The 24-year-old is still a student at University College Falmouth, but she went to New York in her holidays 'just to keep my camera busy' and stayed in a rundown residential hotel in Brooklyn, documenting the lives of its inhabitants. It took a week to gain the residents' trust, but in the end they accepted her 'because I'm young and human'. Stromdahl is determined to pursue a career in photojournalism: 'People are scared of what they don't know. I want to tell other peoples' stories.' She says winning an award has given her the confidence in her ability to do that. The sense of affirmation that comes with a prize is something that judge Broad understands. He thinks it makes the Hodge Award vital. 'The confidence that this gives young photographers is worth more than the money. A sense of justification - God, that's fantastic, better than any prize.' · The Observer Hodge Photographic Award exhibition is at The Newsroom, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1 from 10 Nov to 19 Jan. · Click here for a gallery of the winning photo stories

http://web.archive.org/web/20140926024619id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/nov/12/photography

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Alice Fisher introduces the winners of the 2006 Observer Hodge Photographic Award

From the desolate factory floor at Longbridge to women awaiting cosmetic surgery and boys in rehab ... Alice Fisher introduces the powerful winners of the 2006 Observer Hodge Photographic Award.

20141003084751

Rosalind NashashibiChisenhale Gallery, London E3, until 27 May David MaljkovicWhitechapel Art Gallery, London E1, until 6 May Rosalind Nashashibi won the Beck's Futures Award in 2003. She was the first woman to win the prize. I saw the four videos that thrilled the judges and even wrote about them in this paper, but to this day, and despite seeing other work by her since, I remember almost nothing about them. Not unusual, you may say, and video, of all art forms, surely deserves a mollifying pardon. For how can it hope to be always memorable? Spooling along in the soporific fug of the darkened museum, repeating itself in mandatory loops, avoiding narrative, climax, too much characterisation or plot, it works hard to be something other than cinema. And it has been a dominant way of working for so long now, 30 years and more, that most of its special effects - its special aesthetics - are tried and familiar. If you are a gallery-goer, your expectations of video by now, I guess, may be many and complex but they aren't likely to involve being struck to the marrow. There is, though, a very prevalent strain of video that actually aims to be forgotten, or perhaps half-forgotten - to set forth images that will slip into the mind and vanish, like a cormorant, only to reappear much further down the river. Seeing the premiere of Nashashibi's new film at the Chisenhale Gallery, before its showing at the forthcoming Venice Biennale, raised spectral memories of her earlier works. A woman slowly sorting through jumble-sale clothes to the soundtrack of an Egyptian lament; mothers making a vast dinner in a little room in Nazareth, a tiny window shedding light on the scene; an electric twilight picking out idlers on the streets of small-town Nebraska. These images returned to mind in a beautifully involuntary way, like sudden memories of far-flung places. The connectedness of all lives and places is among Nashashibi's main subjects as an artist and is probably why four short videos rather than one long one may be a better way to see her work. But Bachelor Machines, her 30-minute feature is, none the less, a good place to start. It is better structured, better paced and more sophisticated than anything she has made so far and balances very subtly between moving and static images. The opening sequence - a diagonal bowsprit beneath a pale moon (or perhaps a fading sun, for there are gilded clouds) - has the appearance of a still until the bowsprit suddenly dips and you realise we're all at sea on a vessel. Cabined, cribbed, confined: this is a film about the tight press of men on a cargo ship from Italy to Sweden via Portugal. The sailors come from all these countries, it seems, and a strict hierarchy of position and nationality appears to be in operation. Food-making, door-fixing, rope-throwing, waiting - these are the lowly tasks of those who smoke Marlboro Reds and have nothing but beer compared with the bottled water and wine in the captain's mess behind closed doors. Nashashibi's camera is oblique, over-the-shoulder, entirely unnoticed except by one flirtatious Italian. It stares closely at the strangest details: the scar on a sailor's poker-playing hand, the arrangement of locks on a cupboard that somehow resembles a face, the way these circular locks echo the portholes and the ladles and the design of the officers' epaulettes as if they were all part of some nautical family. And then her camera looks out through these portholes, noticing what the sailors do not see: the haunting seas and shores of the world beyond. For this is an in-turned life, the sailors plunged deep in their floating institution. The ocean shots are tranquil, silent; the interiors have a constant soundtrack of tense conversation. None of the conversation is translated (this is not a movie) and it wouldn't seem any less strange, one feels, if it were. Nashashibi's sequences are beautifully structured - dark figures bent over machines, backlit by sea-shine; radars pulsing green light; long corridors that you round to discover nobody there. The film is eventless, in a sense, bar a shot of smashed crockery and the life-raft suddenly quivering in midair, but its editing amounts to a nail-biting enigma. There isn't a cliched image in the whole film and it manages to be a new thing of its own - patterned, dreamy and as intensively composed, in its way, as a painting. To remain on the verge without collapsing into boredom: that is one trick for videos that want to get under your skin without seeming to do so. And that is surely what Croatian artist David Maljkovic was trying to achieve with his trilogy set in the country's Second World War memorial park built under communist Yugoslavia. Three young Croatians drive there in a foil-covered (futuristic?) car in 2045, searching for 'a future heritage'. Twenty years later, a boy approaches on foot through deep snow as if on some spiritual pilgrimage. The third video, of teenagers milling aimlessly around the central tower, completes the tedium and makes the whole thing seem finally meaningless. In fact, there is only one artwork of any interest in this hapless trilogy and that is the silver sci-fi tower: gleaming, undulating, deservedly forgotten, snow drifting through its shattered windows.

http://web.archive.org/web/20141003084751id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/apr/22/art

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Art: Rosalind Nashashibi, London E3

Art: Rosalind Nashashibi's beautiful new video is a real treasure, leaving David Maljkovic all washed up, says Laura Cumming.

20141003183033

Asking young people to be heroes can be hard if they don’t think they’re particularly heroic. The heroes in question are cyber security professionals, the hacker-fighting folks tasked with keeping digital information out of the hands of bad actors. Most people don’t realize that the world has a shortage of them. Cisco CSCO estimates that there are a million more cyber security jobs than people to fill them worldwide. In Washington, the feeling is acute. More than 30,000 open positions in the federal government wait to be filled by the next influx of white-knight hackers. One problem: government work doesn’t quite ooze the sex appeal of private-sector jobs, where there is already a shortage. Industry professionals interviewed by Fortune said government cyber security jobs have lower pay, less flexible hours, and extensive background checks, making them less tempting than the $116,000 per year on average that a salaried information security professional makes in the private sector. “Education and government are not rewarding their information security professionals,” reads a 2013 Frost & Sullivan report on the industry. “Forty-four percent and six percent of education respondents reported no change or reduction in salary, respectively, in 2012. For respondents in government, the results are similar: 45 percent reported no change and five percent reported a salary reduction.” In May, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee, introduced a bill requesting more competitive hiring practices on par with their counterparts in the the National Security Agency and the private sector. Higher salaries, faster hiring, and competitive retention bonuses top the priority list. “The tradeoff of working for the government is making less than you can in the private sector,” says Jennie Westbrook, a spokesperson for the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. “That’s definitely one of the challenges we face.” Still, NSA wages don’t match those in Silicon Valley. Without the free-flowing revenues that private technology firms enjoy, government recruiters say they rely on other tried-and-true tactics: get ‘em while they’re young and get their red, white, and blue blood flowing. Paul Judge, chief research officer and vice president of Barracuda Networks CUDA , a Campbell, Calif.-based cyber security firm, argues that heroism can be a big hook. Not everyone can be a Green Beret, the term for the U.S. Army Special Forces; that air of exclusivity must apply to NSA hackers, too. “There are no shortage of individuals who care about protecting the country,” Judge says. “You grew up playing Cops and Robbers. You might not have grown up the biggest kid on the block but you can fight with your brain.” The effort is already underway. The Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense woo university and high school students to prime those interested in computer science for government hacking. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management offers Scholarship for Service, a sort of digital National Guard, through which the National Science Foundation bankrolls undergraduate and graduate students in exchange for a stint in local, state, or federal cyber security service. Some states sponsor “cyber camps” for high school and university students to learn security fundamentals. Other states even push to make programming languages like Java qualify for high school foreign language credit. As in many youth recruitment programs, patriotism can be a mixed bag for younger generations. Nicolas Peterson, a graduate student in the Master of Cybersecurity and Leadership program at University of Washington-Tacoma, says his peers often eye the federal hand that seeks to feed them with suspicion. “I’m definitely not an experienced professional when it comes to cyber security, but I can say that a lack of trust seems to be especially apparent between cyber security students and government,” he says. Peterson served as an intern for Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-Wash), where he researched the challenges of Washington’s cyber security industry. Recent revelations of the NSA’s hardware bugging and domestic surveillance have left inter-generational relationships chilly. “[Edward] Snowden was kind of the final straw,” Peterson says. “It’s really kind of fracturing the community of professionals and creating these two camps where all the sudden private business are saying, ‘Well okay, now we need to protect ourselves against the government, too.’” It’s a particularly difficult situation for cyber security pros. While physicians and attorneys get their accreditations from independent professional organizations, several security licenses are administered directly by the NSA, Peterson says. Even as he continues his studies, Peterson is wary of the implications of a $2.1 million Scholarship for Service grant that his university accepted. “There’s a lot of concern that the level of government involvement isn’t going to allow independent research and act as a barrier to prevent certain political views from being expressed,” he says. “I think the less government pressure in education, the better. We need to ensure that researchers can research what they want without the risk of getting it speared.” Including how to defend against government snooping.

http://web.archive.org/web/20141003183033id_/http://fortune.com/2014/10/03/government-cyber-security-shortage/

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For Uncle Sam, trouble raising a cyber army

There is an industry-wide shortage of cyber security professionals, but the problem is particularly acute in the federal government.

20141104015553

FORTUNE – Dear Annie: I read your recent column on bridging the generation gap in the workplace between young bosses and older employees. It struck a nerve with me, because, frankly, I’d be delighted to work for a young boss if I could just get one to hire me. I’m 53 and I was laid off last year from a senior marketing management position at a bank. Luckily, I have enough savings to live on for a while, since my job hunt seems to be taking forever. All goes well until I show up for an interview with a 30-something hiring manager or HR person, and then I hear, “Oops! Sorry, the position has been filled, but thanks for coming in.” I’d like to think this isn’t because, like most people in their fifties, I have a few gray hairs and laugh lines, but it’s hard to draw any other conclusion. Do you and your readers have any suggestions for me? — Not Dead Yet Dear N.D.Y.: Cold comfort though it may be, a long job hunt is perfectly normal these days, especially for anyone seeking a senior management job. “The higher your rank in your last position, the longer it takes to find a new one,” says Mark Anderson, president of ExecuNet, a national career network for $100,000-a-year-plus senior managers. ExecuNet’s research shows, for example, that a vice president over age 50 takes 20% longer to get hired than a 41-to-45-year-old job seeker at the same level. But age is only part of the story. The main reason it now takes the average management job candidate at least 10 months to get hired is that “companies are taking longer to fill positions,” Anderson notes. “Many companies who have management openings are not aggressively looking to fill them.” He points to a new ExecuNet survey that says that only 16% of employers plan to hire executives over the next six months, a big decrease from about 30% earlier this year. Job interviews can be especially difficult for executives over 50 who have spent their careers moving up through the ranks, or being recruited for better jobs, and thus have had little or no practice at selling themselves while unemployed, say executive coaches Tucker Mays and Bob Sloane. Sloane and Mays are the founders and principals of OptiMarket, a Darien, Conn., coaching firm that specializes in helping older executives find jobs quickly. They also wrote a book, Fired at 50: How to Overcome the Greatest Executive Job Search Challenge. They offer four tips on making sure your job hunt does not, in fact, last “forever” (even if it seems that way): 1. Preempt the age issue. “If you’re over 50, your age is the elephant in the room. Should you try to sweep it under the rug and hope it doesn’t come up, or wait until it does and address it then?” asks Sloane. The answer: Neither. “All effective salespeople know that the best way to counter an anticipated objection is to address it first.” Instead of being defensive about your age, make it an asset. In cover letters, on your resume, and especially in interviews, “describe the abilities you’ve gained from experience that will give you an advantage over younger, less experienced candidates,” he says. One example: Problem solving. “At age 50-plus, there are probably few business challenges you haven’t faced,” says Mays. 2. Describe your flexible management style. “There is a perception that over-fifty job seekers are set in their ways and reluctant to change. So talk about how you modified your approach to fit different situations and varied corporate cultures,” Sloane suggests. ”You can also mention how you responded to unanticipated problems like a product recall, the loss of a major client, or a new government regulation.” The point is to show that you can roll with the punches as well as, or better than, any 35-year-old. 3. Cite past success at working for a younger boss. Recruiters and hiring managers often worry that executives over 50 will have problems reporting to someone younger, and young managers may wonder if your experience means you’re after their jobs. “During interviews, give examples where you enabled a young boss to succeed, grow, and advance their careers,” Mays advises. “If you’re interviewing with a prospective boss who is younger than you, ask what his or her greatest challenges are, and tell how you believe your skills and experience can make their mission easier,” he adds. “You’ll be less likely to be perceived as a threat if you show that you respect their authority and are as committed to advancing their career as your own.” 4. Be flexible about pay. “You’ll have a significant advantage over younger candidates if you’re willing to accept a lower base salary up front, in exchange for greater performance-based bonus or equity,” says Sloane. “Companies prefer to hire executives who are willing to prove themselves first.” Decide what minimum salary you need and then, when asked about your pay requirements, “mention that once you learn more about the job requirements and the company’s full compensation structure — including salary, bonus, profit-sharing, perks, and equity — you’ll be in a better position to answer.” Among OptiMarket’s clients, Sloane says, “reducing initial salary requirements is often the key reason they get an offer. And in most cases, they end up making more money in the long run, because of deferred compensation they earn for great performance.” Here’s hoping it works out that way for you. Talkback: If you’re over 50 and job hunting, do you think your age is an obstacle, an advantage, or a bit of both? If you’ve recently found a new job, what do you think helped you clinch the offer? Leave a comment below.

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Getting hired when you’re over 50

True, older job seekers face a few extra obstacles. But you may be able to overcome them by turning your age to your advantage. Here’s how.

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11/06/2014 AT 07:00 PM EST In the '70s and '80s, was one of the most popular actresses of her generation, starring in movies like Then in the '90s, she stepped away from the spotlight – for good. On Wednesday night, PEOPLE caught up with the actress at the in Fort Lauderdale, where the cast gathered to christen a new Regal Princess cruise ship and celebrate 50 years of Princess Cruises. McNichol, who appeared as a guest star on the show, said she left show business to "see what else was out there." "I was on the big stage between ages 8 and 30," McNichol, 52, tells PEOPLE. "I left show business for a variety of reasons, but a big one was my interest in learning what else there is in life." So what did she discover? A newfound love of yoga, for one, along with traveling, an increased awareness of spirituality and a quiet home life. "This phase of my life is so good," she says. "My home life is happy and serene. I love singing. I also enjoy traveling and seeing the world. One of my favorite stops is Hawaii. I like everything about it and may eventually move there part-time." The actress says she also spends a lot of time doing charity work for reunion, McNichol was thrilled to be able to catch up with some of her old Hollywood pals. Kristy McNichol, Rich Little and Lee Meriwether "I was most excited to see Rich Little, who always makes me laugh," she says. "He was talking about losing his hair and got me laughing hysterically. He looks fabulous, and so does . She is unreal, with all that energy!" McNichol adds that her favorite memory from guest-starring on the popular maritime series was becoming close friends with actor "We met during shooting, and for the next three years we hung out off set, too," McNichol says. "We became real friends, good buddies. We did things together like ride around in his red Cadillac. We had so much fun. I wished he could have come to this celebration, but he was busy." And how about a return to acting? "Never say never," she says. But, she added, an escape on the fancy cruise ship sounded more appealing to her: "I love this ship. I'd like to stow away, travel the globe and never come back!"

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Kristy McNichol Talks Love Boat Reunion, Life After Hollywood : People.com

The former Empty Nest star opens up to PEOPLE about leaving the spotlight – and whether she'd ever return to acting

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Many a Patriots fan has said the always-dangerous Baltimore Ravens are the last team anyone wants to see in Saturday’s divisional-round playoff game. Their wallets tell a different story. The average price for a ticket to this weekend’s showdown at Gillette Stadium is $336.68 on the secondary market, according to TiqIQ, an online marketplace of tickets from major resellers. That’s nearly three times the face value and 26 percent higher than what fans paid for last year’s divisional-round matchup with the Indianapolis Colts, whom New England would have faced again this postseason if Baltimore had failed to advance. It seems fans do want to see the Patriots play the Ravens after all, and are willing to pay big bucks to do so. The same factors that make the Ravens fearsome also make them a draw. “The bye gives fans an extra week of getting revved up, and once it becomes clear that the Ravens will be the foe, that’s a big stimulus,” said Stephen A. Greyser, a sports marketing specialist at Harvard Business School. Saturday will mark the rivals’ fourth playoff meeting in the last six seasons. Baltimore won two of the previous three, even though New England had the home-field advantage each time. In the one contest the Patriots won, the AFC Championship game three years ago, tight end Rob Gronkowski suffered an ankle injury. He played in the Super Bowl two weeks later, but was ineffective, and some Patriots fans still grumble that their team would have won the championship if Gronk hadn’t been hurt against the Ravens. Combine the on-field history with a pattern of off-field trash talk — over the years Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs has called Patriots coach Bill Belichick arrogant and criticized quarterback Tom Brady’s hair and “smug attitude” — and you get a macho melodrama that spectators will pay a premium to watch in person. Price hikes are standard at playoff time. Even parking gets more expensive, as many owners of private lots near the stadium tack on an extra $10 for spaces that normally cost $40 to $50. At face value, the Patriots already have the priciest tickets in the NFL, at an average of $122 apiece, according to Team Marketing Report, a sports industry tracking firm in Wilmette, Ill. When the postseason rolls around and tickets hit the resale market, they often go for more than twice as much — even at this relatively early stage, with the Patriots still needing three wins to bring home the Lombardi Trophy. The going rate for tickets to last year’s divisional round game against the Colts was $266.90; the season before that, when the Houston Texans came to Foxborough, it was $290.97. But the Ravens — the most scrutinized franchise in the league this season, thanks to the suspension of running back Ray Rice for domestic violence — push prices to another level. The price of tickets to Saturday’s Patriots-Ravens game is the highest among four playoff contests this weekend, even though two of the other home teams (Seattle and Denver) played in last year’s Super Bowl, and the third (Green Bay) has the most famous stadium in the sport, Lambeau Field. The last Patriots opponent to drive the average ticket price over $300 in this round of the playoffs was the Broncos after the 2011 season, led at the time by quarterback Tim Tebow, who was at the height of his brief but sensational stardom.

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Rematch with rival Ravens drives Patriots playoff tickets through the roof

The average price for a ticket to this weekend’s showdown with the Baltimore Ravens at Gillette Stadium is $336.68 on the secondary market, according to TiqIQ, an online marketplace for tickets — nearly three times the face value.

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Australian journalist Peter Greste is elated his two Al Jazeera colleagues have been freed from an Egyptian prison, but says he's waiting for the day all three of them are declared innocent. Mr Greste says it's too soon to celebrate, given the threat of a retrial for his colleagues, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed. "The trial is ongoing, and nobody has yet been acquitted. I'm looking forward to the day when the court declares all of us innocent of the charges. Then the party will really begin," the Australian said in a statement on Friday. But he said he was overjoyed that his colleagues had walked from jail on bail, and had been reunited with their families. "One of the hardest things I've ever had to do was to walk out of prison and leave them behind, so it is wonderful to know that they're at last able to join their families as I did just over a week ago." A Cairo court released Fahmy and Mohamed overnight, after more than 400 days behind bars, pending a retrial over claims they spread false news and supported the banned Islamist movement of deposed president Mohamed Morsi. Mr Greste had faced the same accusations and the trio was last year sentenced to serve between seven and 10 years. The charges have been condemned as politically motivated by the international community, and have been a major source of embarrassment for Morsi's successor Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as he seeks to shore up international support, following a widely condemned crackdown on the opposition. Mr Greste was released and deported unconditionally earlier this month under a new law permitting foreign prisoners to be sent back to their home countries. Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian-Egyptian, renounced his Egyptian citizenship, hoping he could benefit from the law, but so far that hasn't happened. Mr Fahmy has paid 250,000 Egyptian pounds ($A42,600) bail, while Egyptian Baher Mohamed was freed without having to pay bail. The two must reappear in court on February 23. Canada has welcomed Mr Fahmy's release, but says any prospect of a retrial is unacceptable and he should be allowed to leave Egypt. Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he could not explain why Mr Greste and Mr Fahmy had been treated differently. "We will continue to press for his release, and we do remain optimistic this case will be resolved," he said. Since his release, Mr Greste has continued to campaign for his colleagues and at his first press conference after returning too Australia, vowed: "We'll see them out." Al Jazeera said the men's release on bail was "a small step in the right direction". "The focus though is still on the court reaching the correct verdict at the next hearing by dismissing this absurd case and releasing both these fine journalists unconditionally," a spokesman for the news network said in a statement. Do you have any news photos or videos?

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Freedom fight not over: Greste

Two Al-Jazeera colleagues of Australian Peter Greste have been freed pending retrial on charges of supporting the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.

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When Rolling stone published a 9,000-word article last fall about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity, it plunged the campus into turmoil. The story presented a frightening portrait of a school where sexual assaults were common. It pointed to disturbing deficiencies—going all the way to the top—in the school’s handling of the incident. How did UVA’s president, Teresa “Terry” Sullivan, respond to the brewing crisis? She left town. Just hours after the story broke and lit up the Internet, she boarded a plane to Amsterdam to attend an education conference. Three days later she suspended social activities at all UVA fraternities and sororities, a move that exposed her to new criticism: that she had swung from underreacting to overreacting. Before a consensus could be reached on her approach in the weeks that followed, she caught a break: Rolling Stone acknowledged that its article was full of holes. Now, a few months later, as Sullivan has taken long-term steps to prevent sexual violence at the school, she is starting to draw praise. Welcome to managing in the maelstrom. “We don’t get to choose our adversity,” says Sullivan, who has certainly faced plenty of it. In the five years since she arrived in Charlottesville as the first woman to lead the school founded by Thomas Jefferson, she has grappled with the effects of the Rolling Stone article, two high-profile murders of students, and most recently, demonstrations over the bloody arrest of a 20-year-old black student by white officers outside a local pub. That’s not even counting the most direct challenge she has faced. In 2012, UVA’s board of visitors ejected her, leaving her out of a job for 18 days until a grassroots rebellion returned her to the presidency. That she is still standing is extraordinary. Sullivan’s experience is proof that you can’t judge leadership without considering context. No leader aspires to tread water, but if you’re tossed into the Pacific when a tsunami strikes, merely surviving is an achievement. That’s the paradox of Sullivan: Critics, including board members, find her plodding and bureaucratic; even supporters would give her just a “B.” Still, she’d get an “A” if the subject were rebounding from disaster. There were many skeptics in 2010 when UVA recruited Teresa Sullivan to replace John Casteen, a charismatic fundraising powerhouse with a 20-year tenure. Sullivan, then provost of the University of Michigan, had never run an institution or raised money or reported to a board. She had been an eminent sociologist specializing in labor force demography. (Sullivan has written six books, including two on middle-class debt with Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard professor turned senator.) Today Sullivan is in charge of a $2.8 billion budget, 17,000 employees, and some 21,000 students at 11 schools and a medical center. (I graduated from UVA in 1982.) At 65, Sullivan comes across more like a grandmother than a chief executive. Welcoming me into her office, she explains that Casteen kept his desk near the door; she put hers in the back corner. “Behind the jungle,” she tells me, pointing to a couple of big, leafy potted plants. Pleasant and plainspoken, Sullivan acknowledges that she prefers her privacy (though she makes a point of being omnipresent at campus events.) She also discounts the importance of leaders, herself included. “Sociologists are very suspicious of biographical explanations of leadership,” she says. “It’s a mistake to see leadership as a function of the individual.” Americans tend to have a destructive overemphasis on the individuals in charge, she says: “We do too much naming, blaming, and changing.” By contrast, Sullivan aspires to be what she calls “a sustainable leader who builds a team and leads collaboratively.” Her view has been shaped not only by her time at UVA, but also by her childhood. Sullivan grew up an only child in segregated Little Rock. Her father was a criminal lawyer with many black clients. On weekends he would take her along as he called on clients in rural Pulaski County. “He usually left me with Pop Lloyd, who had been convicted of manslaughter for killing his wife,” Sullivan recalls. Her father led by example, showing her that empathy and trust can unite diverse groups. “Sometimes we’d have Sunday dinner with the Pulaski County jailer. He would let me in the cell with the female prisoners, and they’d braid my hair,” Sullivan says. “Today this would break a million laws.” Her dad died from a heart attack when Sullivan was 11. She and her mother, a VA hospital nurse, moved to Jackson, Miss.—on the day in 1963 when a white supremacist killed civil rights leader Medgar Evers there. Sullivan went to school a few blocks from the state capitol, where she saw crowds demonstrate for and against integration. Sullivan graduated first in her high school class, then went to Michigan State, where she fell in love with her future husband, Doug Laycock, and a field of study. Sullivan got a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Chicago and then a job teaching at the University of Texas, where she later moved into management. “I didn’t have a burning desire to be an administrator,” she says, “but I did have a burning desire to solve problems.” Analytical and adept at working the system, she quietly pushed for changes, including the creation of a maternity policy when she was pregnant with her second child. At the University of Michigan, where Sullivan moved in 2006, she was provost under then-president Mary Sue Coleman. “Terry is an enormously complex individual and very, very smart,” says Coleman, explaining that she provided a steady hand in helping the school navigate the financial crisis. Sullivan arrived at UVA three months after 22-year-old student athlete Yeardley Love was killed by George Huguely, her ex-boyfriend and a star on the UVA lacrosse team. So from day one, Sullivan was forced to react to events. She staged a “day of dialogue” that brought more than 1,500 students together to discuss how to prevent violence. She also implemented voluntary sessions on “bystander intervention training.” But Sullivan was thoroughly unprepared for a different kind of challenge: the hard-driving business types on UVA’s board of visitors. It’s like a company board, except that the members are appointed by Virginia’s governor, typically as a reward for campaign contributions. The members choose the rector, who is equivalent to a board chair. The incoming rector when Sullivan arrived was Helen Dragas, who has a BA and an MBA from the university. Dragas, 53, heads a real estate development company that her father founded. She is, by all accounts, impatient, iron-willed, and used to running her own show. Sullivan and Dragas are the first women to hold their posts at UVA—which didn’t graduate its first class of female students until 1974. That’s about all they have in common. Opposites in personality, they’ve never found a way to get along. As Dragas fretted that rivals were leaving UVA in the dust in online education and other new potential sources of revenue, she pushed Sullivan to come up with a fresh strategy. Sullivan resisted, failing to deliver anything detailed enough for Dragas and the board. They viewed Sullivan as an able administrator, but worried that she had an awkward public presence and lacked the social finesse critical to courting wealthy donors. Sullivan sensed the tension, but she had no clue what was coming when Dragas asked for a meeting with her and vice rector Mark Kington on a Friday in June 2012. “They handed me a letter of resignation,” Sullivan recalls. “They said I had lost the confidence of the board. The faculty didn’t like me. The students didn’t think much of me. And I had not developed connections with alumni.” Sullivan disagreed, but she didn’t resist. “They had their minds made up,” she says. “It was not a negotiation.” Critics piled on. Hedge fund titan Paul Tudor Jones, an alum and UVA’s biggest living donor, published an op-ed in the Charlottesville Daily Progress, citing a “few alarming facts” including that the university’s rank in U.S. News & World Report had fallen to No. 25 from No. 15 in 1988. “UVA needs proactive leadership to match the pace of change,” Jones wrote. But the story quickly turned. Dragas had worked behind the scenes to persuade board members to agree to push Sullivan out. The board’s bylaws did not require a formal vote or public disclosure. The sense of secret maneuvering infuriated faculty and other supporters. Ten days after her ouster, as Sullivan went to deliver a farewell address to the board, thousands of people—faculty, parents, alums, townies, students attending summer classes—converged on UVA’s Lawn. As Sullivan walked up the steps of the Rotunda, a woman behind her held a purple umbrella as a signal to clear the way. “The crowd parted like the Red Sea,” recalls Sullivan. She calls the entire experience “weird.” Sullivan insists she had no desire to ask for her job back. She just wanted to defend her record. “Corporate-style top-down leadership doesn’t work in a great university,” she told the board that day. “Being an incrementalist does not mean I lack vision.” Eight days later, after Virginia’s governor said he’d ask the board members to resign if they didn’t unite on a plan for UVA’s leadership, they unanimously reinstated her. (Dragas says the board wanted “a concrete strategic and financial plan. Had we received even a reasonable approximation of that, the drama of 2012 would never have unfolded.”) Some people were amazed Sullivan would return after the upheaval. “A lot of people put their jobs on the line for me,” she says, “and I couldn’t turn my back on them.” (There’s also the job’s pay, $675,000, and its prestige.) She showed no hint of public anger. “The most important thing was how I behaved,” Sullivan says, “not how I felt.” Her dispassion doesn’t always play well in a social media era when bad news moves around the world instantaneously, and crisis managers are expected to be nimble, bold, and empathetic. “My natural tendency is to shut down,” Sullivan admits. She’s self-conscious about being a woman in charge: “There’s a negative stereotype of women being overemotional and thus not able to lead.” On a deeper level, she says, “I’m inclined toward introspection and not letting the emotion overtake that.” Her leadership philosophy: “Don’t overreact. Reason my way to a solution. And keep the good of the school in front of me.” Those were her guidelines last November when she read the Rolling Stone article about the alleged gang rape of a student at UVA’s Phi Kappa Psi house. Her initial response, she says, was “numbness.” She acknowledges that leaving the country as the story exploded was “a mistake.” She does not, however, regret her decision to suspend social activities in the Greek system. After Phi Kappa Psi was vandalized and threats surfaced, she says, “I was attempting to calm things down.” Discrepancies emerged in the article, and, in late March, the Charlottesville police department announced that it had found no evidence that a gang rape had occurred. Sullivan hopes to turn the mess to the school’s advantage: “I want the University of Virginia to play a major role on the issue of sexual assault,” she says. Sullivan worked with student leaders on new rules to crack down on binge drinking and frat party excesses. Now at least three fraternity brothers must be “sober and lucid” at all fraternity events, and at least one must be on duty at each point of alcohol distribution and another at the stairs leading to residential rooms. “If I had come up with the rules, everyone would be gaming the system,” Sullivan says. Collaboration “is more successful than Mama Terry calling the shots.” The New York Times praised the code of conduct as “worthy of being used elsewhere.” Sullivan has made strides on other fronts. She has increased faculty pay and research spending. She’s working to create institutes for professors from across the university to collaborate and teach. The first, an institute for students interested in data analytics and security, opened last fall. Sullivan has been unspectacular when it comes to fundraising, which is particularly crucial at a time of diminishing state funding. UVA reported $224 million in cash flow (actual money coming in) last fiscal year, which pales next to the $302 million her predecessor delivered in his peak year, 2007. But this year’s cash flow is up 29%, and Sullivan has managed to reel in some big donors. She has even been collaborating with Paul Tudor Jones on his passion project: a new $15 million Contemplative Sciences Center he is funding. UVA’s board of visitors is now discussing whether to renew Sullivan’s contract, which runs out in July 2016. She would like to stay, but it says something about her that she doesn’t know if she has cemented enough board support to win a new contract. Meanwhile, Sullivan is managing one more crisis, this one centered on race. In March, Martese Johnson, an African American student and a vice chair of the student-run honor committee, sustained head injuries when white Alcoholic Beverage Control officers tangled with him outside a bar. A cellphone camera caught him struggling and bloodied, yelling, “I go to UVA, you fuckin’ racists. What the fuck? How does this happen?” Johnson has pleaded not guilty to public intoxication and obstruction of justice without force. Within 24 hours, students began protesting. Frustrations had been rising in the wake of the deaths of black men at the hands of police in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City—just as Sullivan was struggling to deal with student drinking and sexual assault. Today many at UVA see her reaction to the Johnson incident—she called the governor, requested an investigation, and released a bland statement about “seeking the truth”—as inadequate. Incoming student council president Abraham Axler says Sullivan has been a “friend to the student council and accessible” but has “struggled to provide the emotional leadership that the community needs.” Says Sullivan of the latest episode, “I did my best to get in front of it immediately.” She adds, “If I were highly emotional, I would be criticized for that.” Treading water all the way, Terry Sullivan has created a legacy. And that legacy is now her problem. Teresa Sullivan has faced a stream of violence and calamities as President of UVA. 2010: An undergraduate murders a fellow student In May, only months after Sullivan was named UVA’s president—but three months before she took office—student lacrosse player Yeardley Love was killed by George Huguely V, her former boyfriend and a star on the men’s lacrosse team. Huguely was convicted of murder and is serving a 23-year sentence. Sullivan oversaw new student education on domestic violence and “bystander intervention training.” 2012: A presidential coup is undone after a big protest On June 8, less than two years into her term, Sullivan was confronted by board rector Helen Dragas and vice rector Mark Kington, who asked for her resignation. By June 18, when Sullivan appeared before the board for a farewell speech, there had been a populist uprising at the university. On June 26 the board, facing a torrent of criticism, voted unanimously to reinstate Sullivan as president. 2014: Another death — plus UVA is scrutinized for sexual assault In September, freshman Hannah Graham went missing. After six weeks her remains were found; a 33-year-old local man was later charged with her murder. A media firestorm erupted on Nov. 19, when Rolling Stone published a story about an alleged gang rape at a UVA fraternity. Sullivan left town, then, on Nov. 22, suspended social activities at all UVA fraternities and sororities. On Dec. 5, Rolling Stone apologized for its article. 2015: This time it’s about race: UVA makes headlines again Sullivan began the year still addressing ways to prevent sexual assault. In January she lifted the suspension on social activities and announced new safety rules. On March 18, 20-year-old black student Martese Johnson was bloodied by white officers during an arrest after Johnson was denied entry to a bar. Student protests erupted within 24 hours of the incident. This story is from the April 1, 2015 issue of Fortune.

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The unluckiest president in America

University of Virginia chief Teresa Sullivan has persevered through an aborted coup, the aftermath of two student murders, a scandal over an alleged gang rape, and the recent fallout from the bloody arrest of a black student by white officers. Does that make her a good leader?

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Over the next week or so, the last of the 3.5 million American high school students will know whether or not they’ve been accepted by the college of their choice. For some, especially those whose families can afford it, college can be a wonderful learning experience in and out of the classroom as well as an important opportunity to mature. And, of course, education is good for society: it strengthens our democracy and creates jobs. We should, however, make sure that the cost does not inappropriately or unduly fall on individuals or their families. For most parents, sending a child off to college is an enormous investment, typically the second largest one they will make after their home. With many well-paying jobs disappearing and middle class salaries flat-lined, families need to take a hard look at whether an expensive college education is worth it. The cost of a college education has grown dramatically, in many cases consistently above inflation. The approximate total cost per year for a student at the State University of New York is approximately $25,000, while the total annual cost of private college averages about $40,000 and that for the top schools is some $70,000. In private institutions, more than 80% of students are incurring some debt to finance their education; in public universities, that number is over 50%. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, the average amount of student loan debt for members of the Class of 2013 hit $28,400. The total amount of student debt has reached a staggering $1.2 trillion. Of course, any investment is valuable if the payback is acceptable. And the $40,000+ average starting salaries for college graduates are well known. However, the earnings potential for graduates of top schools with strong academic records is very different than the earnings potential for graduates of lower ranked schools with lesser records. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for instance, has found that those who graduate from colleges ranked in the bottom 25% earn no more than the median-income of workers with a high school degree. Before deciding to send their kids to an expensive private college, a family would do well to calculate the “payback” for such a degree, which simply means the number of years it will take to recoup tuition, room and board. In general, companies expect approximately a five to seven year payback on most capital projects. This is a difficult standard to meet for a college education. My calculations show that a college graduate who earns $40,000 a year and gets raises equal to the inflation rate faces a 10-year payback for a state university degree and a 16- year payback for one from a private institution. The clear take-away is that a college education is a risky investment. While it is an investment with broader consequences and more subtle considerations than, say, an investment in machinery for a factory, the simple payback calculation above highlights how important it is to consider the financial implications of a college education. Despite this risk, many parents and students still see a college education as just another expected step and consider a state university inferior to private college. They will not even contemplate a community college, technical program or similar post high school option even though it might make more financial sense. This shortsighted perspective needs to change if the next generation hopes to avoid the crippling student debt that plagues many millennials today. One idea to improve the situation would be for the federal government to support college graduates by creating a voluntary jobs core. I envision an InfrAmeriTeam program that would allow college graduates to serve for anywhere from two to five years after completion of a college degree. Students would take on non-combat military duty as well as engineering and construction work on infrastructure projects. There would be a minimum grade point average required to participate. Pay, tied to the average starting salary for U.S. college graduates, would be increased 20% for a grade point average above a certain standard and decreased 20% for a grade point average below a benchmark. I suspect that the InfrAmeriTeam would more than pay for itself given the many long neglected public works projects in our country. The so-called American Dream has been traced to our country’s founding and the idea that every person has the freedom and opportunity to pursue and lead a better life. A college education is usually thought to be a critical step on the way to the American Dream. What is often left unsaid is that the pursuit of any significant good without a careful evaluation of its affordability and payback can result in damaging financial consequences. The purchase of a college education is no exception. Jonathan F. Foster, an investment banker, private equity investor and corporate director, is a managing director at Current Capital LLC, a New York City private equity investing and management services firm.

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The risks of investing in a college education

A college education is part of the American dream, but in today’s economy it is important to rethink that idea.

20150524080804

The Census Bureau has released figures on the racial makeup of New York City's Hispanic population that opponents of the City Council's proposed redistricting plan said yesterday undermined the Council's defense of its new lines. But Edward N. Costikyan, the Council's attorney, said that even if the Council's plan was analyzed in light of the new figures, the reapportionment was still fair to black and Hispanic New Yorkers. In almost all districts, however, the revised numbers showed smaller minority populations than did the Council's original estimates. The exchange was the latest development in the controversy over whether the Council had discriminated against the city's minorities by creating an insufficient number of districts in which minority candidates would have a chance of being elected. The United States Justice Department is now weighing the legality of the Council's lines. Part of the difficulty in determining the city's minority population arose because the Census Bureau asked separate questions on respondents' racial background and on whether they were of Hispanic origin. That produced two sets of overlapping numbers. Previously, the only figures available on how Hispanic people described themselves racially were estimates by the Census Bureau that 55.6 percent of Hispanic-Americans described themselves as white. Lower Figures in Boroughs In his defense of the plan, Mr. Costikyan argued that since so many Hispanic people called themselves white, the white population figures in each Council district should be reduced and the minority figures increased. He used the 55.6 percent figure as the basis for increasing the minority population. The new census figures, however, show that only 44.4 percent of Hispanic New Yorkers said they were white. In Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx -the three boroughs covered by the Federal Voting Rights Act - only 39.9 percent called themselves white. These numbers mean that Mr. Costikyan and the Council had reduced the white population in each of the Council districts by too large a number, because they categorized too many Hispanic people as white. ''The numbers game is over,'' said Cesar A. Perales, president of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which is challenging the Council lines. Those in 'Other' Category But Mr. Costikyan said that even if one took into account the lower percentage of Hispanic people calling themselves white, the Council had still created nine districts that were more than 65 percent minority and six additional districts more than half minority. However, three of the six districts fell below the 53.5 percent minority population figure that Mr. Costikyan had once said was sufficient for electing a minority Council member. Mr. Costikyan said last night that he had never set an absolute standard and that even without the three seats, the plan still represented ''progress'' for minorities over the old Council lines. Both Mr. Perales and Richard Emery, staff counsel for the New York Civil Liberties Union, argued that Mr. Costik yan was again overestimating the nonwhite population, this time by adding people who described their race as ''other'' into th e minority category. Many of these people, they said, would turn o ut to be white in a final analysis. But Mr. Costikyan said that h e could not include themas white. All the parties expressed fascination over the fact that Hispanic people in Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx were much less likely to describe themselves as white than Hispanic people living in Queens or Staten Island.

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U. S. ISSUES DATA ON RACE OF HISPANIC POLULATION

The Census Bureau has released figures on the racial makeup of New York City's Hispanic population that opponents of the City Council's proposed redistricting plan said yesterday undermined the Council's defense of its new lines. But Edward N. Costikyan, the Council's attorney, said that even if the Council's plan was analyzed in light of the new figures, the reapportionment was still fair to black and Hispanic New Yorkers. In almost all districts, however, the revised numbers showed smaller minority populations than did the Council's original estimates.

20150524082443

WASHINGTON, Feb. 19— A high-level Federal regulator, in a report that could cheer both the cable television and newspaper industries, has urged Congress to avoid applying law on political broadcasting to programs or newspaper articles distributed by cable. The report was prepared under the direction of W. Randy Nichols, chief of the Federal Communications Commission's cable television bureau. It is designed to address the hazy legal situation involving application of the rules on equal time and reasonable access to the cable industry. In doing so, Mr. Nichols sided with newspaper publishers who have expressed growing concern that the Government might not recognize their First Amendment rights if they distribute their newspapers electronically. Mr. Nichols suggested that if Congress continued to try to apply the rules to cable television, it was important to draw boundaries ''which assure that these rules do not impinge on the historically unregulated print media when it is distributed in electronic form.'' ''Over the long run, it seems unlikely that any print-video dichotomy can endure,'' his report continued. ''The effort should be toward bringing the print regulatory model to bear in the video environment, rather than permitting the broadcast model to overcome the historic protections afforded the free press in its printed versions.'' Supplements Earlier Study Mr. Nichols's report was submitted last week to Senator Barry Goldwater, Republican of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Communications Subcommittee, to supplement an earlier communications study that concluded that the rules on equal time and reasonable access were still workable for radio and television. Mr. Nichols noted that Congress grouped cable operators and broadcasters together when it revised the equal time rule in 1971, but he said the commission seldom received complaints about cable operators. The few complaints that were received in 1980, however, ''tend to emphasize that a number of potentially serious problems exist with respect to the future administration of these rules,'' the report added. Unlike a broadcaster, who is held responsible for all programming on his single channel, a cable operator is unlikely to exercise practical control over everything that appears on his many channels, the report said.

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F.C.C. EXEMPTIONS URGED FOR CABLE TV

A high-level Federal regulator, in a report that could cheer both the cable television and newspaper industries, has urged Congress to avoid applying law on political broadcasting to programs or newspaper articles distributed by cable. The report was prepared under the direction of W. Randy Nichols, chief of the Federal Communications Commission's cable television bureau. It is designed to address the hazy legal situation involving application of the rules on equal time and reasonable access to the cable industry.

20150524103243

''I'm looking specifically at cats,'' Dan Frantz said. There were numerous cats, not to mention pandas, raccoons and other unendangered species at the second annual Licensing and Merchandising Show, which concluded a two-day run yesterday at the New York Hilton. More than 50 licensors and would-be licensors displayed their wares - characters and trademarks - for the consideration of licensees such as Mr. Frantz, the product manager of the C.A. Reed Company, which already stamps Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny and Pac-Man on the party favors it manufactures. ''There are so many cat designs, it's kind of mind boggling,'' Mr. Frantz said. ''Garfield has been taken. I've looked at Heathcliff, and he has some definite merit. He's got a lot of character, lots of accessories.'' In recent years, licensing - the practice of using someone's name or identity to promote someone else's products and services - has become a seemingly unstoppable marketing trend. The Licensing Letter, a monthly newsletter about the industry, estimates that licensed goods rang up $13 billion at retail worldwide last year. ''Consumers are willing to pay more for a licensed product,'' said Jack Fox, director of marketing for Mattel Toys, which licenses its Barbie and Hot Wheels trademarks. ''That's the guts of the whole business.'' 'Created a Monster' ''I have been in the licensing business for seven years, and I have seen it grow to unbelievable proportions,'' said Lester Borden, director of licensing for Columbia Pictures Merchandising, which is frantically licensing its new movie, ''Annie.'' ''I think we have created a monster here, and I'm a little concerned about it.'' Mr. Fox and Mr. Borden were among the speakers at seminars before the show, where licensees, along with manufacturers interested in becoming licensees, gathered in hopes of learning how to make the monster their own. ''You got to think packaging, you got to think product and you got to think promotion,'' Mr. Borden advised. ''You've got to specify the territory: Where do you want to market your product?'' Mr. Fox said. ''You want exclusivity on a category - not just five-inch dolls, but all dolls. With a nonexclusive license, you're cutting your own throat.'' There was recognition that licensing is a mine field. According to Mr. Fox, 75 percent of all licenses fail. ''There aren't that many 'Star Wars' out there,'' he said, referring to the movie that spawned an empire of successful licensed products. The timing has to be right. ''I had the Smurfs four years ago,'' Mr. Borden recalled. ''I couldn't give it away.'' Subsequently, after a design change and a Saturday morning television program, the Smurfs became hugely popular. ''I will go down in history as the man who couldn't give the Smurfs away,'' Mr. Borden said. ''We were late with Mork,'' one licensee ruefully volunteered, referring to the ''Mork and Mindy'' television series, canceled this season. 'Cuteness' Important The product has to be right. The attributes of a successful adult property are ''pathos, comedy, drama,'' Mr. Borden said. ''But also cuteness. Snoopy is a perfect example of a character that goes both ways.'' There were bad-luck licensing stories. The movie ''Blade Runner,'' after selling a number of licenses, was rated R - a rating that will keep its products off the shelves of K Mart, a major retailer. There were ''can-you-top-this?'' licensing stories. Among the 50-odd products licensed for ''Annie'' is a vitamin-packed dog drink. ''Arf 'n' Arf'' is scheduled to be introduced next month. Concern About 'Schlock' And there were warnings that licensing could get out of hand through ill-conceived products, and the unlicensed use, or counterfeiting, of trademarks and characters. ''You need an aggressive licensing agent to control it, so schlock doesn't get out there,'' Mr. Fox said. At the trade show downstairs, there was licensed schlock aplenty. There was an overfriendly raccoon, whose antics were largely ignored by the crowd, and an unobtrusive bear in a pink T-shirt. There was an exhibitor who darted into the aisles to stick embroidered appliques onto everybody's name tag. ''Give your products a little character,'' one booth bannered. Another urged, ''Character-ize your merchandise.'' Paramount Pictures ran taped excerpts of its new movie - and licensing opportunity - ''Star Trek II.'' Bally Midway Manufacturing, owners of Pac-Man, showed video games. Aardvark, a poster publishing company in Bensenville, Ill., tested the licensing market for its prints. ''That would make a nice shower curtain,'' said Gerald McGlothin, the company's owner, of a print of kittens in a teardrop. Jared Lee, an Ohio-based artist, urged would-be licensees to consider his humorous drawings of horses. ''The horse craze has been overlooked by most manufacturers,'' Mr. Lee observed in a brochure of his designs, which noted that there are approximately three million horse owners in the United States. Although some manufacturers had fretted earlier that the licensing bubble might burst - ''Retailers say, 'I'm being Smurfed to death,' '' one man reported - no one at the show seemed worried by that prospect. ''We are getting into printed shoelaces, which are getting very big,'' said one licensee. ''Printed shoelaces?'' his listener said incredulously. ''Is there room to print characters on shoelaces?'' ''A lot of room,'' said the man. ''A lot of room.'' Illustrations: photo of Carmen J. Maggio

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AT LICENSING SHOW, 'CUTENESS' IS A MUST

''I'm looking specifically at cats,'' Dan Frantz said. There were numerous cats, not to mention pandas, raccoons and other unendangered species at the second annual Licensing and Merchandising Show, which concluded a two-day run yesterday at the New York Hilton. More than 50 licensors and would-be licensors displayed their wares - characters and trademarks - for the consideration of licensees such as Mr. Frantz, the product manager of the C.A. Reed Company, which already stamps Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny and Pac-Man on the party favors it manufactures. ''There are so many cat designs, it's kind of mind boggling,'' Mr. Frantz said. ''Garfield has been taken. I've looked at Heathcliff, and he has some definite merit. He's got a lot of character, lots of accessories.''

20150524105234

MINNEAPOLIS, Feb. 8— At the first stop of his two-day tour of the Middle West, President Reagan today altered his plan to devote the trip to promoting his ''new federalism'' proposals and turned instead to the defense of his new budget. Conceding that ''it was not easy for a conservative like myself'' to recommend a $91.5 billion deficit, the President went on to lash out in unusually harsh language at Democratic Congressional critics of the budget proposal that he sent to Capitol Hill today. ''In the days ahead, you're going to be submerged in demagoguery about the 1983 budget,'' Mr. Reagan told an audience at a fundraising rally here for Senator David Durenberger. He went on to quote James Burnham, a conservative political commentator who had said that surgeons found it hard to operate on Democrats and ''separate demagogic from solid tissue without causing the death of the patient.'' New Economic Theory for Reagan This speech marked Mr. Reagan's strongest endorsement yet of his new-found economic theory that a rising deficit could be tolerated. As a candidate, he said it was possible to balance the budget while increasing military spending and cutting taxes. For the rest of this trip, a Reagan aide said tonight, the President would argue that it was better to accept a high deficit than to roll back his cuts in income taxes or his increases in military spending. Mr. Reagan decided this morning that the budget, rather than his ''new federalism'' initiative, would be his main subject this evening and would figure in his two major speeches Tuesday, according to Larry Speakes, the deputy White House press secretary. That decision came after Mr. Reagan spent this morning in White House meetings where he heard heavy criticism of his budget for the fiscal year 1983 from Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders. ''Our opponents have said they're horrified by the thought of the deficit, so they say we must increase taxes, forget this business of the tax cuts that we've put into effect,'' Mr. Reagan said here. ''We've only balanced one budget in the last 20 years,'' he exclaimed, ''and their Congress has been in charge almost uninterrupted in both houses of the legislature for the past 40 years.'' The President appeared weary, and his speech went less smoothly than is customary. At one point, he chided himself aloud for making a redundant statement - ''begun to start.'' Mr. Reagan's weariness was also apparent in an interview with a Minneapolis radio station, in which he referred to 1981 as ''1941'' and called the three most recent recessions a ''depression.'' The White House transcripts of the interview carried both Mr. Reagan's actual remarks and what he had actually meant to say. His language here was unusually sharp, not only in speaking of Democratic Congressional critics. He also struck out at ''skeptics'' in the press who he said appeared to think he was speaking a foreign tongue when he mentioned his voluntarism program. He went on to urge his audience to ignore ''horror stories about people who are going to be thrown out in the snow.'' Greeted by 1,000 Demonstrators Despite the deep snow banks and 10-degree temperatures here, about 1,000 demonstrators greeted the President in Minneapolis. They carried a variety of signs protesting economic conditions, including some labeling him ''President Hoover'' and others denouncing ''new federalism'' as the ''new feudalism.'' On Tuesday Mr. Reagan is schedule d to address legislators in Iowa and Indiana. Mr. Reagan signed his proposed 1983 budget earlier today, after a meeting with Congressional leaders at which the Democrats made it clear that th ey would oppose his program. He warned that the Democrats wou ld ''probably try to find horror stories'' about the impact of the cuts on certain individuals. ''There are those out there in government employ who will, if possible, sabotage and deliberately penalize some individual who actually is not supposed to be penalized in order to get a story indicating that the programs are not working,'' Mr. Reagan asserted. Mr. Reagan aimed some pointed remarks at Speaker of the House Thomas P. O'Neill Jr., who had harshly critic ized the budget. The President said that the Democrats had n ever substantiated theircharge that the poor had suffered under his e conomic program and added of the Speaker, who is known as ''Tip'' : ''As a matter of fact, I know that Tip says that I associate with the country club crowd. Well, I have only played golf once since I have been President, and he is an inveterate golfer. And I am sure that he must have to go to a country club to play golf.'' Illustrations: photo of President Reagan and David Durenberger

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PRESIDENT DEFENDS BUDGET AS HE OPENS MIDWEST TOUR

At the first stop of his two-day tour of the Middle West, President Reagan today altered his plan to devote the trip to promoting his ''new federalism'' proposals and turned instead to the defense of his new budget. Conceding that ''it was not easy for a conservative like myself'' to recommend a $91.5 billion deficit, the President went on to lash out in unusually harsh language at Democratic Congressional critics of the budget proposal that he sent to Capitol Hill today. ''In the days ahead, you're going to be submerged in demagoguery about the 1983 budget,'' Mr. Reagan told an audience at a fundraising rally here for Senator David Durenberger. He went on to quote James Burnham, a conservative political commentator who had said that surgeons found it hard to operate on Democrats and ''separate demagogic from solid tissue without causing the death of the patient.''

20150729052158

A renewable energy developer has broken ground on a giant wind farm in central Maine that is expected to power 65,000 homes. SunEdison, the Missouri solar energy company that purchased the Boston wind developer First Wind last year, said Wednesday that it has completed financing and started construction on a 185-megawatt wind farm near the town of Bingham. The wind farm was previously under development by First Wind. The company expects to spend $420 million on the 56-turbine project, and has taken out $360 million in loans to build the wind farm. Eversource, National Grid, and Unitil will buy the power generated by the turbines according to the terms of 15-year agreements the companies negotiated, according to David Fowler, SunEdison’s director of development for New England. “We anticipate on having commercial operation in the fourth quarter of 2016,” Fowler said. He said the company is already clearing land and building roads, but bad weather may affect the pace of construction, especially when the frozen land begins to thaw in the spring. Fowler, who worked for First Wind before it was acquired, said the Bingham wind farm has been under development for five years. Upon completion, he said, it could connect to the New England electrical grid with only small modifications that SunEdison will finance. Many other proposed wind projects in Maine will require larger transmission projects, paid for by utility companies from southern New England under a massive bid solicitation that could finance enough renewable energy infrastructure to power 136,000 Massachusetts homes. The Bingham project will grow SunEdison’s wind energy generating capacity in Maine by 50 percent and employ 400 construction workers, according to the company. The wind farm had faced local opposition, but it was approved by the state late last year, according to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

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Maine wind project breaks ground

SunEdison, the solar company that purchased Boston’s First Wind last year, has begun construction on a Maine wind farm it says will power 65,000 homes.

20150823161948

Daesh occupied scores of Kurdish villages outside Kobani in September. It slaughtered civilians and drove hundreds of thousands of Kurds from their homes during its merciless advance on the city, which straddles the border between Turkey and Syria. Read MoreJapan's Abe calls ISIS killing of hostage 'outrageous' In October, Daesh raised its black flag over Kobani's outskirts. It seemed Kobani would fall. Daesh rained mortars and heavy weapons on Kobani's defenseless victims. Daesh threatened genocide against the Kurds, apostates for supporting the West. Kurdish prisoners, including women, were beheaded. The brutal battle unfolded before the eyes of the world. International media watched from the hills above Kobani on the Turkish side of the border. Islamic State fighters flocked from across Syria and Iraq to Kobani. The Islamic State's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, vowed to make an example of the Kurds and kill them all. Outgunned and outmanned, The Kurdish People's Protection Units fought heroically to defend Kobani. Kurds from Turkey, including fighters of the Kurdistan Workers Party, joined the battle. So did Iranian Kurds and peshmerga from Iraqi Kurdistan. About 40 percent of Kobani's defenders were women. Read MoreHow the US and Iran could become BFFs The Obama administration first turned a blind eye to Kobani's suffering, but finally intervened with air strikes and air-drops to resupply the Kurds. Today, Kurdish flags fly over recaptured territory. Daesh has finally been vanquished. Kurdish militia are undertaking mopping up operations, ridding Kobani of land mine booby traps. While nearly 1,000 Daesh combatants were killed, Kobani's liberation took a heavy toll on its defenders. More than 300 Kurds were killed. Many civilians also perished. Read MoreUS should stop Syria not ISIS: Saudi Prince The battle for Kobani is significant for several reasons: The Islamic State's defeat in Syria followed a victory for the Peshmerga in Sinjar, where they defeated Daesh and saved thousands of Yazidis. The Iraqi armed forces is also rolling up Daesh in Iraq's Diyala province. Despite these battlefield gains, challenges remain. Thousands of displaced persons need assistance resettling to their ruined homes in Kobani. Villages around Kobani are still under control of Daesh. Cooperation between Washington and the Democratic Union Party, which represents Syrian Kurds, is shallow and should expand. Today Kurds rejoice. The world applauds their heroism — and joins their celebration. When Daesh's obituary is written, Kobani will be enshrined as the turning point in the struggle to destroy the Islamic State.

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Liberation of Kobani: A turning point in the war against ISIS

The liberation of this Syrian city marks a turning point in the war against ISIS, says David Phillips.

20150917211819

Consumers are fickle. How we feel about a retailer is constantly changing and often based on our last experience—especially if it was negative. That could explain why customer satisfaction with Internet retailers dropped significantly last year, according to the just-released American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Satisfaction with online shopping slipped 4.9 percent to a benchmark of 78, the lowest score since 2001. (Read more: Whether PIN or signature, smart cards are coming) It's no secret that a surge of last-minute online holiday shopping, combined with shipping delays caused by bad weather, created a lot of unhappy customers. Our expectations may be unrealistic—next-day delivery in the middle of a blizzard—but they still color our perception of the customer service we received. "People expect a great experience when they shop online. This time it didn't happen and it became a splash of cold water in the face," said ACSI director David VanAmburg. "But I think this is more of a glitch or a blip rather than a long-term trend that there's something wrong with online retail." ACSI data have consistently shown that online shopping is significantly more satisfying than going to a brick-and-mortar store in many ways. Customers say it's convenient, they like the wide selection of merchandise and they find the checkout and payment process to be easier. (Read more: Why prepaid debit cards are appealing to so many) Amazon (88) is the top-rated online retailer in this survey, improving its score by 4 percent. Newegg (83) came in second. By contrast, eBay (80) dropped 4 percent and Overstock (79) fell 2 percent. Netflix (79) posted a sizeable gain of 5 percent.

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Online shopping satisfaction hits 12-year low

Customer satisfaction with online shopping slipped 4.9 percent to a benchmark of 78, the lowest score since 2001.

20150923000429

In a hilarious spoof on the Will Ferrell comedy site, the original cast of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" reunites for "Dr. Quinn, Morphine Woman," complete with a cameo of Breaking Bad's "Skinny Pete." Seymour explains in this video clip how the plotline with Ferrell's writing team came to be. "On Dr. Quinn, every time we were filming, the only thing I had to offer (patients) was morphine," Seymour said, along with cocaine or whiskey. After a while, naturally, the entire town "is addicts and alcoholics." Read More2014: The year China took a big bite out of Hollywood The 60-something actress said it's important for her to appeal to audiences of all ages, and that was one reason she jumped at the chance to do the "Funny or Die" spoof. Meantime, in addition to still acting, she continues to run a merchandising empire that includes everything from jewelry to furniture. "I've always designed," she said. Seymour started her first company when she was a teenager in the U.K., taking see-through blouses which weren't selling as "women were supposed to burn their bras," then hand embroidering them to provide some modesty. She sold them back to stores for three times what she thought they were worth. "They said, 'Fine,' " she said. An entrepreneur was born. Read MoreHere's why Hollywood's looking to 2015 When the actress moved to Hollywood, she began buying houses and renovating them, adding her own style to decorating. "I sold four or five houses completely furnished, so I knew people liked my taste," she said. Her only business mistake? "Marrying my business manager," she laughed, a man she later divorced. "I am really good at ideas, I can make things, I can sell them," Seymour said. However, "You're looking at someone who has yet to pass basic math." Decades later, Seymour licenses her name to a variety of products, but insists nearly all of them come from her own designs, including the popular Open Heart necklace. "I work every single day on something," she said. "I don't just say, 'Here, you can buy my name for 'X' amount, and bye bye.' " She says it's her nature to be hands-on in every venture, even when it's dressing up in an old television costume she can still fit into, mocking herself and paying homage to "Breaking Bad," by demanding townspeople "Say my name."

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Jane Seymour breaks bad in 'Dr. Quinn' spoof

In a hilarious "Breaking Bad" spoof, the original cast of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" reunites for "Dr. Quinn, Morphine Woman."

20150929091747

* Exemption for Britain's banks stands * Law applies to banks with more than 100 bln euros * ECB's Coeure: more safeguards needed to avoid opt outs LUXEMBOURG/LONDON, June 19 (Reuters) - EU finance ministers agreed a draft law to rein in trading risks at banks on Friday, including an exemption for Britain's lenders because they already face similar curbs. The deal marks a coup for Britain, whose own banking reform will be accepted as a substitute for the EU law, as the country gears up for a referendum on its membership of the 28-member European Union, with financial services a key focus. At a meeting in Luxembourg, the bloc's finance ministers gave the green light to the new EU regulations, aimed at preventing a repeat of the 2007-09 financial crisis. Talks will now start with the European Parliament on the final version of the law, with further changes possible. "The structural reform of banks is a very central element to completing the reform of promoting banking stability," Janis Reirs, finance minister of current EU president Latvia, told the meeting. The law will apply to banks with trading operations of more than 100 billion euros ($113 bln) and was proposed by the European Commission in January 2014. But discussions have been protracted as Britain, France and Germany have their own rules to stop risky trading getting out of control. EU ministers watered down the Commission's proposal to ensure that market-making at so-called universal banks like BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank - where retail and investment banking are under the same roof - can continue, to avoid crimping funding for the economy. National regulators would also have more discretion than originally envisaged when separation of trading takes place. The Commission's proposal to ban proprietary trading - or banks taking market bets with their own money - was scrapped, and instead such trading would have to be conducted in a separate unit. The decision to exempt Britain's banks from the law confirmed a Reuters report. Under Britain's own rules - the Vickers reform - retail banks in Britain such as HSBC and Lloyds will have to separate out their retail arms and cushion them with extra capital by 2019 to shield them from any blow outs on the investment banking side. British officials say the Vickers reform goes further than rules in other member states, and finance minister George Osborne told the meeting in Luxembourg that the EU draft law recognises there are different banking systems across the bloc. The draft law was an example of the "kinds of issues that I think need to be aired in the next couple of years so we get a more stable and more predictable relationship" between countries inside and outside the euro, Osborne said. After last-minute tweaks, France swung behind the deal but its finance minister, Michel Sapin, said there were still concerns it could set a precedent by giving a member state an exemption in what is meant to be a single EU market. The European Central Bank supervises top euro zone lenders and its executive board member Benoit Coeure said more safeguards were needed to ensure uniform application of the EU law within the currency area's banking union so that some countries don't opt out, a view Osborne sympathised with. "It illustrates this tension, and this is just one I suspect of many examples there we would see in the coming years of the pressure of operating a single market of 28 and the integration of the euro zone... and operation of the banking union," Osborne said. ($1 = 0.8850 euros) (Writing by Huw Jones; Editing by Pravin Char and Susan Fenton)

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UPDATE 2-EU agrees rules to curb bank trading risks

*Exemption for Britain's banks stands. LUXEMBOURG/ LONDON, June 19- EU finance ministers agreed a draft law to rein in trading risks at banks on Friday, including an exemption for Britain's lenders because they already face similar curbs. But discussions have been protracted as Britain, France and Germany have their own rules to stop risky trading getting out of...

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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (2nd L) gestures next to High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini (L), Iranian ambassador to IAEA Ali Akbar Salehi (2nd R) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (R) as they pose for a family photo in Vienna, Austria 14 July, 2015. I know it's hard to love the financial markets right now with all the steep selloffs and wild swings. But love them or hate them, they always send you a clear message at any given moment in time whether it's stocks, bonds, commodities or any other place where something is bought and sold. In other words, if Apple stock is up when you're checking the latest quotes it means the buyers like the stock at that price right now no matter what they might be saying about it publicly. Money talks and b.s. walks, and what people do with their money is almost always a much better indicator of what they really believe than the what they say. It's what I love best about the markets; whether I like what they're telling me or not, I appreciate the immediate honesty. Investors and consumers aren't the only ones who speak most honestly through the markets. Nation states do it too and it's always a good idea to see how governments are spending money instead of just listening to what the politicians are saying. What's transpiring right now in the Middle East is just the latest and greatest example. Read MoreOil is already erasing Iran's nuke deal haul Israel remains the biggest critic of the deal with Iran to supposedly freeze Tehran's nuclear weapons program. But we've known for months that Arab nations in the region also oppose the deal, even as many of the leaders of those nations have recently come out with lukewarm statements in favor of the deal. The market reaction tells a different story. In this case, the nuclear arms markets. Officially it's the market for nuclear power, but when oil rich Arab nations suddenly clamor for nuclear power plants you know what's really going on. And several news reports today out of the Middle East say Russia is close to signing deals with Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to bring nuclear power to those countries. Saudi Arabia is reportedly helping these countries fund the deals. In other words, the market abhors a vacuum or an imbalance. And while President Obama and other politicians say the deal with Iran will stop the Mullahs from getting a nuclear weapon, the market sees the deal as just the opposite. Everyone else in the region now believes Iran is assured of getting a nuclear weapon within ten years or less, thanks to this deal. And everyone else is responding by putting their money, or new money from the Saudis, where their mouths aren't and hurrying to sign deals with Russia to boost their nuclear programs as a deterrent. It's the beginning of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East instead of some kind of nuclear freeze or the de-escalation our politicians are promising us. And anyone who understands how markets work knew this was going to happen. Read MoreForget emails, the markets could doom Hillary This goes beyond nuclear power or potential nuclear weapons. Sales of conventional weapons to Middle Eastern countries including Iran have been soaring all year, and even the U.S. is profiting from it. This April was the busiest month, with sales of weapons from the U.S. to foreign countries tripling from the April totals from last year. There's no sign of any let up as the Iranians are also boosting their conventional arsenal to deter the conventional buildups by its neighbors. The stock market is telling us the same story. Before the downturn in the overall market began about a week ago, defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Norhrop Grumman, and even Boeing were nicely higher from a year ago. In fact, Lockheed and Northrop Grumman are still strongly higher from last August even with this sharp selloff. You could make an argument that based on this Middle Eastern arms buildup, the defense stocks as a whole will be among the first to rebound when current carnage subsides. President Obama and the nuclear deal's supporters keep touting this agreement as a move to avoid war. But it's all talk. What the market says carries more weight. And the market says the Middle East is gearing up for war.

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Iran nuclear deal spurs market-like reaction

Ignore the political happy talk. The defense market is telling us the Middle East is gearing up for war.

20151001124329

* Nikkei may hover 17,500 until next FOMC - analysts * Toshiba turns positive after it releases earnings TOKYO, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Japanese stocks bounced from seven-month lows on Monday in choppy trade, helped by gains in the Chinese market after regulators sought to calm sentiment. Trading, however, remained cautious as a mixed U.S. jobs report did little to offer clarity on when the Federal Reserve would begin raising interest rates. The Nikkei rose 0.4 percent to 17,855.90 in midmorning trade after falling as low as 17,478.72 earlier, the lowest since Feb. 5. A breach below 17,450.77 would wipe off its year-to-date gains. The gains tracked Chinese markets, which resumed trading after an extended break and rose at the open following remarks by regulators to calm sentiment. "The jobs report itself was good. The U.S. economy is recovering, and it should be good for the Japanese economy if we didn't have worries about China," said Yoshihiro Okumura, an analyst at Chibagin Asset Management. But he said that the market, which in recent weeks has been hit by worries of a hard landing in China, may stay sluggish ahead of the Fed's Sept 16 and 17 policy meeting, he said. "Investors will likely remain wary until the rate hike happens," Okumura said, adding that the Nikkei may hover around 17,500-levels until the next FOMC. Nonfarm payrolls increased 173,000 last month, fewer than the 220,000 that economists polled by Reuters had expected. But the unemployment rate dropped to 5.1 percent, its lowest in more than seven years, and wages accelerated. Automakers with exposure to the United States rallied. Honda Motor Corp rose 1.1 percent and Fuji Heavy Industries added 1.4 percent. Outperforming the market was Toshiba Corp, which reversed early losses and rose 1.5 percent after the company released its earnings for the last fiscal year, easing fears that the stock would be put under the watch list if it missed the deadline to release its earnings again. "It's a relief that the company avoided the worst-case scenario to go under the watch list, so some day traders are seen covering their short positions," said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Asset Management. Domestic demand-related stocks were sold. Real estate companies Mitsubishi Estate Co dropped 1.6 percent and Mitsui Fudosan Co fell 2.0 percent. Financials were lower, with Nomura Holdings falling 2.2 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group shedding 1.4 percent and Mizuho Financial Group tumbling 2.9 percent. The broader Topix dropped 0.2 percent to 1,441.58 and the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 fell 0.2 percent to 12,944.31.

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Nikkei up in choppy trade after US jobs data, automakers, Toshiba gain

*Toshiba turns positive after it releases earnings. The U.S. economy is recovering, and it should be good for the Japanese economy if we didn't have worries about China, "said Yoshihiro Okumura, an analyst at Chibagin Asset Management. But he said that the market, which in recent weeks has been hit by worries of a hard landing in China, may stay sluggish ahead of the...

20151002023226

Holding a stock with major gains is nothing short of being just plain greedy. Investors must take some off the table. And in Cramer's book of rules, greed is bad and discipline is good. Strict discipline leads to the ability to cash out when you're winning. Of course, Cramer understands wanting to stick with a winner, wanting to let it ride. Nobody likes to forfeit gains, and that's how selling a winner can sometimes feel. So, the next time you see a stock climbing ever higher, change your mindset to see your stock as getting more and more expensive. Eventually, it will become so expensive that it won't attract new buyers and will start to go back down. And you want to be out by that point. It's a simple case of buying low and selling high. Kind of. Yes, it would be ideal to sell at the very moment a stock tops out, but the odds of that happening are very unlikely. But it's all about instincts. ----------------------------------------------------- Read More from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer Remix: Wanna invest in 2015? You need this Cramer's No. 1 most important lesson in investing Cramer: Buying gold is the way to go ----------------------------------------------------- Therefore, when you have a large gain on a position, find a level where you can feel satisfied with what you have. Then take at least a portion of your bet off the table. Otherwise, you put your gains at risk, and Cramer says that's piggish. "When things get crazy expensive and I know you have a lot of gains, you will hear me say that you are being a hog, and the bottom line is that I don't want your head to be in this guillotine when the party ends and big wins turn into losses," Cramer added.

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Make money from bulls & bears-but don't be a hog

If you own stock, there’s nothing better than a big gain. But too many investors put those gains at risk.

20151102023104

Photo: Tom Gannam, Associated Press San Francisco 49ers running back Reggie Bush is tended to by a trainer after he slipped out of bounds after running the ball during the first quarter of an NFL football game against the St. Louis Rams Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Tom Gannam) San Francisco 49ers running back Reggie Bush is tended to by a trainer after he slipped out of bounds after running the ball during the first quarter of an NFL football game against the St. Louis Rams Sunday, Big free-agent signing Torrey Smith is 49ers’ invisible man Niners wide receiver Torrey Smith is hard to see. I’ve looked for him after the 49ers’ past two games and he has been a ghost. After both losses, he dressed and sped out of the locker room before the media horde entered. But we can guess this much: Smith is not happy. On Sunday, he was literally hopping with frustration after a play that might look comical to some, but is no laughing matter to the 49ers. First quarter, 49ers leading the Rams 3-0, the 49ers were punted back onto their 3. The 49ers called three runs to rookie Mike Davis. Each lost a yard, ending in a safety. On second down, Smith lined up wide left, saw that the Rams had messed up and left him all alone, and started waving to quarterback Colin Kaepernick, like a castaway trying to flag down a passing steamer. If Smith could have grabbed pom-poms from a nearby cheerleader, he would have. “No, I didn’t see the corner close down (toward the middle of the field) on that,” Kaepernick said. “That’s something I should have been able to adjust out of.” It appeared that Smith would have had a clear path to a touchdown. After the run failed, Smith jumped up and down in frustration. A frequent criticism of Kaepernick has been his lack of field vision. This play will go into Kaepernick’s permanent file. Smith wound up with two receptions Sunday on five targets. He appeared to be open a few other times, but Kaepernick was looking and throwing elsewhere. The previous week, Kaepernick threw one pass to Smith — and he dropped it. So, basically, the chemistry between the quarterback and the man the 49ers acquired to help stretch the field isn’t happening. A few days after the Oct. 22 home loss to Seattle, Smith said, “Watch film. I just didn’t get the ball thrown to me. It was not like I was out there not getting open. It’s been the same way all year.” It was reminiscent of the comments of departed wide receiver Michael Crabtree, now with the Raiders, who said one reason he decided to leave the 49ers was that he wanted to play with a quarterback who would throw him the ball. Who’s to blame? Kaepernick? His coaches? Smith? Whatever, Smith is, uh, frustrated. To the tune of eight games, 16 receptions, 342 yards. Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist.

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Big free-agent signing Torrey Smith is 49ers’ invisible man

Big free-agent signing Torrey Smith is 49ers’ invisible man Niners wide receiver Torrey Smith is hard to see. After both losses, he dressed and sped out of the locker room before the media horde entered. On Sunday, he was literally hopping with frustration after a play that might look comical to some, but is no laughing matter to the 49ers. First quarter, 49ers leading the Rams 3-0, the 49ers were punted back onto their 3. On second down, Smith lined up wide left, saw that the Rams had messed up and left him all alone, and started waving to quarterback Colin Kaepernick, like a castaway trying to flag down a passing steamer. [...] basically, the chemistry between the quarterback and the man the 49ers acquired to help stretch the field isn’t happening. A few days after the Oct. 22 home loss to Seattle, Smith said, Watch film. To the tune of eight games, 16 receptions, 342 yards.

20151212030930

Josh Gilbert's family has farmed land on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales for 40,000 years. The young indigenous farmer wants that to continue for another 40,000 but believes climate change could derail his plans. He's in Paris representing Australia's young farmers at major climate talks and is urging the Australian government to implement policies to curb emissions. "Farmers will keep adapting as much as they can but there's going to come a time when that limit's up," he told AAP on Thursday. "We could head for something that we really don't want to." Crowd-funding got Mr Gilbert and fellow NSW farmer Anika Molesworth to Paris to tell their stories and learn from hundreds of other farmers from around the world. Ms Molesworth, whose family runs a sheep station in Broken Hill, breeds African livestock that are drought resilient to help cope with extended droughts and heat waves. "This spring we had weeks over 40 degrees and it's not even summer," she told AAP. "So you see that taking a toll on on the vegetation and your livestock." Mr Gilbert believes traditional indigenous practices can help adapt to climate change and spends time learning about the land from family and elders. "They understand the land really, really well so the adaptation is really quick," he said. "On our farm, we live on the motto that we've been farming for 40,000 years and we want to make decisions today so that we can farm for the next 40,000 years." Both farmers are urging global governments to come up with a strong agreement in Paris to curb emissions and limit global warming. They also want the Australian government to do more. "Farmers keep running the race but we need to make sure that the government is there to back us up and we do have strong policy," Mr Gilbert said. Ms Molesworth is bracing for hotter summers and lower rainfalls, something she'll have to find ways to cope with in the already naturally dry and hot region. But she says it could be worse. "We are so lucky that we are Australian farmers," she said. "I'm listening to people in the developing world who are literally going hungry, they can't feed their families."

http://web.archive.org/web/20151212030930id_/http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/12/04/05/14/farmers-urge-climate-action-in-paris

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Farmers urge climate action in Paris

Two NSW farmers are already feeling the impact of hotter summers and less rainfall and have flown to Paris to warn leaders to act urgently.

20151227040233

Low interest rates could leave U.S. companies scrambling to cover huge pension shortfalls, Fitch warned Monday. The rating agency noted that the manic bond rally has benefited big issuers such as IBM and Johnson & Johnson , both of which were able to sell debt this month at record low yields. But the flip side of tumbling rates, Fitch analyst Mark Oline warns, is a fall in likely investment returns. A drop in forecast returns could force companies that are already behind on their pension obligations to boost contributions to underfunded plans. That shift could penalize profits and hit shareholders, who are betting on strong earnings growth. “Simply put, lower yields will likely require higher contributions at a time when certain underfunded programs are already experiencing a schedule of sharply higher required contributions,” he writes. “Public sector pension funds face the same challenges of a low yield environment, but the very large funding gaps and lack of funding requirements could present an even more severe scenario” for big companies. Fitch isn’t alone in considering the ramifications of a dip in expected returns. Calpers, the giant California pension fund, is studying whether it should revise its discount rate, the number that tracks the investment return expectations. At 7.75%, Calpers is already more conservative than most states or big companies. New York, which has been using an 8% discount rate for a quarter of a century, is considering dropping that forecast as low as 7.5%. Dropping the discount rate by a half a percentage point seems like a footnote, but any decline in projected returns stands to increase the present value of liabilities the funds will have to make good on – which means more taxes or cutbacks for municipalities, and a drain on earnings for big companies. Oline worries that the response in corporate America will be not to adopt more conservative expectations and pony up cash now, but to join the reach for yield that is characterizing the debt markets now. This could lead to bigger problems later at risk-taking pension funds, should the oft-discussed bond market blowup come to pass. “Companies will be challenged to achieve the assumed return targets incorporated into their accounting statements given 2010 year-to-date equity returns and current fixed income yields,” the Fitch analyst writes. “This situation could encourage yield chasing and a shift in asset allocation to higher risk asset classes, including leveraged loans, real estate, private equity funds, and equities.” Just this sort of thing happened when the bond market last went parabolic at mid-decade, and we all know how that turned out. Further complicating matters, the recent bond mania says some equities aren’t necessarily riskier than bonds for pension managers confronting Ben Bernanke’s (right) zero interest rate world. Consider, for instance, the yield differential for those looking at high-quality stocks and bonds. If a pension manager with an 8.5% assumed return is looking at the purchase of recent new issues (e.g. the three-year IBM bond with a 1% coupon or the 10-year Johnson & Johnson bond at a 2.95% coupon), the risk of capital losses that meet or exceed the coupon over a near-term time horizon is a valid concern. Throwing dividend yields into the equation (2.0% for IBM, 3.7% for JNJ) further complicates the assessment of what the most conservative or appropriate allocation would be. In any case, pension funding is another risk factor to consider in investing – and it’s not one that’s going away. “Simply hoping for a rescue from high equity returns or the impact of higher interest rates on the measurement of benefit obligations is not a prudent strategy,” Oline writes.

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Fitch sees corporate pension timebomb

Low interest rates could leave U.S. companies scrambling to cover huge pension shortfalls, Fitch warned Monday. The rating agency noted that the manic bond rally has benefited big issuers such as IBM and Johnson & Johnson , both of which were able to sell debt this month at record low yields. But the flip side of tumbling…

20160227202124

"This government is already eight years old. It's an old, bad, lying government, and it must go on December 3," Manuel Rosales told the demonstrators on Saturday. Rosales, governor of oil-rich Zulia state, described the march as an "opposition avalanche" as an estimated 10,000 of his supporters gathered in downtown Caracas. Rosales accused Chavez's government of mismanaging the country's oil wealth and ignoring crime. He also said that Chavez's close friendship with Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, was leading Venezuela towards a similar international isolation. "They say the Venezuelan people rule - that's a lie," said Rosales. "[We have] a government that is a puppet of a communist, totalitarian system. ... We have a government that is governing from Cuba." Caracas' metropolitan police estimated the crowd at about 9,000, but reporters on the scene estimated the turnout was over 10,000. Rosales also slammed the government's record on crime, claiming that murders, kidnappings and other crimes in the South American country have sharply risen since Chavez took office in 1999 - an issue that recent polls show is a top concern among Venezuelans. He also accused Chavez of giving away millions of dollars in aid and donations to countries around the world, while many Venezuelans remain impoverished. "There is a paradox in this country: poor people and a very rich government. The people don't want any more crumbs," Rosales said. He promised that, if elected, his government that would distribute Venezuela's oil wealth at home and try to attract more foreign and internal investment. Rosales also appeared to rule out a boycott of the December 3 presidential election, urging people to vote despite worries about vote-rigging and new electronic voting machines.

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Thousands rally for Chavez opponent

Thousands of people have taken part in the largest march yet in support of Manuel Rosales, <?xml:namespace prefix =

20160405111026

PHOENIX -- Shelby Miller was the finishing piece as the Diamondbacks rebuilt the top of their rotation during the offseason. To some, he was the most expensive -- even after Zack Greinke received almost a quarter-billion dollars. But Greinke was the marquee acquisition, the opening day starter. Even as much as he would prefer otherwise, Greinke had the spotlight. "I don't mind being out of the spotlight at all," Miller said. "Guys like Zack, key players, always get a lot of attention, as it should be. That doesn't bother me one bit." The thing with pitching, though, is the spotlight shifts on a daily basis. And it lands on Miller on Tuesday as he makes his D-backs debut. Miller was acquired via trade from the Braves, in exchange for up-and-coming outfielder Ender Inciarte, pitching prospect Aaron Blair and shortstop prospect Dansby Swanson, the No. 1 overall pick in last year's draft. The D-backs paid too much was the immediate cry within the baseball industry. Some critics will never be won over. Miller isn't worried about doing so. But he is ready to prove his worth. "It's a game of results. But you try to keep everything in perspective," Miller said. "You don't try to do too much or overthink anything. With the big acquisitions they made there's definitely some eyes on this team, trying to see what we're going to do and how we play. "I like when eyes are on us. I like pitching in pressure situations. You want people paying attention to what you're doing. I can't wait, man. I'm excited to back in the swing of things when games matter and every single game counts from now on." Miller quickly ingratiate himself in the D-backs clubhouse. It is his third team in three seasons, after the Braves flipped him one year after they acquired him from the Cardinals. D-backs GM scoffed this spring when asked if the package he had to part with was too much for Miller, who last season posted a 3.02 ERA and twice flirted with a no-hitter. "He's 25 years old and his best years are ahead of him," Stewart said. "He is going to be here for at least the next three years and he's going to be an important piece for us." Manager Chip Hale knew as much already. But what he witnessed of Miller during spring training only cemented it. "I learned that Shelby is an unbelievable guy in the clubhouse," Hale said. "I've been really impressed with how, along with Zack, he's taken real care of the rest of the staff. He's been really coachable. What I've observed is this guy is extremely important to a team." Follow Chris Gabel on Twitter

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Shelby Miller ready, excited for Diamondbacks debut

Some critics will never be won over. Shelby Miller isn't worried about doing so. But he is ready to prove his worth.

20160523144821

As the war in Iraq began last week, some prominent members of the Bush administration were repeating their hope that the removal of Saddam Hussein will be the catalyst for a wave of democratic reform throughout the Middle East. In making their case these planners have revived a staple of cold-war thinking, the domino theory: the idea that sudden change in the leadership of one nation can set off a chain reaction in its neighbors, transforming an entire region. In its original formulation, the domino theory was invoked fearfully. At the time, the most active agent of wholesale change was thought to be Soviet Communism. America's job was to keep the dominoes from falling, all over the globe. But in today's unipolar world, a so-called positive or reverse domino theory has emerged. It envisions democracy as the great insurgent movement of our time, with the United States leading the revolution. Either way, the image of nations as falling dominoes, each toppling into the next, has proved remarkably durable, shaping the policies of presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower on. Eisenhower, who was not generally known for his vivid formulations, introduced the concept, shortly after French forces were overwhelmed by Communist guerrillas in Dien Bien Phu, a valley in Vietnam, in 1954. Asked at a press conference to explain the significance of this distant conflict, Eisenhower said that one Communist victory in the region could set off a "possible sequence of events," including "the loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand" and perhaps Indonesia as well. All this "might follow from what you might call `the falling domino' principle," he said. "You had a row of dominoes set up, and you knocked over the first one, and what would happen to the last one was the certainty that it would go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences." The idea made sense to many who had strong memories of the calamitous prelude to World War II. The Western powers had stood by as Hitler annexed Austria and grabbed Czechoslovakia, putting him into position to invade Poland and pursue further conquests. Eisenhower drew this parallel in an exchange with Winston Churchill, citing the failure of the great democratic powers "to halt Hirohito, Mussolini and Hitler" when they had the opportunity. John F. Kennedy, Eisenhower's successor, reportedly expressed skepticism about the theory's logic in the first year of his presidency, partly because it reduced the complex tangle of regional forces to a single tug of war between Washington and Moscow. But Kennedy knew that the formula had already taken root in Southeast Asia. As the historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a Kennedy adviser, later observed, "Whether the domino theory was valid in 1954, it had acquired validity seven years later, after neighboring governments had staked their own security on the ability of the United States to live up to its pledges to Saigon." Faced with a crisis in Laos two months into his presidency, Kennedy, echoing Eisenhower, warned that "the security of all Southeast Asia will be endangered if Laos loses its neutral independence." But Indochina proved a troubling test case once the United States became mired in Vietnam. In 1966, an early critic of the war, Sen. J. William Fulbright, pointed out that the domino theory obliged the United States to "fight in one country to avoid having to fight in another, although we could with equal logic have inferred that it is useless to fight in one country when the same conditions of conflict are present in another." Worse, as the war dragged on, policies meant to prop up wobbly dominoes instead had the effect of shoving them in the opposite direction. South Vietnam grew so dependent on American support that when aid was cut off in 1975 it was unable to ward off the invading North. President Richard M. Nixon's secret bombing of Cambodia destabilized that country, clearing the way for the Khmer Rouge under its brutal dictator, Pol Pot, to take charge. When the fall of Saigon failed to initiate a regionwide Communist insurgency, the domino theory looked discredited for good. Still, it continued to influence foreign policy, particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean. Unable to dislodge Fidel Castro in Cuba, the United States intervened repeatedly in nearby conflicts &#0151; in Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Grenada &#0151; in the belief that every additional foothold gained by Communists increased the threat in the hemisphere. Today, the domino theory is so ingrained in American foreign policy that it is often the subject of sophisticated analysis. The Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis has written about the "psychological domino effect" that causes smaller nations to align themselves with great powers. In his revisionist history, "Vietnam: The Necessary War," Michael Lind identified three versions of the domino theory: "a regional domino effect, a global revolutionary wave effect or a global bandwagon effect." The haunting memory of the old theory and its failings is still with us today, even as the image of falling dominoes is being reformulated in the optimistic vision embraced by Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, and others who suggest that the war in Iraq might be the first step toward establishing democracy in the Middle East. In a recent appearance on Capitol Hill, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, cautioned against making the Iraq war the basis of "a big domino theory about what happens in the rest of the Arab world." And shortly before President Bush flew to the Azores a week ago, The Los Angeles Times reported that a classified State Department document, presented to top government officials, made a strong case that the fall of Mr. Hussein is unlikely to unleash democratic change in the region. The report was pointedly titled, "Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes." Sam Tanenhaus, a Vanity Fair contributing editor, is author of "Whittaker Chambers."

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The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Domino Theory

Some members of the Bush administration hope that the removal of Saddam Hussein will be the catalyst for a wave of democratic reform throughout the Middle East.

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Shares of J.P. Morgan Chase jpm have lost nearly $8.7 billion in value in the last two days, after CEO Jamie Dimon announced plans to increase energy loan reserves by 60% to $1.3 billion. Dimon told investors Tuesday that the bank had added roughly $500 million to its reserves for energy sector loan losses in the first quarter of 2016. Although that brings J.P. Morgan’s reserves up to just below 3% of the bank’s exposure to the sector, the news shook investor confidence. Shares fell 4.2%, to $56.11 Tuesday. The stock continued its slide Wednesday, falling 1.43% and whittling down Morgan’s market cap to $203.1 billion. During Tuesday’s summit, Dimon also projected that J.P. Morgan’s losses from loans made out to the energy sector could equal as much as $2.8 billion. The bank’s total exposure to oil and gas is roughly $44 billion. About $19 billion of its energy loans were given to companies now rated as junk. The news comes in a year when the financial sector has grown increasingly shaky, wondering how the downturn in oil prices will affect banks that have loaned heavily to the energy sector. Fellow banking titan Goldman Sachs gs disclosed in a regulatory filing on Monday that 40% of its loans were made out to oil and gas companies that had been relegated to junk. It also should be noted that investor sentiment regarding oil was low yesterday after Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi ruled out the possibility of oil production cuts, sending prices below $33 per barrel Wednesday. For Dimon, the price of oil and losses from loans in the energy sector could have an adverse effect on his paycheck this year. The CEO has the chance to earn over $10 million in his 2015 performance bonus, according to Bloomberg —if he can lead J.P. Morgan to outperform five of its peers. Performance is measured as the company’s returns on common equity—which the bank posted as a record-breaking 13% in 2015. Dimon’s total 2015 compensation package is valued at $27 million, Bloomberg reported. And it’s not just energy loans and reserves that Dimon will have to juggle. J.P. Morgan reported that investment-banking fee revenues have fallen 25% vs. the same quarter a year earlier. Its trading business is down 20% from a year ago as well. J.P. Morgan shares have lost 16.5% of their value since Dec. 31.

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J.P. Morgan Has Lost $8.7 Billion in Value Over the Last Two Days

JPMorgan lost $9 billion in value Tuesday, after CEO Jamie Dimon said the company could lose as much as $3 billion from energy sector loans.

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Opening up his Yahoo e-mail, John R. couldn’t help but be startled by the subject line of a message declaring: “You got busted.” The 35-year-old, who works in the science field and asked that only his first name be published for personal and professional reasons, immediately clicked on the bait. “Unfortunately your data was leaked in the recent hacking of Ashley Madison and I know [sic] have your information,” said the message. “I have also used your user profile to find your Facebook page, using this I can now message all of your friends and family members,” it continued. The poorly spelled extortion letter then demanded 2 bitcoin (worth approximately $500 when John received the e-mail in September) to be paid within three days. Otherwise, according to the sender, John’s friends and family would be automatically informed of his Ashley Madison membership. Such e-mails have shown up in the inboxes of the estimated 37 million Ashley Madison users whose information was breached after a high-profile hack of the site in August. Ashley Madison is infamous for providing unfaithful spouses a platform to find illicit trysts. Software-security expert Johannes Ullrich, Ph.D., dean of research for SANS Technology Institute in Jacksonville, Fla., believes the extortionists are unlikely to be part of the hacking group Impact Team, which shook down Ashley Madison. “They used spambot techniques, which are favorites of the Russian mob and Nigerian scammers,” Ullrich says, adding it’s unlikely they would follow through with their threats. “It would be too much trouble for them, and there is a risk they could be traced,” he says. Photo: Mark Blinch/ReutersAs for John, he was so concerned that he might be outed as a member of Ashley Madison and that his wife would “freak” that he consulted the New York-based reputation-management firm Status Labs, which has set up a free hotline advising extortion victims of the perpetrators’ tactics. John, who had signed up for the infidelity Web site in the fall of 2013 for $350 when he and his wife of six years “could barely stand in the same room without arguing,” maintains his trysts never went offline. “I didn’t meet with any of them in person but I was tempted,” says the God-fearing Missouri native, who nevertheless had an online “emotional affair” with one woman, with whom he exchanged sexy photos. He deleted his account in September 2014 after deciding to fix his marriage. When that mending process was threatened by the blackmailers a year later, he was reassured by Status Labs, which advised him to not make any bitcoin transactions and to take the precaution of making his list of Facebook friends private. Says Status Labs president Darius Fisher: “It’s simple to switch your privacy settings, but it’s important to remember that these extortionists, like all scammers and spammers, are playing a numbers game. “If they scare even one or two people into paying up, it’s a big payday for them.”

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The storm isn’t over yet for Ashley Madison cheaters

Opening up his Yahoo e-mail, John R. couldn’t help but be startled by the subject line of a message declaring: “You got busted.” The 35-year-old, who works in the science field and asked that only …

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In a shocking about face, transgender icon Caitlyn Jenner said she is “willing to listen” to the Democratic presidential hopeful she slammed as a “f----- liar” she would “never ever” vote for. The “I am Cait” star shared a photo with Hillary Clinton on Monday after recently criticizing the Democrat and lauding Donald Trump as being “very good for women’s issues.” Just days after bashing Clinton, the reality starlet and longtime Republican was all smiles as she posed with the female candidate alongside other friends. The other women were actress Candis Cayne and artist Zackary Drucker—two other prominent transgender women. CAITLYN JENNER BLASTED FOR COMMENTS ON GOP CANDIDATE TED CRUZ The 66-year-old didn’t say much with the photo, but suggested that she may be shifting her political support. She used the hashtags “learning frommygirls” and “#willingtolisten” to describe the unexpected encounter with Clinton. The former Olympian star blasted Clinton on a recent episode of her reality show. “I would never ever, ever vote for Hillary,” she insisted. “If Hillary becomes President, the country is over.” “She was a lousy senator; she was horrible,” she continued. “Look at all the things that are going on the Middle East, all because of what she did. Look at Benghazi — she lied to us! She’s a f--king liar!” Jenner didn’t seem to care about her left-leaning friends' disagreement at the time. “Just because I’m a woman now doesn’t make me all of a sudden liberal,” the ex-decathlete explained. It’s unclear what changed her staunch beliefs — or in the least led to photo-op with Clinton — but the backtracking comes after Jenner also supported Ted Cruz and shared a controversial wish to become his “trans ambassador.”

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Caitlyn Jenner tweets 'willing to listen' to Hillary Clinton

Transgender icon Caitlyn Jenner said she is 'willing to listen' to the presidential hopeful she would 'never ever' vote for.

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Brandeis University, where I am a senior, sometimes goes to extremes to create “safe spaces” for its students. Case in point: last spring the university disinvited renowned international human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali from attending commencement and withdrew awarding her an honorary degree because of comments she had made criticizing Islamism. In defending its indefensible position, Brandeis said that Hirsi Ali’s views were “inconsistent with Brandeis University’s core values” and prioritized the idea that student’s feelings wouldn’t get hurt over the opportunity to honor a champion of women’s rights. In the end, Brandeis opted to create a safe space instead of an intellectual space, and the students who protested Hirsi Ali were comforted rather than challenged. To many, the university failed in its overarching mission. On December 20, like other Americans, I was shocked when I heard about the horrific murders of NYPD Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. There was a clear consensus across the country that their execution-style murders were barbaric and grotesque. That night, however, Brandeis student leader Khadijah Lynch tweeted, “I have no sympathy for the NYPD officers who were murdered today” and “LMAO, all I just really don’t have sympathy for the cops who were shot. I hate this racist, f…ing country.” Lynch, a Brandeis junior, was an undergraduate representative for the African and Afro-American studies department. As a student journalist who frequently writes about the culture wars on campus, I knew her comments were newsworthy. Here was a student leader at a well-known American university publicly condoning cold-blooded murder. So I wrote a short blog post highlighting Lynch’s public comments. These pieces usually generate a local response, but this post went viral. This was not Lynch’s first bigoted tweet. In previous tweets since deleted, she has described Brandeis as “a social themed institution grounded in Zionism. Word. That a f…ing fanny dooly.” And she cannot understand why “black people have not burned this country down….” She describes herself as “in riot mode. F… this f…ing country.” After my story was posted, online commenters, both anonymous and identifiable, made morally repugnant and offensive remarks about Lynch. Some even made death threats. I immediately condemned these sentiments. A journalist does not control how others react to a story he writes. Now, however, I am the subject of a nasty and menacing campus backlash. “Kill the messenger” appears to be the “in thing” on the Brandeis campus. Students rallied to have me disciplined. Why? Because I reported a story worthy of public attention. Threats of violence against me have been made and a group of students demanded in an email that the Brandeis administration hold me “accountable for [my] actions” and kick me out of school just one semester shy of graduation. I was also accused of “stalking” Lynch by reporting her public tweets and thereby defaming her character because of comments made by others. The university administration sent me an email instructing me “to have no contact with … in any way, shape or form” the student who sent that email. That contact ban has since been lifted. As far as I know, I have never spoken to this student in my time at Brandeis and would fail to pick him out of a police lineup. But if I were by chance to be in a room with this student, I could potentially face trouble in Brandeis’s student judicial system, as “[a]ny alleged violation(s) of these conditions should be reported to the Dean of Students Office.” In addition, the Brandeis Asian American Student Association went so far as to state that they took “no official stance on the opinions that Khadijah has expressed” but that they stood “in solidarity with” her – even though one of the murdered Brooklyn police officers was Asian. One student even wildly claimed that I supported the threats made against Lynch. A Brandeis official called Lynch’s comments “hurtful and disrespectful.” She resigned from her position in the African and Afro-American studies department. When I contacted Lynch for a comment about her tweets, she tweeted, “I need to get my gun license. Asap.” That tweet has also been deleted. I have now been accused of being a racist and being in bed with white supremacists since I made Lynch’s public tweets more public. In my meeting with the Brandeis public safety officials to discuss the threats made against me, I was told that I should consider changing my dorm room, and that it is a reasonable expectation that my car would be vandalized. They also recommended that I purchase mace at the local Walmart. Violent hatred directed toward any innocent is wrong—whether it is at student leaders at a university, police officers patrolling the streets, or student journalists doing their job. That many Brandeis students exhibit selective outrage and are willing to extol the virtues of free speech, but only when that speech confirms their preconceived biases, illustrates their hypocrisy in claiming to care about “civil rights.” Indeed, and sadly so, the Brandeis student body provided a louder defense of Lynch’s right to condone the murder of New York City police officers, and her hatred of America, than my right to report on it. It is the threat of violence, expulsion, and attack for voicing your views that keeps tyrants in power—as Wednesday’s attack on satirical French newspaper Charlie Hebdo illustrates. The very marker of liberal societies is the ability to speak freely and openly regardless of who may be offended. There is no room for intimidation in the modern university, and campuses must aim to fulfill this ambition. In a column about this incident, Alan Dershowitz wrote, “So welcome to the topsy-turvy world of the academic hard left, where bigoted speech by fellow hard leftists is protected, but counter expression is labeled as ‘harassment,’ ‘incitement,’ and ‘bullying.’ Imagine how different the reaction of these same radical students would be if a white supporter of the KKK had written comparably incendiary tweets.” Regardless of political ideology, it is imperative that Brandeis community members unite to reject the calls for violence or physical harm with the same fervor that we demand freedom of speech. In doing so we can help shape a better future for our community and America at large. It is our rule of law that ensures our freedom of expression and enables us to envision a more positive path forward. Daniel Mael is a senior at Brandeis University and writes for TruthRevolt.org and the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.

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Once Again, Brandeis Students Master Selective Outrage

The student body provided a louder defense of the right to condone the murder of NYPD officers, and her hatred of America, than my right to report on it

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Dennis Kozlowski – the former Tyco International head honcho who spent six and a half years behind bars for fleecing company coffers of more than $100 million – admitted to The New York Times: “I was piggy.” The 68-year-old ex-tycoon was notified by state parole officials last week that for the first time in nearly a decade he is completely free of supervision, the paper reported. He talked about life in the slammer, his three years on a work-release program in Manhattan and about his rosy future. “I’ve waited for freedom for a long time,” Kozlowski told the paper at his modest, two-bedroom rental, describing life with his third wife, Kimberly, whom he married a year ago. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me – ever,” Kozlowski said about his wife, who told The Times she wears a cubic zirconium wedding ring worth less than $300. He described the joy of spending time with his grandkids – and how he enjoys fresh avocados and even root canals these days. In his previous incarnation, Kozlowski enjoyed the good life – replete with a Fifth Avenue home sporting a $6,000 gold-and-burgundy shower curtain – for which he landed on The Post’s cover with the headline: “OINK, OINK.” The poster child for corporate greed was convicted in 2005 of stealing $134 million from Tyco to fuel a lavish lifestyle that included a $2 million toga party birthday bash for his ex-wife on the Italian island of Sardinia in 2001. At one preposterous party he hosted, an ice sculpture of a chubby boy that peed vodka. He even spent $15,000 on a poodle umbrella stand. Kozlowski told The Times that fellow inmates in the “gated community” of Mid-State Correctional Facility liked him – calling him “Koz” and asking him for financial pointers. In his apartment, he has a model of The Endeavour, the 130-foot yacht built to compete in 1934’s America’s Cup that he used to own. He was forced to sell it in 2006 for $13.1 million, to help pay court-ordered restitution. Kozlowski said he is no longer rolling in mega-dough and now does “low-level consulting” on mergers and acquisitions in a small Midtown office. He also serves on the board of the Fortune Society, which helps ex-cons. He acknowledges making mistakes but insists to The Times that he was unfairly convicted – particularly in light of how few top dogs have recently been prosecuted for Wall Street shenanigans. “After 2008,” he said, “nobody was prosecuted.”

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Disgraced ex-Tyco head Dennis Kozlowski: ‘I was piggy’

Piggy’s in hog heaven! Dennis Kozlowski – the former Tyco International head honcho who spent six and a half years behind bars for fleecing company coffers of more than $100 million – admitted to T…

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DAVE GERGEN CALLED ME on Thursday," says R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of The American Spectator, the conservative monthly. David Gergen is the White House Counselor. Tyrrell -- "Bob," as he is known -- is telling me about the call as we drive in his Mercedes through suburban Virginia to the supermarket to buy a pie. "Gergen said, 'How ya' doing?' " " 'Better 'n you, Dave!' I say. " 'Why's that, Bob?' he asks. " 'It's great to be a free man!' I say." What Gergen wanted, Tyrrell says, was an advance look at the April-May issue of The American Spectator. In January, The Spectator had published "His Cheatin' Heart," by David Brock, an investigative writer alleging that four Arkansas state troopers arranged sexual encounters for then-Governor Clinton. Now there was to be a second installment of Troopergate. Another trooper had come forward to say he had solicited sexual partners for Clinton and seized upon "residual" opportunities for himself. The article maintained that a trooper loyal to Clinton had had his state car repaired at a body shop he himself owned. And the list of malfeasance continued. Attempted seduction at the state fair, during a trip to the Arkansas-S.M.U. football game, at an Oriental barbecue restaurant in Little Rock. The energies of the Governor and his troopers seemed limitless. "Boy Clinton!" Tyrrell nearly spits it out. "He's abused his power with these women! He's corrupted the entire State Police! He's involved in deception! "Do you know what he did to Paula Corbin Jones?" Tyrrell asks. Jones is the Arkansas woman who sued the President for supposedly making a sexual advance to her. A secondhand version of Jones's story, one she disputes, first appeared in The Spectator in January. Clinton "had a trooper summon her," Tyrrell says, going on with a lurid description of the sex act that ensued, or didn't. Bob Tyrrell talks like a man obsessed -- with the Clintons' sex life, with their tax returns, with their investments. During the 1992 Presidential campaign, The Spectator published a scathing piece on Hillary, "The Lady Macbeth of Little Rock." Another said Mrs. Clinton had asked state troopers to get sanitary napkins for her. Last year The Spectator published "The Real Anita Hill," by David Brock, who referred to Hill as "a bit nutty and a bit slutty" and said she returned exam papers to students with pubic hairs on them. To Tyrrell, feminists are bed wetters. And as for homosexuals, they're bringing about "an end to community," says Tyrrell. Plus, they have heads shaped like "butternut squash," The American Spectator once said. All this annoys the White House. George Stephanopoulos, a White House adviser, says: "The American Spectator's journalistic standards are on a par with The National Enquirer's. It's pulp fiction! Trash! Tabloid! It's not journalism." Maybe that's why, in just two years, the circulation of The Spectator has increased tenfold, from 30,000 to 300,000. The circulation of journals of opinion generally rises when the opposition is in power; today The Spectator's exceeds both The Nation's (around 90,000) and the New Republic's (around 100,000). The Spectator, redesigned with a glossy cover and now advertised on Rush Limbaugh's shows, has inched past the more sedate National Review, long the dominant conservative journal. "I think The Spectator is terrific," says William F. Buckley Jr., editor in chief of The National Review and a friend and hero of Tyrrell's. "That zany stuff up front," -- Tyrrell's column, "The Continuing Crisis" -- "the investigative stuff, is attracting a lot of attention," he adds. "The image of conservatives has always been somewhat nerdy, 90-pound weakling types," says Wladyslaw Pleszczynski, managing editor of The Spectator. "Bob's is an athletic, vigorous conservatism. He has made it possible to think of conservatives as stylish and witty. He encouraged the neo-cons to come into the magazine's pages. He was instrumental in forming the Reagan coalition." Indeed, at The Spectator's 25th anniversary dinner, in 1992, virtually every important figure in the conservative movement showed up -- Irving Kristol, Jeane Kirkpatrick, John Sununu, Gen. William Westmoreland, Judge Robert Bork, Jack Kemp. The magazine, with its office on a quiet street in Arlington, Va., and 22 employees, is liberally financed by conservative groups like the Sarah Scaife Foundation and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and contributions from its affluent, well-educated and mostly male readers. THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR IS BOB Tyrrell's creation. He assigns its big investigative pieces and plans its grand strategy. Along with the magazine's Swiftian satire is some serious reporting built on a consistent conservative philosophy: in February, a long piece by John Corry on M.I.A.'s; regular reports from Russia on its burgeoning democracy; continuing coverage of health care reform. (The Spectator says the Clinton health plan will fail because of an overburdened bureaucracy.) On foreign policy, The Spectator is pro-Israel and believes that the United States should defend democracies everywhere.

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DAVE GERGEN CALLED ME on Thursday," says R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., editor in chief of The American Spectator, the conservative monthly. David Gergen is the White House Counselor. Tyrrell -- "Bob," as he is known -- is telling me about the call as we drive in his Mercedes through suburban Virginia to the supermarket to buy a pie.

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Another day, another perfectly lit photo of Kylie Jenner gets dropped on Instagram. But wait, what's the famously curvaceous 18-year-old looking down at in the backyard of her California mansion? "Got my @SkinnyMintCom such a great natural detox tea program for this summer," Jenner's caption states. "I need to get healthy again! Who's joining me?" See? Looks like Jenner is finally revealing the secret behind her Pokémon-like evolution from normal person to alluring Instagram seductress. There is a reason she's famous! Unfortunately, Jenner isn't sharing any groundbreaking Hollywood diet hacks — she likely isn't even drinking the tea she's clearly promoting for a company. She's not alone, however: As it turns out, those spammy pictures and captions that dozens of celebs share on Instagram aren't effective for many who have actually tried them. "We want to pick a little bone here with the fitness industry," Super Sister Fitness health bloggers Liz and Sarah said in a YouTube video. "Our No. 1 problem with the fitness industry is that it's all about selling you products, pills, potions, powders, teas now, like what is all this stuff? ... You don't need any of that, it's so silly. "And it's just trying to make a profit off of you really just not knowing and not being educated on whether or not those things are really effective." Of course, paying celebrities lump sums to post about weight loss products is a successful marketing tactic, as headlines will inevitably read: "So THIS Is How Kylie Jenner Stays So Skinny (PHOTO)." But detox teas don't work because detoxing isn't real. At least, not the sort of detoxing advertising agencies want you to believe in. "Let's be clear," Edzard Ernst, emeritus professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, told the Guardian, "there are two types of detox: one is respectable and the other isn't. The other is the word being hijacked by entrepreneurs, quacks and charlatans to sell a bogus treatment that allegedly detoxifies your body of toxins you're supposed to have accumulated." Toxins don't simply build up in your body — everything consumed by a typically healthy body is constantly removed from the system, and if it's not, that could mean serious life-threatening complications for a person. Detox teas like Lyfe tea, one that Jenner's oldest sister Kourtney Kardashian coincidentally promotes on her own Instagram, contain ingredients like senna leaves and pods, the superfood moringa and guarana. Unfortunately, none of these are proven to actually be healthy: Senna is alaxative that can cause stomach pain and diarrhea, moringa is considered a superfood — aka another marketing tactic used to trick people into consumption — and guarana is known to raise blood pressure, with zero known effects on weight loss. "The healthy body has kidneys, a liver, skin, even lungs that are detoxifying as we speak," Ernst told the Guardian. "There is no known way — certainly not through detox treatments — to make something that works perfectly well in a healthy body work better." Detox dietary supplements further promote a rejection-diet mentality, in which dieters are more likely to shy away from certain foods rather than focusing on implementing new, nutrient-rich foods into their daily meals. "Long-term fasts lead to muscle breakdown and a shortage of many needed nutrients," American Dietetic Association spokesperson Lona Sandon told NBC News. Furthermore, the dietician said removing necessary nutrients and minerals from food may "actually weaken the body's ability to fight infections and inflammation." Instead of detoxing, anyone trying to get in peak physical health should include things like greens, lean meats and other nutrient-rich foods into their diets. Harvard University School of Public Health's Healthy Eating Plate provides a realistic diet for just about anyone, and when paired with daily exercise and activity, can certainly help weight loss results and other health goals. Or, you can take your health advice from King Kylie — your choice. To get in shape the good old fashioned way, shop our favorite weight loss products below: Why weight loss tea is the biggest scam on Instagram YOGITOES 'Flight Navy' Skidless Yoga Mat Towel, $64 GoFit 'Power Tube' Resistance Tube (20 lb.), $15.99 David Kirsch Thermo Bubbles, $39.99 More from Mic: Which Diet Is Best? Here's Why CrossFit Experts Tout the Zone Diet and Paleo Diet Diet Soda, the Timeless Health Scam That People Will Seemingly Always Fall For Why Your Gluten-Free Diet Is (Probably) Bullshit

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Why weight loss tea is the biggest scam on Instagram

Celebrities like Kylie Jenner and the Kardashian sisters are notorious for allegedly supporting detox companies on social media.

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Google is the 600-pound gorilla: the company that no one wants to see build a competing product. Google dominates many of the markets it enters, whether by building a superior product or acquiring one. But Google isn't perfect: in some areas, they come out behind. Today, Mashable takes an in-depth look at 10 markets where Google wants to win. Google became the Internet’s biggest company by dominating what has become the web’s biggest market segment – online search and paid text links. Google claims a dominating 56% market share in search (Nielsen/NetRatings, May 2007) , but that hasn’t stopped dozens (probably hundreds) of companies from trying to grab a piece of the action. Most of the major search engines also come with their own advertising system, while a few startups actually rely on Google to serve up paid text ads. Yahoo – Once the web’s biggest search engine, Yahoo still handles a reported 21.5% of searches worldwide. The company’s much anticipated but delayed Panama system for text ads has finally gone live, with early results pointing to better click through rates. MSN – While rumors of Microsoft acquiring Yahoo have persisted (and been discredited in the same breath), the company’s Live Search product remains number three. Ask.com – As the crown jewel of the IAC network of sites, Ask.com has received rave reviews, including Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal declaring, “Google deserves credit for universal search, which I’m sure will get better. But Ask’s new design is much more compelling and well worth a try.” Nonetheless, Ask.com is a distant fourth in the race for search dominance. Eurekster – Social search engine Eurekester is built around users tagging and promoting the best results. The company also markets the “Swicki” platform allowing online communities to create their own vertical search engines for users. Rollyo – This search engine allows you to create a personalized search engine. With Rollyo, you set up a “search roll” which searches only from sites you specify, in the hope of providing you with only content you trust. Additionally, you can opt to share your search rolls with others. Quintura – Visual search engine Quintura lets you search visually, presenting you with tag clouds relating to your search terms. As we noted in “Google Labs: A Look Under the Hood”, Google is experimenting with contextual search that shows related searches side-by-side with your original query. Mahalo – Recently launched Mahalo is a commercialized Wikipedia of sorts, paying people to create pages on thousands of topics and continually update the results. Each content creator also gets their own profile pages where you can see the pages to which they have contributed. Powerset – Much hyped Powerset hasn’t launched yet, but intends to build a natural language search engine that could change the way people find things online. The company has raised significant venture capital that has already valued PowerSet at more than $40 million. Wikiasari – As part of his for-profit company, Wikia, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales looks to create the world’s largest human-powered search engine. The project is still in development, but with Wikipedia now one of the world’s largest web sites, it has an opportunity to grab a piece of the market. Image Search - In addition to text queries, Google faces a variety of competitors in image search, including all of the usual suspects plus upstarts like Pixsy, Picsearch, and Yotophoto. We previously covered the image search competitors after Google proved victorious in a court battle over the thumbnailing of images. Our Take: Google is the dominant player here, but we should remember that less than a decade ago, Yahoo owned search. Competition from both big web companies and well-funded startups will force Google to remain focused on continuing to innovate in search. With AdWords the most dominant player in paid search, Google is looking to take the same system of aligning buyers and sellers to other forms of advertising, including web banner ads, radio, print, and mobile. Through acquisitions and several homegrown initiatives, the company is now lined up against dozens of other companies competing for ad dollars both online and off. Thousands of companies have built a business around Google’s contextual advertising platform that matches text ads to web site content. While AdSense dominates this market, all of the big players have competing offerings, as well as a few specialty outfits. In its most recent quarter, AdSense accounted for $1.35 billion in revenue for Google. Yahoo Publisher Network – YPN still claims to be in Beta, but offers a very similar product to AdSense. Publishers create an account and cut and paste code to their site, and Yahoo serves up ads relating to the content of the page. MSN AdCenter – Microsoft offers its AdCenter platform to advertisers looking for exposure in Microsoft Live searches and on other MSN Properties. Currently Microsoft does not provide an open system for other web sites to serve AdCenter ads, although the company does sell advertising for Facebook. Meanwhile, Google powers the search and contextual advertising on MySpace. Ask.com Sponsored Listings – Ask.com recently launched an AdSense competitor, going after one of Google’s perceived weaknesses – a lack of transparency in terms of telling publishers what their cut of revenue is. MIVA – Formerly known as FindWhat.com, a popular search engine in the first Internet boom, MIVA focuses on a variety of advertising options for publishers, including contextual product MIVA MC. Kanoodle – Kanoodle offers a solution for publishers that want to run ads next to their own search results. It’s a subsidiary of Seavast, an online marketing conglomerate. AdBrite – Offering a marketplace of sorts, AdBrite allows publishers to place text ads on their site and have advertisers buy them directly at a fixed price. They also allow you to set a floor price and run ads from a competing network (such as AdSense) when that price can’t be beaten. Our Take: Until someone proves they can pay more than Google and still make a profit, AdSense will likely be the preferred contextual ad provider for Web publishers. However, there are only so many ads to go around, so there is also a place for competitors with strong offerings. With its acquisition of DoubleClick in April, Google set off a buying spree in the online ad space. In the weeks that followed, Yahoo snapped up Right Media, Microsoft bought aQuantive, and 24/7 Real Media was taken out by WPP Group. In addition to the DoubleClick purchase, Google has increasingly been integrating graphical advertising into its AdSense platform for web publishers. While it remains to be seen how exactly Google will integrate DoubleClick, the company is positioned to take a big slice of the online display advertising market, alongside these competitors: Right Media – Acquired by Yahoo for $680 million, Right Media offers web publishers both a web-based ad management system and a marketplace called RMX Direct where advertisers can compete for publisher inventory. aQuantive – The biggest acquisition in the history of Microsoft, aQuantive is the parent company of several online advertising outfits, including Razorfish, Atlas, and Drive. The company offers both technology for managing advertising and services for aligning buyers with web publishers. Advertising.com – AOL was actually one of the first big players to move in on display ad networks, acquiring Advertising.com in 2004 for $435 million, a steal given the price tags of recent online advertising deals. Advertising.com claims their network of publishers reaches more than 85% of online users. Valueclick – The biggest remaining independent ad network, Valueclick owns a wide variety of online ad properties, including Fastclick (banner ads), Commission Junction (affiliate advertising), and PriceRunner (comparison shopping). Wall Street currently values the company at $3 billion. Tribal Fusion – Tribal Fusion is an ad network serving an estimated 19 billion monthly impressions. They provide advertisers with a variety of topical channels on which to target their ads. 24/7 Real Media – A provider of both technology and one of the Web’s largest banner advertising networks, 24/7 Real Media was acquired by global advertising agency WPP Group in May for $649 million. The company was founded all the way back in 1994. Our Take: DoubleClick works with most of the web’s largest publishers, providing Google with new relationships to not only sell display ads, but increase AdWords usage. Google’s main competitors have tried to keep up, but the company has clearly positioned itself to take the lead in this category. Other Ad Formats – Broadcast, Print, In-Game In print, Google has extended its AdWords platform to allow you to bid on ads in major newspapers. In broadcast, Google acquired dMarc, a company that aligns radio advertisers and stations. For in-game advertising, the company acquired AdScape, a small startup. Competitors abound in all three segments, primarily in the form of the status quo of buying ads directly from the newspapers and radio stations with whom you want to advertise. Meanwhile, here is how a few key players are attacking these markets: Microsoft – In May, Microsoft acquired Massive Incorporated, which has deals with major gaming companies like Electronic Arts to provide in-game ads. IGA Worldwide – The largest independent in-game ad network, IGA places ads in popular titles like Counter Strike and works with major advertisers like T-Mobile and Intel. Linden Labs – As the operator of virtual world Second Life, Linden Labs has attracted major brands like Pontiac, Dell, and Coca Cola to its "game" with mixed results, including several incidents of virtual vandalism. Bid4Spots – An online auction of sorts for last minute buying of radio advertising across the US. SWMX Radio – Provides tools that allow radio stations to manage their advertising inventory, while offering a marketplace for advertisers to buy air time. Newspaper National Network – Jointly owned by 24 of the nation’s largest newspapers and the Newspaper Association of America, Newspaper National Network connects advertisers directly with some of the largest newspapers in the US. The company also helps sell inventory for newspaper’s online versions. Nationwide Newspapers – An ad agency specializing in placement of both display and classified ads in newspapers across the US, including mailers like the Penny Saver and college newspapers. Nationwide Newspapers claims a circulation of up to 60 million papers weekly. Our Take: As the manufacturer of Xbox, Microsoft has a leg up on in-game advertising. Meanwhile, print and broadcast are notoriously slow to adopt new technologies, so it will likely take Google some time to gain traction in this area, although acquiring dMarc certainly gave them a head start. With Google clearly intent on spreading its advertising platform to the offline world, more acquisitions are likely in the space. Google responded to the rather lackluster performance of homegrown Google Video by purchasing market leader YouTube for $1.6 billion in November 2006. While Google also inherited the legal headaches including a $1 billion lawsuit from Viacom, the purchase instantly made Google the #1 player in online video by a landslide. Nonetheless, dozens of companies have received funding in this space, and the other big players have also launched competing products: Metacafe – This startup offers a similar video sharing experience to YouTube, with a focus on the male audience. Metacafe has been a rumored acquisition target of Microsoft and Yahoo. MySpace Video – MySpace launched its own video sharing service last year that integrates tightly with user profiles, allowing users to instantly add videos to their space with no need for copying and pasting embed codes. Recently, this became MySpaceTV, which has been labeled as a "YouTube clone". Yahoo Video – Yahoo offers a fairly standard video sharing service with tagging, favorites, featured videos, etc. Yahoo also acquired online video editing service JumpCut in September ’06. Blip.tv – Blip.tv is designed for serious video bloggers, offering tools for uploading high quality video, inserting ads, and maintaining a feed so fans can keep up with your show. Revver – Originally Revver was the first video site to offer a revenue share with users, but others including YouTube have since followed suit. Beyond the financial arrangements, Revver offers a fairly standard video sharing experience, showcasing recent videos, most watched, and editor’s picks. Dailymotion – One of the most popular video sites (particularly in France), Dailymotion is comprised of a variety of channels that users can join, such as Extreme Sports, Funny, and Webcam. The site also includes privacy options for sharing videos with select family and friends. See also: Video Toolbox: 150+ Online Video Tools and Resources Our Take: While Google will spend plenty of time in the court room over copyright issues on YouTube, the company has the financial strength to fight off just about any lawsuit thrown its way and preserve a dominant position in online video. Meanwhile, niche players like Blip.tv have an opportunity to take advantage of the growing market for high quality user generated content. Google was ahead of the game with blogging, acquiring Pyra Labs, parent company of Blogger, back in 2003. Last month, Google acquired FeedBurner, which is far away the dominant player in RSS feed management. Rounding out Google’s efforts to dominate the blogosphere is Blog Search, which the company developed in-house. While FeedBurner is the industry standard for feed management, there are dozens of blog software and search options. Here are a few key competitors: WordPress – The preferred software package for serious bloggers, WordPress offers both an installable version at wordpress.org and a hosted product at wordpress.com. The company maintains an open platform allowing third-party developers to create plugins. Six Apart – The biggest independent blog company, Six Apart owns the hosted Typepad platform, the installable Movable Type software package, the community-focused LiveJournal, and the recently launched Vox personal publishing solution. Technorati – The largest search engine focused exclusively on blogs, Technorati monitors, organizes, and ranks the authority of the blogosphere. Recently, the site has had its share of bumps (technical glitches, key staff departures, etc.), and a recent move towards multimedia has taken the focus off the core product. Sphere – This blog search engine also offers the popular “Sphere It” widget that allows bloggers to show related blogs from around the web on their sites, and earn a share of the revenue on advertising. Pheedo – As Google looks to monetize FeedBurner, they go up against Pheedo, who specializes in RSS advertising. Pheedo is compatible with most feed management services, including FeedBurner, Typepad, and WordPress. Our Take: News out of Blogger has been nearly non-existent since Google acquired it, and Blog Search is not nearly as reliable as Google’s main search engine. FeedBurner is dominant in RSS, but advertisers still have plenty of options for feed-based advertising. The blogosphere remains a healthy area for competition. Recently making headlines with its purchase of GrandCentral, mobile is an area Google has had its eyes on for a while. Google Labs features GOOG411, which goes up against a variety of companies looking to transition paid 411 services into an advertising-based model, while the company has also made acquisitions in the space including AdScape Media and Dodgeball. Here are some key players Google is up against for domination on your handset: Jingle Networks – As the first mover in the space with 1-800-FREE-411, Jingle Networks is already up to a reported 3% of market share for 411 volume. GOOG411 is still in Google Labs, but presumably will use an AdWords-inspired system to allow advertisers access to user’s 411 queries. Yahoo Mobile! – Yahoo has made major efforts in mobile, offering a comprehensive application designed for cell phones and PDAs. Yahoo! Go adds mobile widgets to the equation. MSN Mobile – Microsoft offers a free mobile version of its search and popular web sites. Weather, news, sports, movie times, and more are all available via MSN Mobile. InfoSpace – InfoSpace specializes in mobile content, providing applications for search, content, and commerce that are typically private labeled by other brands and carriers. The company claims more than 250 million WAP page views per month. VoIP – While the GrandCentral acquisition gave Google a unique offering, dozens of other startups are creating innovative applications that will keep Google on its toes. Check out “The 7 Most Disruptive VoIP Services” for a few prime examples. Our Take: Adoption of the mobile Internet in the US trails Europe and Asia, leaving the space wide open. Yahoo has a head start here, while specialists like InfoSpace and the VoIP value-added service companies know the market better than anyone. However, GOOG411 and Google SMS (search by text message) offer a compelling user experience that is perfect for advertising. Google Personalized Home has become iGoogle, going up against the likes of My Yahoo!, Netvibes, PageFlakes, and dozens of other companies that want you to start your online experience with them. We list a few of the top competitors here, but you should also check out “14 Personalized Homepages Compared, Feature by Feature” to get an overall view of the innovation taking place in this market. My Yahoo! – The original dominant portal, Yahoo can still claim the most widely used start page on the web. The company has continued to upgrade the service in hopes of retaining users, adding the ability to drag and drop content items, subscribe to RSS feeds, and integrate other Yahoo services like mail, weather, and finance. AOL – While its subscriber base continues to dwindle quarter by quarter, millions of people still start their Internet experience by signing on to AOL. However, Google powers AOL’s search, and Google took a 5 percent stake in the company back in 2005. My Netscape - One of the early big names on the Internet, Netscape has moved on to become a Digg clone and a start page provider. The site still gets considerable traffic thanks to its iconic brand and AOL relationship. Netvibes – The hottest startup in the start page space, Netvibes provides a beautiful drag and drop interface for organizing your start page content, and also allows you to pull in widgets from third-parties. The company recently launched Netvibes Universes, private label versions of its start page product that other companies like The Washington Post and USA Today offer to their users. Our Take: If it wasn’t clear already, iGoogle solidifies Google’s quest to be more than a search engine and take up more minutes of the user’s online time. While the startups have proven most innovative in this space, Google can use its massive reach and brand cache to convert users to iGoogle. However, Yahoo has the advantage of more than a decade of start page experience, and convincing the average user to invest a few hours in changing services isn’t easy. While Gmail dubiously maintains its “Beta” tag, Google’s email service put the company on the map in being much more than a search engine and going after the big boys. The company has also launched Gtalk in an effort to join the instant messaging space, though the product lags behind competitors in adoption. Maintaining webmail and instant messaging services requires massive amounts of manpower and hardware, making it for the most part a four-way race between the big boys: Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL. AOL – Millions of people remain attached to their AOL email addresses. AOL has made it easy to do, allowing users to keep their address even if they cancel their AOL accounts. This makes AOL.com’s webmail product one of the more popular, albeit less advanced email services. Meanwhile, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) is a major player in IM, particularly in the US. MSN – Microsoft owns the original big boy in webmail – Hotmail – which recently received a major facelift and became Windows Live Hotmail (see: “Face Off: Windows Live Hotmail versus Gmail”). MSN Messenger has a huge user base globally. Yahoo! – Yahoo Mail recently upgraded to offer an Outlook-like interface that includes the ability to chat with Yahoo Messenger buddies from within your account (Gmail does this with Gtalk). Yahoo’s IM product is among the top commercially-run products. Our Take: Don’t let the market share numbers deceive you; Google is a serious player in communications. The other three players have a head start thanks to longevity, but Gmail has become the email provider of choice for professionals, thanks to a clean interface, effective spam filtering, and offering the most storage space. Meanwhile, Gtalk faces a slightly bigger challenge, since users have entrenched buddy lists with the other services that make changing a hassle. While it can be argued that YouTube is one of the world’s biggest social networking sites in addition to being the #1 video site, Google has been relatively quiet in the space. Friendster passed on a rumored $30 million Google bid back at the dawn of the social networking boom, while homegrown Orkut has enjoyed some success, primarily in South America. Readers of Mashable are no strangers to the hundreds of social networks looking to gain users, or at least, get acquired by Google. Facebook – The hottest social network of ’07, Yahoo reportedly passed on buying Facebook for $1 billion last year, a bargain by today’s standards. With the Facebook Platform all the rage right now and an advertising deal with Microsoft, Google may be starting to feel it backed the wrong horse … MySpace – News Corp made the savvy purchase of MySpace for $580 million back in 2005, just when the social networking leader was at the height of its exponential growth. The site has lost its swagger to Facebook in recent months, but still remains the biggest by far. Bebo – Extremely popular in the UK, Bebo has been on the rise in ’07. It has also been the subject of acquisition rumors with Yahoo. The site receives praise for its privacy options. AIM Pages – AOL made the logical move of extending AIM to include social networking through AIM Pages, enjoying moderate but not phenomenal success. Windows Live Spaces – Microsoft’s social networking play is very youth-oriented, providing simple blogs and profiles to MSN users. Yahoo! 360 – Yahoo’s biggest social networking effort has been criticized for not doing enough to integrate other Yahoo services and overlapping too much with other Yahoo products. The lack of success may be why Yahoo is always at the top of the rumored buyers list when other social networks go up for sale. Our Take: The social networking space has proven fickle in its early history, with Friendster the early leader, MySpace the current dominant player, and Facebook on the rise looking to unseat MySpace. With YouTube already under its roof and one of the deepest pocketbooks in the industry, Google can sit back and wait for the right time to acquire one of the top social networks. Google was relatively early to jump on the photo sharing bandwagon with the 2004 acquisition of Picasa, but the service has since been surpassed by rivals that do a better job of integrating with blogs and social networks. Here are the prime players: Flickr – One of the darlings of Web 2.0, Yahoo deserves praise for acquiring Flickr in early 2005 before valuations became far steeper. The site is a favorite of techies and serious photographers, and is moving towards mainstream adoption as Yahoo closes Yahoo Photos in favor of Flickr. Photobucket – By offering a free place to store photos that can be embedded on social networks, Photobucket became one of the most highly trafficked sites on the Web. While MySpace briefly blocked Photobucket, it recently decided to acquire the company for an estimated $250 million. Zooomr – This startup receives a lot of hype, but is also becoming the choice of some high end photographers and giving Flickr some competition. We compared the two in “Face-off: Flickr versus Zooomr Mark III” after Zooomr’s latest round of enhancements. BayImg – The Pirate Bay provides free uncensored image hosting for files up to 100MB. Given the big player’s need to appease advertisers by removing offensive content, it’s an interesting alternative that has some traction. For a look at dozens of other players in the online photo space, check out “90+ Online Photography Tools and Resources”. Our Take: With a fairly dominant image search product, Google doesn’t really need to move into the high maintenance area of photo storage and sharing. However, with the company expanding into display advertising, which is favored on many photo sharing sites, Google may become interested should the right company become available. With the acquisition of Writely, which has since been merged into Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and the launch of a PowerPoint competitor imminent, version 1 of the Google office suite is nearly complete. While the company has a long way to go to match the feature set of the ever dominant Microsoft Office, it has Redmond moving fast to market web-based versions of its core products. Several startups are also working on word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation software to compete with Microsoft. Microsoft – With Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Outlook the entrenched franchises of nearly every personal computer on earth, Microsoft Office is a mighty foe to take on. While it is by no means Google’s core business yet, they are clearly putting pressure on Microsoft to remain innovative in the office arena. Zoho – This well-funded startup has a full office suite of its own, with products including Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, and Zoho Show. Many of the company’s products are free. Open Office – The free, open source office project that originates with Microsoft foe Sun Microsystems includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and more, and is designed to be compatible with as many operating systems and programs as possible. Our Take: Microsoft’s dominance in office software stems from dominance in operating systems, a market it still controls. However, Google Docs & Spreadsheets' web-based, collaborative approach is very lightweight and useful for certain tasks. While it will take years to build a product that offers the full functionality of Microsoft Office, Google is the best-positioned company by far to build a viable competitor if it wants to. As the most watched, scrutinized, and reported-on company in the web space, Google’s every move is analyzed by competitors big and small. Its rapid expansion into areas beyond search and seemingly insatiable appetite for acquisitions has the company strongly positioned to dominate numerous key parts of the Internet. However, we should be reminded that not everything Google touches turns to gold; for example, the demise of Google Answers and the demotion of Froogle. Stay tuned for what are sure to be hundreds of announcements in the years to come.

http://web.archive.org/web/20160531101604id_/http://mashable.com:80/2007/07/07/google-vs-everyone/

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Google vs Everyone: 10 Markets Where Google Wants to Win

Google is the 600-pound gorilla: the company that no one wants to see build a competing product. Google dominates many of the markets it enters, whether by building a superior p...

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Although gas prices are hitting new highs for the year, drivers today are still paying less than they were even a year ago. Those low prices are prompting Americans to take more road trips this summer while delivering some financial relief to poor families — but they're also making people more cavalier about saving money and paying down their debt. With an expected active hurricane season waiting in the wings, something as simple as a bad storm hitting the Gulf of Mexico, potentially spiking prices at the pump, could erode the tenuous financial foothold many have today. Recent research by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that although Americans are spending more on both core and discretionary purchases, wages aren't keeping up, leaving many families barely treading water when it comes to their finances. Read More: Gas Prices Are on the Upswing Again, but Don't Panic Yet "By 2014, median income had fallen by 13 percent from 2004 levels, while expenditures had increased by nearly 14 percent," the report said. Wage growth has been stuck at roughly 2 to 2.5 percent in the years since then. The lowest third of the income spectrum aren't even making ends meet, Pew found. This population actually ended 2014 an average of $2,300 in the red. "These households may have had to use savings, get help from family and friends, or use credit to meet regular annual household expenditures," the report said. As a percentage of their income, "They spend more on transportation. They spend considerably more on housing," said Erin Currier, director of the financial security and mobility project at The Pew Charitable Trusts. While wealthier Americans can pull back on discretionary spending, lower-income households don't have that option. "They're being squeezed by things that aren't easy to cut out of a budget," Currier said. The cost of getting to work — especially for workers whose pay hasn't materially risen in years — is on the rise as robust demand for housing pushes them further out into the suburbs, often outside the reach of public transit networks. Renter advocacy group Make Room, which campaigns for affordable housing policies, conducted a recent survey that found 30 percent of respondents who were pinched by the cost of their rent or mortgage within the past year had to cut back on gas or automotive care. About a third said they couldn't afford to live near their jobs. Read More: Job Numbers Are Improving. That Doesn't Always Mean Higher Wages Pew's research found that the poorest third of Americans spent roughly $2,100 on gas in 2014, an increase of $850 from a decade earlier. Of course, wealthier workers paid more to commute, as well — the richest third spent about $4,000 on gas and motor oil in 2014 — but the impact is felt most strongly further down the income spectrum. A 2012 Brookings Institution paper found that low- and moderate-income families would pay an average of $530 more a year for every dollar gas prices rise. For the nearly 20 percent of households that get by on an annual income of $20,000 or less, this increase alone eats up about 3 percent — or more, for the lowest earners — of what they make. The big wild card this summer is the weather. The Weather Channel predicted that this year will be the most active one for hurricanes since 2012, the year Superstorm Sandy swept through the Northeast. Its forecast calls for eight hurricanes, three of them "major." "If we were to have something like that, that could change everything in a hurry, and that's just a weather pattern," said Jeff Lenard, spokesman for NACS, the National Association of Convenience Stores. Of consumer sentiment today, he said, "There's optimism — but it's tenuous." Nearly half of the country's oil refining industry is located along the Gulf Coast, so storms there can have far-ranging impact. "Severe weather can disrupt operations in this region, which can lead to shortages in supply, and historically we have seen this lead to spikes in the price at the pump nationwide," AAA said in May. In the short term, higher prices at the pump would put a squeeze on people's budgets. If fuel stays expensive for long enough or prices rise high enough, that will also have ripple effects: Retailers will pass along the higher cost of transportation to customers, and discretionary purchases like travel and eating out at restaurants will decrease, putting at risk the jobs on which many of the working poor depend. "Should we see a major disruption in the Gulf, [it's] hard to predict, but it won't be pretty," Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, said in an email. An increase in summer travel — the AAA estimated that almost 34 million Americans went on a road trip for Memorial Day weekend alone — could exacerbate the situation. "High demand could make any supply disruption all the worse," he said. If this does happen, the average household budget is in no shape to withstand the shock. A survey conducted last month by the financial website WisePiggy.com found that slightly more than half of Americans would need to charge or borrow to pay for an unexpected expense, mirroring the findings of a Federal Reserve study published last year that said 47 percent of Americans can't afford an unexpected expense of just $400. Read More: States Should Not Jail Poor People Over Fine Nonpayment, Justice Department Says Data from credit bureau Experian indicates that Americans already are leaning more on their borrowing ability — and that is even with today's low energy prices. For the 12 months ending last March, the average credit card utilization ratio — how close a borrower is to being maxed-out — rose slightly, and the percentage of people who were either close to or entirely maxed out on their cards increased. A new study from personal finance site WalletHub.com found that Americans barely put a dent in their outstanding credit card balances last quarter, although the new year is usually when we pay down debt with end-of-year bonuses and income tax refunds. WalletHub spokeswoman Jill Gonzalez said if the current trajectory holds, credit card customers will accumulate a record-setting trillion-dollar balance by the end of the year, leaving little room for error or extra expenses. "When you look at years back, you find that's the smallest first quarter pay down since 2008 and 25 percent below average," she said. "Instead of paying off our debt, we're buying new things instead."

http://web.archive.org/web/20160614203605id_/http://www.nbcnews.com:80/business/business-news/low-gas-prices-may-ease-economic-pinch-will-they-last-n589926

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Low Gas Prices May Ease Economic Pinch, but Will They Last?

Although gas prices are hitting new highs for the year, drivers today are still paying less than they were even a year ago.

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In the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton asserted that she was the candidate best equipped to take a 3 a.m. phone call. What she didn’t tell us was that her number would be unlisted. In the bipartisan grandstanding of the latest Benghazi committee hearing last week, the mostly inept Republicans managed to extract one piece of information that will stick: that our murdered Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens didn’t have Clinton’s e-mail address. Clinton stammered a bit as she confessed this, realizing that she was contradicting her earlier characterization of Stevens as someone she knew and respected, the personal anecdotes that suggested a close relationship and her statement that she had personally asked him to take the job. Clinton family retainers like Sidney Blumenthal, a notorious conspiracist who was barred from working in her State Department by the Obama administration, were able to reach her whenever they pleased — but men and women on the front lines of dangerous places had to go through depressing, labyrinthine bureaucratic channels. Stevens and his team requested more security for the doomed Benghazi compound 600 times. Clinton’s response: Sorry, I didn’t know. Nobody told me. Oops. Why didn’t anyone tell her? Because no one, outside a carefully handpicked circle of cronies and sycophants, could reach her. Her inner circle treated her the way courtiers treat a queen — with comical levels of deference and jealous protection of their privilege. Nobody wants to bring Hillary bad news. None of this happened by coincidence. That’s the kind of leader she is. The lesson Hillary took away from the 1990s is that her enemies are everywhere, so she must live in a virtual panic room at all times. She is today an aloof, isolated leader who walls herself off from anything that could potentially be bad for her. Any president is automatically at high risk of being surrounded by a bubble that can’t be penetrated by adverse information. This is why President Obama initially promised to create a team of rivals modeled after Lincoln’s strategy of inviting advice from competing and contrasting sensibilities. If Clinton becomes president, expect a team of Blumenthals. The media has been waiting to be shown a smoking gun in the Benghazi hearings and, not having seen any, declares the sessions a victory for Clinton. But Benghazi isn’t about a scandal per se. Yes, it’s scandalous that the Obama administration lied about the motivation for the attacks being a YouTube video, but that is old news and anyway Hillary wasn’t central to it because she, unlike then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice, didn’t go on the Sunday talk shows to issue bald-faced lies. But here’s what the Sherlocks who declare they can’t find a smoking gun miss: There doesn’t have to be corruption or mendacity involved in Benghazi to show poor leadership. “I didn’t get the memo” is not an answer a chief executive of most organizations could expect to get away with. Attacks on our diplomatic posts overseas are nothing new — bombings and other kinds of attacks are fairly routine — but Benghazi was unusual in that it happened so slowly, over a period of eight hours, that Washington actually could have helped. Benghazi tells us a lot about how Hillary would govern as president: with little accountability. Like President Obama, who gives mock-angry press conferences in which he tells us he learned from the newspapers about the latest disaster — the weaponization of the IRS, the failed rollout of the ObamaCare website, the deaths of thousands of heroes due to shocking negligence at VA hospitals — she will profess ignorance of why things are cratering. She’ll say she is just as sorry and frustrated as anyone else, she will promise a full investigation that will take several convenient months to complete, the press will lose interest and some other disaster will await its turn to surprise the boss. Benghazi also tells us a lot about what Hillary’s foreign policy as president would be — tied up in knots out of loathing for George W. Bush. She revealed Thursday that she sees it as essential for America to project its influence around the globe, but only in the half-assed way we did in Libya (helping to oust a strongman but doing nothing to fill the resulting void, resulting in chaos). If you actually back up policy with adequate force, Clinton believes, that would be too much like Bush. “Retreat from the world is not an option,” she testified. “America cannot shrink from our responsibility to lead. That doesn’t mean we should ever return to the go-it-alone foreign policy of the past, a foreign policy that puts boots on the ground as a first choice rather than a last resort.” Being squeamish about putting too many boots on the ground is why Ambassador Stevens and three others died. Expect lots more Benghazis under a President Hillary Clinton.

http://web.archive.org/web/20160630103627id_/http://nypost.com:80/2015/10/25/benghazi-hearings-show-that-clinton-lives-in-a-bubble-of-deniability/

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Benghazi hearings show that Clinton lives in a bubble of deniability

In the 2008 campaign, Hillary Clinton asserted that she was the candidate best equipped to take a 3 a.m. phone call. What she didn’t tell us was that her number would be unlisted. In the bipartisan…

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These days, a number of bars are putting sustainability on tap with eco-friendly brews and green business mindsets. Though eco-bars are still a fairly new concept, the idea is brewing slowly from coast to coast, much to the pleasure of green bar flies nationwide. Many eco-bars are starting with the basics–food and drink–by decking out their menus with organically brewed beers, locally grown foods and even biodynamic wines. But don’t worry–just because a menu is eco doesn’t mean it’s lame-o. Take the Ukiah Brewing Company in Ukiah, Calif., the nation’s first all-organic brewpub, which offers a wide range of organic ales and lagers like stout and porter and even serves up the nation’s first organic beer in a can. Other bars stack their menus with atypical but always interesting local and/or organic foods, like wild salmon and handmade pasta. For those in the mood for a stiffer drink, bars like Raven’s Restaurant in Mendocino, Calif., are the place to be, with wide selections of organic cocktails made with local fruits and organic wines. The menu is often just the starting point for going green. Some places like Hopworks Urban Brewery in Portland, Ore., go the extra mile with eco-friendly features like running deliveries with biodiesel-fueled vehicles and re-using excess heat in the brewing process. Other places compost their waste, a huge boon to the environment considering that Americans throw away more than 25% of the food they prepare, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Some bars go truly full circle by using their compost to grow fresh fruits and vegetables in their gardens, which they then serve up to their patrons. Some of the best green ideas are the simplest ones. In Williamsburg, N.Y., Brooklyn Bowl’s no cans, no bottles policy keeps waste to a minimum while providing beer enthusiasts with an extensive draught beer list that would make any Brooklynite proud. Since drinking liquor, beer or wine all night inevitably results in a trip or two to the restroom, many eco-bars have made the smart and simple choice to install low-flow or dual-flush toilets in their restrooms, which save water. Others create useful items like planters out of their used beer kegs and recycle used fryer oil into diesel. Sure, going to a green bar isn’t going to save the planet, but supporting bars that take the extra effort to lesson their carbon footprint is a great way to encourage businesses to go green any way they can. That’s an outcome that any greenie can drink to. Cheers! Jessica A. Knoblauch is a contributor to the Mother Nature Network. See Also: Keeping Your Home Clean And ‘Green’ Surprising Home Energy Hogs Eco-Tech Comments are turned off for this post.

http://web.archive.org/web/20160701220555id_/http://www.forbes.com:80/2010/03/23/sustainable-organic-energy-technology-ecotech-eco-bars.html

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The Country's Best Eco-Bars

Want to raise a glass in a place that treads lightly on the environment? There is a new breed of eco-friendly bars around the U.S.

20160709180521

Today’s diesel buses—including the estimated 500 “tech buses” that shuttle workers around the San Francisco Bay area—get around three to four miles to the gallon. Proterra makes an electric bus that is five times more efficient, and doesn’t clog up streets with diesel exhaust. There’s a catch: the upfront cost. The buses, which use a battery pack and drivetrain designed by Proterra, battery cells from Toshiba and LG Chem, and a carbon fiber composite fuselage, are more expensive to buy than their fossil fuel-powered peers. However, Proterra—and the investors who just dumped $55 million into the the Greenville, S.C.-based company—believe falling lithium-ion battery prices, lower repair costs, and long-term fuel savings will allow the buses to compete against diesel-powered models and begin to chip away at transit run on fossil fuels. “Buses are the least efficient vehicles on the roads, with exception of maybe tractors and mining equipment,” CEO Ryan Popple told Fortune. “And even with historically low diesel prices our business hasn’t slowed because battery prices are dropping.” Tesla’s massive gigafactory near Reno, Nevada will have the capacity to produce 50 gigawatt hours of battery packs a year once it’s complete, and is already having an effect on prices, Popple says. The first phase of Tesla’s gigafactory is expected to be ready next year. “All the major suppliers are positioning themselves for life after the Tesla factory and its bringing down prices for everyone,” he says. The company has raised $55 million, $25 million of which was debt financing with Hercules Technology Growth Capital, as well as $30 million in equity from new and existing investors. The series 4 equity round was led by several new investors—some unnamed—including a family office, a sovereign fund from the Middle East, and early Tesla Motors and Palantir Technologies investors Mike Dorsey and Miriam Rivera. Existing investors include Kleiner Perkins, Tao Capital Partners, GM Ventures, and Constellation Energy. Proterra previously raised about $135 million. The debt financing will be used to fund the company’s new factory in City of Industry, California. The factory, which will double Proterra’s production capacity, is expected to be operational by the end of 2015 and will employ 70 people. The factory is also funded by a $3 million grant awarded by the California Energy Commission in April 2014. Proterra has 110 orders for its buses, which can cost up to $800,000 for customers that buy the battery packs and have the maximum battery configuration. Customers can buy a bus and lease the batteries for about $550,000. The 60 first generation buses have already been delivered and are on the road in Los Angeles and San Joaquin counties in California, as well as San Antionio, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee. Another 50 of its 40-foot second-generation buses will be produced and delivered this year. The company can produce about one bus a week at its Greenville factory, Popple says. Seattle will be the next city to receive the second-generation bus. Lousiville, Kentucky, and Stockton, California are also slated to receive electric buses this year. In all, Proterra has won awards for 400 units, although not all of those will turn into firm orders, Popple says. “We’re just getting past our early adopters and now we’re entering into our early majority adoption,” Popple says. If the company stays on track, it will capture 1% of total new shipments to the municipal market in 2016. The buses can be customized to suit each transit agency’s needs, including an extended range product line that can go up to 200 miles on a single charge. He believes orders will only accelerate as battery prices continue to fall and as the company expands into the corporate fleet market this year. Proterra will focus its corporate fleet efforts on the Bay area first, Popple says. The company is targeting Fortune 500 companies, universities, and theme parks as potential clients.

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This startup is gearing up to be the Tesla of electric buses

Investors pour $55 million into the electric bus maker as it scales up and readies a new factory.

20160723190439

In 2005, then Pope Benedict quoted from an obscure medieval text which declared that the Prophet Mohammed, founder of the Islamic faith, was "evil and inhuman", enraging the Muslim population and causing attacks on churches throughout the world before an apology was issued. Reacting within days to the statements, speaking through a spokesman to Newsweek Argentina, then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio declared his "unhappiness" with the statements, made at the University of Regensburg in Germany, and encouraged many of his subordinates with the Church to do the same. "Pope Benedict's statement don't reflect my own opinions", the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires declared. "These statements will serve to destroy in 20 seconds the careful construction of a relationship with Islam that Pope John Paul II built over the last twenty years". The Vatican reacted quickly, removing one subordinate, Joaquín Piña the Archbishop of Puerto Iguazú from his post within four days of his making similar statements to the Argentine national media, sending a clear statement to Cardinal Bergoglio that he would be next should he choose to persist. Reacting to the threats from Rome, Cardinal Bergoglio cancelled his plans to fly to Rome, choosing to boycott the second synod that Pope Benedict had called during his tenure as pontiff. "The only thing that didn't happen to Bergoglio was being removed from his post", wrote investigative journalist Horacio Verbitsky in his column in left-wing daily newspaper Página/24. "The Vatican was very quick to react." Cristina Kirchner, the Argentina president, stated at the time that such diatribes were "dangerous for everyone".

http://web.archive.org/web/20160723190439id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/worldnews/the-pope/9931030/Pope-Francis-run-in-with-Benedict-XVI-over-the-Prophet-Mohammed.html

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Pope Francis' run-in with Benedict XVI over the Prophet Mohammed

Pope Francis came close to losing his position within the Catholic Church after he criticised his predecessor seven years ago.

20160808103319

It adds: "One of the best ways to keep thieves out is to use nature's own defence mechanisms to stop intruders. "A barrier of prickly hedge may be all the protection you need around your property." It then lists all 30 plants, stating 'Here are some suggestions for plants to use', adding jokingly: "We have tried to identify the plants mentioned by their correct botanical name, but we cannot guarantee that the plant you buy will not grow into a small, fragrant flowering shrub with no more thorns than a daisy." The first 16 plants on the list give detailed description of the plants and is as follows; 1 - Creeping Juniper - Juniperis horizontalis 'Wiltonii' - Also known as 'Blue Rug' because it has long branches and its prostrate shape forms a flattened blue carpet. It has a thorny stem and foliage. 2 - Blue Spruce - Picea pungens 'Globosa' - Rigid branches, irregular dense blue, spiky needles. Height 1-1.25m x 75cm - 1 m. Slow growing. Moist rich soil. 3 - Common Holly - Ilex agulfolium - Large evergreen shrub, dark green spiked leaves. Large red berries on female plants only. Any well drained soil. Plant with garden compost and bone-meal. 4 - Giant Rhubarb - Gunnera manicata - Giant rhubarb-like leaves on erect stems, abrasive foliage. Can grow up to 2.5m high. Plant by water-side for effect. 5 - Golden Bamboo - Phyllostachys aurea- Very graceful, forming thick clumps of up to 3.5m high. Less invasive than other bamboos. Hardy. Young shoots in spring. 6 - Chinese Jujube - Zizyphus sativa - Medium sized tree with very spiny pendulous branches. Leaves glossy bright green. Bears clusters of small yellow flowers. 7 - Firethorn - Pyracantha 'Orange Glow' - Flowers white in June, with bright orange-red berries. Thorny stem. Height 10-15ft. Suitable for north or east-facing wall or as impenetrable hedging. 8 - Shrub Rose - Rosa 'Frau Dagmar Hastrup' - Excellent ground cover, pale pink flowers, very thorny stem. May to September. Plant with garden compost and bone-meal. 9 - Pencil Christmas Tree - Picea abias 'Cupressina' - Medium-sized tree of columnar habit, with ascending spiky branches. Attractive form with dense growth. Avoid dry chalky soils. 10 - Juniper - Juniperus x media 'Old Gold' - Evergreen. Golden-tipped foliage. Prickly foliage. Height 2ft. Spread 6ft. Low growing. Excellent ground cover. 11 - Purple Berberis - Berberis thunbergil 'Atropurpurea'- Rich purple foliage. Thorny stem. Medium-sized deciduous. Any soil sunny position. 12 - Mountain Pine - Pinus mugo 'Mughus'- A very hardy, large shrub or small tree, with long sharp needles, of dense, bushy habit. Leaves in pairs, 3 - 4cm long, rigid and curved, dark green, cone. 13 - Blue Pine - Picea pungens 'Hoopsii'- Small to medium-sized tree, spiky needled stem, densely conical habit, with vividly glaucous blue leaves. Likes moist, rich soil. 14 - Oleaster - Elaeagnus angustifolia - Small deciduous tree, about 4.5 to 6 m (15 to 20 feet) high. Smooth, dark brown branches that often bear spines and narrow, light green leaves that are silvery on the undersides. The flowers are small, greenish, fragrant, and silvery-scaled on the outside, as are the edible, olive-shaped, yellowish fruits, which are sweet but mealy. Hardy, wind resistant, tolerant of poor, dry sites, and thus useful in windbreak hedges. 15 - Blackthorn - Prunus spinosa - Also called Sloe; spiny shrub. Usually grows less than 3.6 metres (12 feet) tall and has numerous, small leaves. Its dense growth makes it suitable for hedges. White flowers. Bluish-black fruit is used to flavour sloe gin. 16 - Fuschia-flowered Gooseberry - Ribes speciosum - Fruit bush, spiny, produces greenish to greenish-pink flowers in clusters of two or three. Extremely hardy, thrive in moist, heavy clay soil in cool, humid climate. It then lists a further 14 plants, stating 'In addition, the following thorny plants can also be considered....Aralia, Chaenomeles, Colletia, Crataegus (including hawthorn/may), Hippophae (sea buckthorn), Maclura, Mahonia, Oplopanax, Osmanthus, Poncirus, Rhamnus, Rosa (climbing & shrub roses), Rubus (bramble), Smilax Prickly ash (Zanthoxylum). The advice continues, stating: "Although they will take some time to grow, the end result justifies the effort. They should deter even the most determined burglar. "Hedges and shrubs in the front garden should be kept to a height of no more than three feet in order to avoid giving a burglar a screen behind which he can conceal himself."

http://web.archive.org/web/20160808103319id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9108641/The-30-plants-that-can-help-protect-your-home-against-burglary.html

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The 30 plants that can help protect your home against burglary

The Metropolitan Police has published a list of 30 plants that can help homeowners protect their gardens from thieves, including giant rhubarb and gooseberry bushes.

20160814055805

It is no surprise that fund managers make portfolio choices for reasons other than dispassionate financial analysis. Studies suggest they invest in companies with headquarters nearby and with ties to their old schools, and for reasons related to politics and religion. Now, here is one more factor that could affect a fund manager’s investment decisions: the investments of other managers who live nearby. A study by two Indiana University finance professors, Veronika Pool and Noah Stoffman, and former IU Prof. Scott Yonker, now at Cornell University, shows that when managers of two actively managed U.S.-based stock funds live in the same neighborhood, the overlap in their portfolio holdings (measured as a percentage of the portfolio’s value) is higher than among nonneighboring managers. The overlap between funds whose managers are neighbors is 38% greater than it is between the average fund pair in the sample. The overlap at funds run by neighbors in the study also is 25% higher than that at funds overseen by managers who live in the same city but aren’t neighbors. The definition of “neighbors” reflects location and population density; 75% of the neighboring managers live within 3.8 miles’ driving distance. The sampling includes 4.1 million quarterly fund-pair observations from the first quarter of 1996 through 2010’s fourth quarter. That 25% difference doesn’t control for such factors as investment style and fund-family affiliations. But even after accounting for these and other influences, the overlap among neighboring managers is 12% greater than for same-city/nonneighboring managers. “Humans are, as Aristotle famously noted, social animals, so perhaps fund managers also trade stocks that they learn about from other managers,” the study notes. There appears to be both good and bad news for investors when managers are able to share information at the neighborhood barbecue. The study found the neighbor effect produces “a statistically significant positive abnormal return of 6% to 7% per year” on the overlapping holdings of a hypothetical portfolio. But to reap that return, a manager would somehow have to aggregate all of the shared information that produced what the authors call “abnormal overlap”—that which exceeds what could be explained by factors such as fund style, size and so forth. Less positive, perhaps, is yet more evidence that managers make decisions for nonfinancial reasons. The study “doesn’t particularly strengthen or weaken the case for active management,” says David Snowball, founder of the popular Mutual Fund Observer website. “It just points out that folks are somewhat influenced by others. We don’t know if that’s a good thing.” The study, accepted for publication in the Journal of Finance, isn’t the first to show the influence of proximity on fund managers. A 2005 article in the Journal of Finance, “Thy Neighbor’s Portfolio,” by economists Harrison Hong, Jeremy Stein and Jeffrey Kubik, showed that a manager’s holdings of a stock rise by 0.13 percentage point for every point that managers in the same city (but different fund families) raise their holdings. To use the authors’ example, if managers at Putnam and other Boston fund families increase their average weighting of Intel to 2% from 1%, you would expect a typical Fidelity manager to raise it to 1.13% from 1%. What surprised the Indiana study’s authors is how much the neighbor effect applies even to managers from different fund companies. Abnormal overlap for neighboring managers from different companies was two-thirds as large as you would expect for two funds chosen randomly from the sample whose managers run a third fund together. “If they both work at Fidelity, they have all the same resources, they talk in the cafeteria,” says Prof. Stoffman. But “it’s kind of surprising that it’s almost two-thirds as big even [when] they’re not at the same company.” Mr. Gay is a news editor for The Wall Street Journal in New York. Email him at chris.gay@wsj.com. The first name of Veronika Pool, a finance professor at Indiana University, was misspelled as Veronica in an earlier version of this article. (March 18, 2015)

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Study Finds Neighborly Behavior Among Fund Managers

A new study suggests U.S. stock-fund managers’ investment decisions are influenced by the investment decisions of other managers who live nearby.

20160910235244

Wyomissing, Pa.-based Penn Gaming runs casinos and raceways across the U.S. and Canada, many under the Hollywood Casino brand. The company was set to be sold to private equity firms Fortress Investment Group and Centerbridge Partners in a $6.1 billion leveraged buyout, but the deal collapsed in 2008 as the economy slid. Penn shares also crashed, but have rebounded since to near their peak since the crisis. Penn recently spun of a real estate investment trust with property assets called Gaming and Leisure Properties. On the U.S. market, Carlino said Atlantic City was "O-V-E-R" in terms of its ability to compete as a marquee gaming destination. "Atlantic City is a tragedy from a lot of points of view," said Carlino, who is not involved in the market. "They had a 100-year head start with a pile of cash. ... Atlantic City could have and should have been Cannes; and I'm not joking. It could have been the finest city, like the French Riviera." Instead, Carlino said: "They still have street people pushing carts down the street, and worse, in that town. They did nothing with what they had, nothing." Carlino says Penn's brand of lower-cost casinos will drive value for shareholders using properties in smaller markets. "We are totally and completely driven ... (by) how do we get the most excitement for the fewest dollars," Carlino said, referring to "ego" driven, expensive casinos that others focus on in Las Vegas and other large markets. "That is where we excel," he said. "I think we do this better than anyone in the U.S." (Read more: Despite record highs, stocks are cheap: Ron Baron) The Baron conference is in its 22nd year, run by founder Ron Baron to showcase his stable of portfolio managers and the companies his funds invest in to shareholders and other clients. The events are also known for their surprise musical guests; this year Barbra Streisand, Counting Crows and Melissa Etherage performed. —By CNBC's Lawrence Delevingne. Follow him on Twitter @ldelevingne.

http://web.archive.org/web/20160910235244id_/http://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/08/penn-gaming-ceo-slams-foreign-corruption-rules-says-ac-is-o-v-e-r.html

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Penn gaming exec slams foreign corruption rules; says AC is "O-V-E-R"

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is hampering U.S. business expansion abroad, especially in the gambling industry. Now bets are moving to Asia.

20161124145657

At 33 years of age, the NFL's co-leader in sacks -- Bills linebacker Lorenzo Alexander -- already has more sacks this year than in the rest of his other nine NFL seasons combined. Fellow Bills linebacker Brandon Spikes has compared him to Benjamin Button, and Alexander's 10 sacks in 2016 have led to a surge in interview requests for the one-time anonymous veteran. "Everybody wants to know," Alexander said, laughing, "what's so special about this year." The short answer is that Alexander's recent success is a mix of opportunity, health, a mid-career position change and scheme. But the longer narrative is quite a Cinderella story. The Patriots and Redskins showed mild interest in the free agent this past offseason, but the Bills were the only team to make a strong push. During his recruiting trip, Bills head coach Rex Ryan pulled him aside, telling him how he sought him when he was coaching the Jets in 2013 before Alexander signed with the Cardinals instead. He emphasized how his blitz-heavy 3-4 defense would suit him. "I want you," Ryan said. "I know what I can do with you." "When a coach says that to you, it definitely gives you a little more confidence that you're having a good situation," Alexander said. "Whether I'm going to be the starter or not, you always want to feel wanted." Even the Bills, though, only wanted Alexander as a backup outside linebacker and special teams stalwart, as he made his lone Pro Bowl as a special teamer for the 2012 Cardinals. But the Bills' first-round draft choice in 2016, outside linebacker Shaq Lawson, needed shoulder surgery. And Alexander outperformed Manny Lawson, another former first rounder, in training camp. "I was brought here to be a special teams and a rotational player," Alexander said. "I stepped up." Ryan's scheme turned out to be a perfect fit for the versatile Alexander. He has lined up as an outside linebacker, inside linebacker and defensive tackle; blitzed and even covered tight ends. "He allows me to move around," Alexander said, "do multiple things." During a 30-19 win against the Rams in Week 5, he had three sacks. Similar to how the Giants loaded their defensive line with pass-rushing defensive ends as part of their NASCAR front in Super Bowls XLII and XLVI, the Bills used a speed package with Alexander at defensive tackle. On the second sack -- a third-down play in the third quarter -- Alexander blitzed between the guard and center. On a first and goal in the fourth quarter, he shed tight end Tyler Higbee to drop running back Todd Gurley for a five-yard loss. While helping send the Patriots to one of their two losses on the year, he leveled Jacoby Brissett, leaving the rookie quarterback dazed. During that 16-0 Bills victory, Alexander had six tackles, including a sack. "He's been great," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. "One of the best players we've seen all year, I'd put him up against anybody in terms of what he's done this year." Without prompting, Alexander mentioned how much Belichick's effusive praise during that press conference meant to him. At the same time, though, he said this season has not validated him nor does he carry a chip on his shoulder. "I've proven myself in the league," he said. "Maybe not as a defensive outside linebacker coming off the edge, but I think guys respected what I brought to the table as a player. It's not really a chip like, ooh, look at what you guys missed out on." But Alexander seems to have been overlooked and out of position for much of his career. As a 300-pound defensive tackle, he went undrafted in 2005 out of Cal, where he was a teammate of Aaron Rodgers. The Panthers signed him as a free agent and then released him the next year. He played on the Ravens' practice squad for just five days before joining the Redskins, who activated him in 2007. Head coach Joe Gibbs liked his versatility and played him at guard, tight end, defensive tackle and on special teams, leading to his nickname of "One Man Gang." From 2008 to 2009, he began shedding weight, gradually dropping more than 50 pounds to his current weight of 245, another reason for his late-career resurrection. "That has a lot to do with it," he said. "I'm quicker, I'm faster, I have better endurance, but at the same time, I maintained my strength." Alexander lost the pounds over the course of four to five years through MMA training, cross-training, cycling and abstaining from alcohol and cutting carbs. The most difficult part was sacrificing favorite foods like pancakes, French toast, burgers and mac and cheese. "All of that type of stuff as a lineman that you could kind of gorge yourself with," Alexander said, "it's kind of hard to let go." In 2010 the Redskins hired head coach Mike Shanahan, who shifted Alexander to outside linebacker, where he started 12 games. But just as he was getting the hang of his new position, Washington drafted Ryan Kerrigan, meaning he was stuck behind stud outside linebackers Kerrigan and Brian Orakpo. In 2013 he signed with the Cardinals. After starting three games, he suffered a season-ending Lisfranc injury to his foot that hindered his play so badly that he considered retirement. He came back the next season, but the Cardinals released him after training camp in 2015, and the Raiders, his hometown team, signed him for one year. A special teamer for Oakland, he played in all 16 games. Even with his success rushing the passer for the Bills, he still plays on the kickoff, punt and punt return teams for Buffalo. Though the Bills (5-5) have lightened his special teams load since Alexander suffered a hamstring injury against the Patriots in Week 8, the veteran wants to continue to play where he initially made his mark in the league. "I definitely want to be a part of that," Alexander said, "because I still consider myself as one of the top guys in the league as far as covering kicks." On the defensive side, the Bills activated Shaq Lawson, the former Clemson star, from the physically-unable-to-perform list in late October, but he remains the backup behind Alexander. "He's not gonna start now," Ryan said. "Alexander has earned that." Indeed, along with Chiefs linebacker Dee Ford and Seahawks defensive end Cliff Avril, Alexander leads the NFL in sacks despite recording only nine sacks in his first nine seasons and never having more than two and half in any previous year. He also has three forced fumbles and 44 tackles in 2016. While saying he feels as good as he did during his 2012 Pro Bowl campaign, the twilight of his career has turned into his coming-out party. "I'm just trying to go out with a bang," Alexander said. Follow Jeff Fedotin on Twitter @JFedotin. Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Cal Bears, California Golden Bears, Football, Lorenzo Alexander, NFL, Rex Ryan, Washington Redskins

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Lorenzo Alexander: NFL Sack Leader

Bills LB Lorenzo Alexander already has more quarterback sacks in 2016 than the rest of his other NFL pro seasons combined.

20161209042841

THE bet was bound to be a risky one. In July Japan decided to restart talks with North Korea in the hope of securing the return of citizens kidnapped in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The stakes have since been raised. North Korea’s initial report into the abductees was expected by now, but it revealed last month that the probe would take a year. Japan now finds itself playing diplomatic cat-and-mouse with a regime that has a history of drawing out negotiations in return for concessions. Predictably, the delay has triggered criticism among conservatives that Japan is being taken for a ride. Fortunately for the government, the country’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has ironclad conservative credentials. Mr Abe made his political reputation partly by talking tough on North Korea and insists he knows just the right measure of carrot and stick to apply. He said only recently: "I am convinced I am the one who knows the most about how the North acts." Not everyone else is persuaded, though. So in a bid to press the North, Japan said this week that it would send a team of officials to Pyongyang on October 27th for an update on the probe. Japan’s government has identified 17 citizens snatched at the height of the cold war—yet the real number may be much higher (about 880, according to estimates by Japan’s National Police Agency). North Korea admits kidnapping 13 and has released five; it says the rest are dead. Securing the safe passage home of some would be a huge political coup for the prime minister. But the stakes for Mr Abe are high. The families of the abductees, a powerful lobby in Japan, are among the sceptics. Shigeo Iizuka, whose brother was abducted in 1978, says that the Pyongyang visit is "premature". Some American officials also worry that Japan will break ranks against the North in its desperation to solve the abduction issue. Mr Abe has appointed one of his most trusted aides, Junichi Ihara, a former head of the foreign ministry’s North American Bureau, to lead the Pyongyang delegation—and to smooth ruffled feathers in America’s State Department. That strategy appears be working. Marie Harf, its spokesperson, said this week that America backs Japan's bid to settle the issue, but in a way that "takes into account the interest" of its diplomatic partners—a reference to South Korea. Japan has already partially eased tough sanctions against the North. It has raised the ceiling on money transfers between the two countries from three million to 30 million yen, allowing Japan’s community of Koreans to help out their impoverished homeland. An outright ban on entry of North Korean passport holders has been lifted and some shipments of humanitarian goods, such as food and medicine, have been restarted. But many of the North’s demands, including that Japan rescind a court decision to sell its de-facto embassy in Tokyo, and that it allow permanent ferry services between the two countries, have been swatted away. Japanese officials are not ruling out an eventual visit to Pyongyang by Mr Abe himself. But they say absolute assurances would be needed that he returns with Japanese citizens. The Abe government believes the North already knows exactly where its citizens are, with or without the fresh probe. Yet after the latest setback, Japan’s top spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, tempered high hopes: "From the beginning we knew the negotiations would not be easy."

http://web.archive.org/web/20161209042841id_/http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2014/10/japan-and-north-korea

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Japan and North Korea

Shinzo Abe pushes for a breakthrough in the search for kidnapped citizens by sending a delegation to Pyongyang

20161225003240

The Nick Xenophon Team will only support tax cuts for businesses earning up to $10m, blocking the government’s proposed cuts for bigger businesses. A Xenophon team lower house MP, Rebekha Sharkie, has also revealed the party will oppose changes to the pension and a measure to make jobseekers under 25 wait a month before receiving the dole. The party is still seeking improved laws to protect subcontractors’ pay and occupational health and safety amendments in return for its support on industrial relations bills. In the May budget the government proposed dropping the corporate tax rate to 25% over 10 years, down from 28.5% for small to medium businesses and 30% for the rest. The Greens oppose the corporate tax cuts and Labor will only support tax relief for companies earning up to $2m a year. On Wednesday Xenophon told Radio National tax cuts for companies earning up to $10m were “a fair thing” but tax cuts for bigger businesses were “not the right priority”. He described it as a “middle way that would cover many thousands of companies that are growing … many where their turnover is $6m, $7m or $8m, where their profit margins are fairly slim”. Together Labor, the Greens and Nick Xenophon Team have 38 votes in the Senate, sufficient to block the big business tax cuts, dole and pension changes. Xenophon said he accepted the government did not have “malevolent intent” when it proposed a one-month wait for the dole but said it was not the right way to encourage young people into the workforce. He said many young people seeking apprenticeships were not job-ready. “A four-week cut in itself is a very blunt instrument that doesn’t solve the problem, particularly if the jobs aren’t there in the first place.” Speaking on ABC’s AM, Sharkie said: “We are all in favour of young people being activated and getting into the workforce. “The challenge is if you’re being starved out of a foxhole to do this you have no capacity to find a job – it takes money to find a job.” The Nick Xenophon Team will also block changes that would prevent access to the pension by people who spend more than six weeks overseas and a cut to a pensioner education supplement. Sharkie said there were “a lot of other ways to save money”, noting that the pension cuts cost $168m – “pretty much the cost of the [same-sex marriage plebiscite]”. Xenophon suggested again that improved laws to protect subcontractors’ pay could be required to win his party’s support for the Australian Building and Construction Commission bill. In late September Xenophon convened an industry roundtable with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union and Master Builders Association calling for better protection for subbies. Xenophon warned against the bill watering down occupational health and safety. He said if there was an imminent risk of death or serious injury on a building site there should be the same right-of-entry rights in the construction sector as other industries. The senator said he could understand why his Senate colleague David Leyonhjelm felt “dudded” when the government refused to lift an import ban on the Adler shotgun. On the merits of the issue, Xenophon said, he didn’t support any relaxing of gun laws or importation of the Adler.

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Nick Xenophon Team to block big business tax cuts and one-month wait for dole

Party still seeking better protections for subcontractors’ pay and health and safety amendments in return for support on industrial relations bills

20060628055225

rom Baghdad to Beirut, the Middle East has seen a series of unprecedented popular demonstrations for democracy. There were, however, two street protests in December that got virtually no coverage, but were just as important, if not more. One took place in the Egyptian Nile Delta town of Mahalla and the other in the Suez Canal city of Ismailiya. Both of these raucous Egyptian demonstrations, which involved marches, strikes, denunciations of the government and appeals to Parliament, were triggered by President Hosni Mubarak's decision to sign the first substantial trade agreement with Israel since Camp David. That decision brought Egyptian workers from both areas into the streets. They were furious. They were enraged. Why? They were not included in the new trade deal with Israel. Now, that's a new Middle East. On Dec. 14, Egypt, Israel and the U.S. signed an accord setting up three Qualified Industrial Zones (Q.I.Z.'s) in Egypt. The deal stipulated the following: Any Egyptian company operating in one of these Q.I.Z.'s that imports from an Israeli company at least 11.7 percent of the parts, materials or services that go into the Egyptian company's final product can then export that finished product to the U.S. duty free. This is a big deal for Egypt, which, unlike Jordan and Israel, does not have a free-trade treaty with the U.S. As part of the accord, the U.S. named Greater Cairo, Alexandria and Port Said the three Q.I.Z.'s. It had to be limited to only three municipalities so that the U.S. would not be swamped with Egyptian exports - hence the protests from the two big Egyptian manufacturing centers that were left out. According to Rashid Mohamed Rashid, Egypt's impressive new minister of foreign trade, 397 Egyptian companies have already signed up to participate in the Q.I.Z. program, most of them small and medium-size firms. Many of these Egyptian companies have already gone to Israel to forge deals with Israeli suppliers or started work with Israeli partners to identify export markets in the U.S. Some Israeli companies are setting up shop in the Egyptian Q.I.Z.'s to provide services right on the spot. There are a lot of messages in this bottle. One is that if you create a real opportunity for Israeli and Egyptian businesses to interact profitably, not only will Egyptians ignore the protests of the old Nasserites who want to boycott Israel, they will seize the opportunity and protest mightily if they are kept out. Another message: This "Baghdad spring" will not blossom into sustainable democracy in any of these Arab states without a broader middle class and civil society institutions to support it. For too long, U.S. foreign policy was based on buying stability in the Arab world by supporting dictators, who destroyed all the independent press, political parties, unions, real private sector and civil society in their countries - everything except the mosque. Iraq is the starkest example of this, which is why democratization there will take time. Looking at Eastern Europe on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall, said Emanuele Ottolenghi, a lecturer on the Middle East at Oxford, "we could have predicted which countries would have an easy transition to democracy and which ones not." Countries like Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Baltic states, which had a history of liberal institutions and free markets that had been suppressed by communism, quickly flourished. Others farther east, which did not have such institutions in their past and were starting from scratch - Bulgaria, Romania and the former Soviet republics - have struggled since the fall of the wall. The same will be true in the Middle East, where democracy will not just spring up because autocrats fall down. It will arise only if these countries develop, among other things, export-oriented private sectors, which can be the foundation for a vibrant middle class that is not dependent upon the state for contracts and has a vital interest in an open economy, a free press and its own political parties. The development of such a private sector was crucial in democratizing Taiwan and South Korea. That is why, beyond Iraq, America's priorities should be to sign a free-trade agreement with Egypt - which would help foster an export-oriented private sector there just when President Mubarak has signaled an end to 50 years of military rule - and get Syria out of Lebanon, which would free the dynamic private sector that already exists there, but has been stifled by Syria. Free Lebanon and free Egypt's economy and they will change the rest of the Middle East for us - for free.

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New Signs on the Arab Street

The "Baghdad spring" will not blossom into sustainable democracy in Arab states without a broader middle class and civil society institutions to support it.

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For most of his life, David Smith was overweight, but by age 24 he tipped the scale at a whopping 630 pounds. He was morbidly obese and literally eating himself to death. David Smith shares the story of how he dropped 400 pounds. Smith's doctors told the Phoenix native to lose the weight or he would only have about four years to live. Smith felt so unworthy he had thought about ending his life even sooner than that. He believed he deserved to die, and in a very painful way. "I just decided maybe me dousing myself with gasoline, maybe people could hear my screams and hear all the despair that consumed me for all these years," Smith said. Watch the full story tonight on "20/20" at 10 p.m. ET In those moments of despair something clicked for Smith. Fed up with the fat, he decided to get fit. Smith e-mailed Chris Powell, a local health and fitness expert at "Good Morning Arizona" and would not take no for an answer. "To have someone say I really want to lose 400 pounds, I was like that's nice but are you really ready to make that commitment?" asked Powell, a personal trainer. Smith's answer was simple. "I knew that if I didn't, I was going to die," he said. When Powell met the overweight young man for the first time, he was taken aback by his massive girth. "It was definitely shocking because I didn't know what 600 pounds looked like," Powell said. "When he opened the door it was doorframe to doorframe." At first Powell wondered what he had gotten himself into, but he also saw something else in the painfully shy Smith. "He was just so broken," Powell said. "You could see how weak he was. And I don't mean weak as in physically weak, but just that he had no social skills. He really didn't know what to say or what to do. He couldn't even look me in the eye." The trainer knew he had to do something to help unlock the personality of this young man who had been imprisoned by shame and social anxiety. "I had a very bad social phobia," Smith said. "I didn't leave the house and I didn't even feel comfortable in my own backyard until it was dark out." CLICK HERE for tips from trainer Chris Powell to kick off your weight-loss journey.

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David Smith Morbidly Obese Lost 400 Pounds With Personal Trainer Not Diet Pills

Once morbidly obese, David Smith dropped 400 pounds without diet pills or surgery, a feat that saved his life. Now, his incredible battle with the bulge story has inspired others to lose weight.

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BY GEORGE RUSH AND JOANNA RUSH MOLLOY WITH JO PIAZZA AND CHRIS ROVZAR Friday, March 17th 2006, 1:03AM M any people in Hollywood are taking joy in the legal torment of private eye Anthony Pellicano. Some, livid over the illegal methods he allegedly used against them, may file civil lawsuits. But Hollywood's top security guru, Gavin de Becker, seems remarkably unfazed by the troubles of the man who tried to bring him down. De Becker (below), it's safe to say, is everything Pellicano (bottom) wished he could be. While Pellicano clawed his way west from the mean streets of Chicago, the dapper de Becker grew up in Beverly Hills and counted Carrie Fisher and other stars among his friends. His client list reportedly included Oprah Winfrey, Madonna, John Travolta, Cher, Yoko Ono and Robert Redford, to name a few. While Pellicano thrived on his thug image, de Becker was a best-selling author who advised the CIA and the U.S. Supreme Court on security and championed anti-stalking legislation in California. "Pellicano hated de Becker," says Paul Barresi, who gathered information for Pellicano. "I guess he thought if he could discredit Gavin, it would help him." Reporter Stuart Goldman told Los Angeles magazine writer Rod Lurie in 1990 that Pellicano had confided that, before he was through, "de Becker's life would be disrupted in a way he cannot presently conceive of." Even though de Becker dated actress Geena Davis, among other beautiful women, Barresi says Pellicano asked him to find out if de Becker was gay. "I looked into it," says Barresi. "But ­everything pointed to him being completely straight. I told that to Pellicano. He was not happy to hear it." Last month, a federal indictment charged that Pellicano had a police source do unauthorized background checks on de Becker, who was due to testify on behalf of Garry Shandling in the comic's suit against his former manager Brad Grey. During the 2001 divorce of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, rumor had it that Pellicano was sleuthing for Cruise and that de Becker was helping Kidman. But, since both Cruise and Kidman are de Becker security clients, de Becker vouches, "Neither Tom Cruise nor Nicole Kidman could or would ever hire me for anything involving the other." "I've never met Pellicano," he tells us. "I've had only one very brief phone call from him." But he says, "It's clear that Pellicano was hired to and intended to cause" damage to his reputation. De Becker, who specializes in protection, can't see why Pellicano, whose thing was investigation, was so jealous. "We were hardly in the same line of work," he says. "While he might have felt elevated calling himself a competitor, that was never so." LINDSAY LOHAN started Monday evening alone at the first table at Richie Akiva and Scott Sartiano's Butter. But by the end of the night Sting, Axl Rose, Lenny Kravitz, Maxwell, Adrien Brody and Stephen Dorff had piled in to join her. Still, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, who has been linked with her, seemed nervous about running into Lohan Tuesday night when he heard she was on her way to Bungalow 8. The "Match Point" hunk hot-footed it out of the club just as Lohan was arriving with Johnny Knoxville and model May Andersen. She later made a beeline for Harvey Weinstein to chat about her upcoming Robert F. Kennedy drama, "Bobby," which the Weinstein Co. just acquired ... LUCIANO PAVAROTTI announced this week that he'd have to postpone a concert in Brazil because of back pain. Our spies in Barbados, where the maestro ­vacationed recently, say he looked wobbly on the beach and never went into the ­water without four beefy handlers. On Monday in New York, the 70-year-old tenor was spotted at an East Side imaging center. "His bodyguards put him in a wheelchair," says our source. "They had to carry him out of the car." Now, those guys are strong ... JODIE FOSTER and Jane Seymour checked out the table settings that Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, Valentino and interior designer Barclay Butera contributed to Elle Decor's Dining by Design benefit for DIFFA ... CONGRATS to Miami nightlife king Tommy Pooch and his wife, Michelle, who just welcomed baby Annabella Sophia. JAMES GANDOLFINI is still amazed by the saucy things that came out of refined Kate Winslet's mouth when they were ­filming "Romance and Cigarettes." "I was very impressed with how much stuff she could make up about sex," says the "Sopranos" star (below), recalling their seduction scene. "I remember being underneath Kate and she was chatting away. ... I was thinking, 'God, I hope we stop at some point!' [But] the director would say, 'Keep going!'" ... JANE FONDA can't shake her 1972 trip to North Vietnam. The Georgia Senate yesterday defeated - nearly unanimously - a resolution that would have honored her charity work in the state. Fonda asked for the resolution to be withdrawn to dodge controversy. But a GOP leader forced a vote. "I can think of no living American who is less worthy of this honor," Republican Sen. John Douglas declared. ... "CSI" STAR Gary Sinise is lucky he did not have one crime scene investigated. The ­actor, who turns 51 ­today, tells Webster Hall's Baird Jones: "When I was 18 in Chicago and had just started up the Steppenwolf Theatre group with John Malkovich, I stole this ­gigantic box of toilet ­paper for our rest room. It felt like a triumph." RANCOR OVER KATIE AS CBS ANCHOR Katie Couric's defenders are brushing off the grumbling about the "Today" co-host's possible move to the "CBS Evening News." Yesterday Matt Drudge reported that "nervous executives at CBS have been examining tapes of Couric from August 2001 - and nitpicking her performance - when she substituted for a vacationing Tom Brokaw." "Politely put, it's just not there," a "top CBS suit" told Drudge. But others see the story as the desperate gasp of veteran staffers who don't like CBS President Les Moonves shaking up the newsroom. "This is less about Katie than about Les," one source close to the deal tells us. "Disgruntled employees are using her as a weapon because their jobs may be in jeopardy." Couric was mum about her future Wednesday night at her Waldorf gala for the National Colorectal Cancer ­Research Alliance. But she did touch on her career while talking to cub ­reporter Ilyssa Panitz. Showing an encouraging 1995 note in which Couric had predicted ­Panitz would be her successor, Panitz gushed, "I carry it every day." "That's so cute," said Couric. "Well, are you the future Katie Couric? Where are you working?" Panitz said she's a stringer for Star, which hasn't always been kind to Couric. "Oh, God," Couric said, rolling her eyes. "The former Katie Couric wouldn't be working for Star." Whatever the future holds for Couric, her benefit was a hit, raising $4 million.

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PRIVATE EYE LOOKED TO RUIN H'WOOD SECURITY HONCHO

M any people in Hollywood are taking joy in the legal torment of private eye Anthony Pellicano. Some, livid over the illegal methods he allegedly used against them, may file civil lawsuits. But Hollywood's top security guru, Gavin de Becker, seems remarkably unfazed by the troubles of the man who tried to bring him down. De Becker (below), it's safe to say, is everything Pellicano (bottom) wished he could be. While Pellicano clawed his way

20111202120513

Investors poured money into US stocks yesterday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average up 490.05 points, as the Federal Reserve and other central banks moved to contain the European debt crisis and calm jitters in world financial markets. But even as the benchmark index rose 4.2 percent - the biggest gain since March 2009 - market watchers questioned whether the action to offer dollars at cheaper rates to foreign banks was a stopgap measure, or the first step toward a solution that would spark a sustained stock rally. “The market for today at least is highly encouraged,’’ said Harvard Business School management professor Robert S. Kaplan, former vice chairman of investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co. “But it’s going to be a messy muddle. The markets can deal with a messy muddle that will be scary at times. What they can’t deal with is chaos.’’ James T. Swanson, chief investment strategist for Boston mutual funds firm MFS Investment Management, described yesterday’s buying surge as a “traders’ rally’’ that will probably not last. “Choppiness remains the near-term outlook,’’ Swanson said. “This central bank action kicks the can down the road, but it doesn’t address the fundamental problem of the unsustainable debt load of the peripheral countries in Europe.’’ Rattled by growing fears that the European financial crisis could spiral out of control, a half-dozen government banks around the world yesterday said they would cut in half the cost of a program under which banks in Europe and elsewhere can borrow dollars from central banks. The discount will help the banks fund their own operations and make loans to businesses. The Fed acted in concert with the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of Canada. The news pushed the Dow back over the 12,000 mark to close at 12,045.68. With all 30 component stocks rising, the Dow added $142.1 billion in market value yesterday. Other financial markets also rallied, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq exchange jumping 104.83 points, or 4.2 percent, and the Standard & Poor’s 500 gaining 51.77 points, or 4.3 percent. Investors were especially eager to snap up bank stocks, which were beaten down in recent months. But the stock buying binge - which has the Dow ahead by 813.9 points, or 7.2 percent, so far this week - followed a Thanksgiving week retreat that sent the benchmark index down 564.4 points, or 4.8 percent, in one of its worst weekly performances in years. The dramatic swings are attributable to a series of mixed economic signals, said David Sowerby, portfolio manager for Loomis Sayles & Co., a Boston investment firm. While investors have been heartened by robust third-quarter earnings, surprisingly strong post-Thanksgiving retail sales both in stores and online, and China’s move to relax its requirements for banks’ cash reserves - making it easier for them to lend money - the uncertainty in Europe points to continued market volatility, Sowerby said. “It’s only Wednesday,’’ he said. “After a very strong October, and an up-and-down November that finished flat, you have plenty of reason to expect more of the same.’’ Harvard Business School’s Kaplan cautioned investors against interpreting yesterday’s move to pump money into foreign banks as a signal that Europe had turned the corner and a recovery had begun. But the action by the Fed and other central banks suggested that government and financial leaders are grappling with the challenge, he said. “This would be like the patient being very sick, and we just reduced the chance of one of the complications killing him,’’ Kaplan said. Under the best-case scenario, he said, European banks and governments will agree to a series of moves that will keep credit flowing, but impose austerity measures that force European countries to pay off debt for years into the future. Under the most pessimistic scenario, he said, cooperation among Europe’s economic players would collapse, leading to government defaults, bank failures, and frozen credit. “What the central banks did today is reduce the probability of chaos and dislocations,’’ Kaplan said. “It’s nerve-racking, but Europe will have to work through this.’’ Much will hinge in the short term on whether the greater availability of dollars will help Europe’s banks loosen their lending practices, and whether European governments can take other steps to bolster their common currency in the face of slowing growth. That could mean a largely sideways market for the time being, “until people can be assured that Europe won’t drag the US down,’’ said Swanson at MFS. “The overall picture is easing people’s fears of a recession in the US,’’ he said. “But if Europe continues to weaken, we can’t remain insulated from that forever.’’

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US stocks soar on help for Europe

Investors poured money into US stocks yesterday as the Federal Reserve and other central banks moved to contain the European debt crisis, which has been weighing down economies and sending jitters through world financial markets. But even as the benchmark Dow Jones industrial average vaulted 490 points - a 4.2 percent rise that marked its biggest gain since March 2009 - market watchers questioned whether the action to offer dollars at cheaper rates to foreign banks was a stopgap measure, or the first step toward a solution that would spark a sustained economic rally.

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By Bob Minzesheimer, USA TODAY , author of publishing's hottest new teen series, , says the most common question readers ask isn't about its violence or political undercurrents, but its budding love story. Catching Fire (Scholastic, $17.99, to be released Tuesday), second in a trilogy, advances but doesn't resolve a romantic triangle angling its 16-year-old narrator between two jealous boyfriends. Love can wait, Collins says. "She's got a lot of things on her plate — like staying alive and saving humanity." The series, filled with cliffhangers, is set in the future. North America has been devastated by war and divided between a decadent, all-powerful Capitol and 12 struggling districts. Each district must send one girl and one boy to compete in an annual televised fight to the death. The gladiators are primped by stylists and costume designers before the blood flows. Collins, 47, has written for younger kids. She worked on TV shows, including Noggin's Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!. Her five-volume fantasy about an underground war between humans and animals, The Underland Chronicles, is for readers 9 to 12. The Hunger Games, for readers 12 and older, was inspired by Greek mythology and TV. Three years ago, Collins, a mother of two (ages 10 and 15), was channel-surfing between reality shows and news from Iraq at her home near Danbury, Conn. "On one channel young people were competing for money. On the next channel, young people were fighting for their lives. I was tired, and the ideas merged." If the Roman Empire had had TV, would the real-life gladiators have been TV stars? "Absolutely," Collins says. "It was mass, popular entertainment. If you take away the audience, what do you have?" She also was familiar with the myth of the Theseus and the Minotaur, in which Athens was forced to send seven boys and seven maidens to Crete to be devoured until Theseus volunteered to go and kill the monster. In Collins' series, the country is called Panem, from the Latin panem et circenses (bread and circuses), a metaphor for popular amusements used to placate the populace. The narrator is named Katniss Everdeen. (Katniss is an edible plant, which Collins discovered in an outdoor-survival book.) Thanks to her father, who died in a coal-mining accident when she was 11, Katniss knows how to use a bow and arrow to survive, a useful skill when she volunteers to replace her younger sister in the Hunger Games. Katniss cares about the two boys, but not in the same way they love her, Collins says. "She's not that interested in romance. She equates love with marriage and kids, who could be sent to the games." Readers, however, are taken by Katniss' romantic prospects. The Internet is filled with debates about her best potential mate. If you search Google for Katniss Everdeen, you will get 50,300 results — just one year after she appeared in print. The first book, The Hunger Games, hasn't risen above No. 92 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list, but it has stayed in the top 400 for an entire year, with 500,000 copies in print. Catching Fire has a 350,000-copy first printing, which portends a best seller. In Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., where The Hunger Games is among 49 books on the ninth-grade summer reading list (students chose three), teacher Annmarie Powers says her students introduced her to the series. It "spread like wildfire," she says, with themes that teens are consumed with: "fairness, relationships, plenty of violence and blood, greed, hypocrisy, subservience and rebellion." Collins is slated to write the screenplay for movie producer Nina Jacobson. But first she has to finish the third book, saying only: "There are deaths." "Probably. Apparently, everyone is fair game." You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference.

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Collins leaves young love unresolved in 'Catching Fire'

Suzanne Collins, author of publishing's hottest new teen series, The Hunger Games, says the most common question readers ask isn't about its violence or political undercurrents, but its budding love story.

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TEHRAN | Sat Jun 27, 2009 2:31pm EDT TEHRAN (Reuters) - Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi on Saturday rejected authorities' proposals for a partial recount of votes from this month's election and repeated his demand the entire ballot be annulled. EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to report, film or take pictures in Tehran. Iran's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, had offered to recount 10 percent of ballot boxes from the June 12 vote in the presence of senior officials representing the government and opposition. "This kind of recount will not remove ambiguities...There is no other way but annulment of the vote...Some members of this committee are not impartial," Mousavi said in a statement posted on his website. Another beaten candidate, pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi, also rejected the partial recount offer in a statement on his site. Mass protests by Mousavi supporters have exposed splits in Iran's political establishment and plunged the country into its deepest crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. State media say 20 people have died in post-election violence. The Guardian Council has already said it found no major violations in the vote that returned hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Ahmadinejad warned on Saturday he would take a tougher approach in his second term of office to make the West regret meddling in Tehran's affairs. "With no doubt, Iran's new government will have a more decisive and firmer approach toward the West," the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. "This time the Iranian nation's reply will be harsh and more decisive" to make the West rue its interference, he said. He was speaking a day after U.S. President Barack Obama praised the bravery of Iranians who protested against the election in the face of what he called "outrageous" violence. Before the vote, Obama had made diplomatic overtures to Iran after years of hostility between the two nations. Relations with the West have been overshadowed for years by Iran's disputed nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at building an atomic bomb. Iran denies this, insisting it only wants to produce energy for peaceful purposes. Authorities have placed responsibility for the post-election violence on Mousavi, who says the vote was rigged. His supporters staged mass protests in the week after the election, but Iranian authorities have since then used warnings, arrests and the threat of police action to drive them off Tehran's streets. Smaller gatherings have been dispersed with tear gas and baton charges. Mousavi says the government is to blame for the violence, and has urged the Interior Ministry to allow his supporters to rally. The establishment has made it clear it has no intention of holding a new election and has set up a special court to deal with hundreds of detained protesters. A hardline Iranian cleric has called for the execution of leading "rioters." Group of Eight powers on Friday deplored violence stemming from the disputed election in the world's fifth biggest oil exporter but held open the door for Iran to take part in talks on its nuclear program. Iran's foreign ministry on Saturday rejected the call by the group as "hasty interference" and insisted the election was fair, IRNA reported. The ministry also summoned the Swedish ambassador to Iran, Magnus Werndstedt, to complain about a protest in Stockholm on Friday when demonstrators forced their way through a fence into the Iranian embassy compound. Swedish police said two people were arrested for vandalism and one for assault. IRNA said an embassy employee was injured in what it called the "terrorist" incident. IRNA said Iran's judiciary had banned Abolfazl Fateh, head of Mousavi's media office, from leaving the country because of his role in post-election developments. Fateh has been studying for a doctorate in Britain. (Additional reporting by Stockholm bureau; editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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Mousavi rejects partial Iran vote recount

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi on Saturday rejected authorities' proposals for a partial recount of votes from this month's election and repeated his demand

20130328104451

When it arrived in October 2010, a sight-unseen online purchase from Elderly Instruments, the $100 used electric guitar was a plain-looking red instrument with no name, an uncertain vintage, and a rusty, single-bridge pickup that co-owners Nick Didkovsky and Chuck O’Meara described as looking like an old radio. In the two-plus years since, however, this humble instrument has voyaged 30,000 miles across the United States, Europe, and Hawaii; and been played on, recorded, and autographed by 65 guitarists. The tattoo of names now scrawled across its worn body reflects a surprising range of players, amateurs to pros, from Wilco rocker Nels Cline to classical musician David Starobin to avant-garde minimalist Rhys Chatham, including four local musicians: Michael Bierylo, Steve MacLean, Ken Field, and Roger C. Miller. Last month, Bridge Records released a double CD of the “$100 Guitar Project,” with all performer royalties and half the sales proceeds going to the humanitarian organization CARE to help fight global poverty. “There’s nothing quite like a cheap guitar going all around the world seeing what different players can do with it,” says Testament thrash guitarist Alex Skolnick in the teaser for the project’s upcoming documentary. Seattle guitarist Del Rey, who contributed a thunky Leadbelly-inspired blues to the initiative, says, “It’s the perfect conceptual art project, the idea of the guitar dictating the aesthetics of everybody, and yet everybody sounds exactly like who they are.” The $100 Guitar Project’s origins are as humble as the instrument itself. For years, O’Meara and Didkovsky sent each other gear-related e-mails. “Usually for overpriced instruments neither or us can afford,” Didkovsky says. “So when [Chuck] sent me a message describing the ‘guitar of my dreams’ I wondered how many years of my kids’ college future I’d have to sacrifice to consider it. But Chuck was being ironic, as the guitar of my dreams was this unbranded anonymous red guitar selling for $100. Two years later, it turns out this was a pretty good description of it, as this project turned into something pretty dream-like.” Didkovsky and O’Meara started by e-mailing a few friends with an idea: Take the guitar for a week, create a new piece, record it, then pass the guitar on. Within 24 hours, the idea went viral, with 30 other guitarists volunteering their creative efforts. Twenty-five more weighed in the following day. The pair finally cut off participants when the list reached 65. Over the course of the guitar’s journey, it’s been strummed, picked, stroked, hammered on, bowed, scraped, plunked, bent, and shredded. It’s been “prepared” with nuts and bolts, with a kitchen whisk and a nail file jammed under the strings to create a false bridge, miked, manipulated, and routed through all manner of electronic processing. It has rocked out with Marty Carlson, gone microtonal with Larry Polansky and ethereal with Julia Miller, challenging players with its limitations to step outside their usual methodology. Roger C. Miller, guitarist-vocalist-songwriter for Mission of Burma and keyboardist-composer for Boston’s Alloy Orchestra, found the project’s concept “incredibly charming, really brilliant.” He says, “Any guitarist around my age [60] played those exact same kind of guitars when they first started playing, not very good guitars, but with this clanky, innocent sound to them, and each had a unique personality. This was kind of like going back to my childhood and putting that together with what I know now, combining things in a way that I normally wouldn’t.” Bierylo, guitarist and electronic musician for Boston modern music ensemble Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, wanted to “let the instrument speak.” One afternoon’s exploration on the guitar called to mind old Afropop and the kora, which his “Koralate” evoke in music both highly processed and rhythmically engaging. He says, “I wanted to see what the guitar wanted me to do. I ended up mangling and processing the sound, slowly peeling back the layers to reveal the family of sound that was in this instrument. It was unique in terms of what I do, one of the coolest things I’ve done in a long time.” One of the most evocative works in the collection is “The Wind That Brought the Fire,” by Janet Feder. A pioneer of the prepared guitar, the Colorado guitarist says her work was informed by a recent fire. “This vision influenced every note I played, conjuring birds, flames, and the shimmering heat that had passed through weeks earlier.” It was Starobin who suggested his family-run label, Bridge Records, release the project as a CD set. He was drawn to the endeavor’s charity aspect as well as the eclectic variety of raw material, which added to the production challenge. He recalls, “There were different players, different amplifiers, different microphones, different continents. [Engineer] Tom Dimuzio took these 69 recordings, applied his mastering genius and gave us a record that’s remarkably coherent and seamless. All of these disparate voices — rockers, classically oriented, blues and jazz guys — every spectrum of music comes out in this project. Yet put them back to back, and they don’t sound out of place. It’s the same guitar, the same basic acoustic, but completely different stylistically. That’s what I like best.” Didkovsy and O’Meara recently found out the provenance of their instrument: According to scholar Frank Meyers, it is an EJ-2, the first electric guitar model produced by FujiGen Gakki in Japan, probably around 1964. The program notes for the CD booklet describe how each artist used the instrument, offering a kind of tutorial sampler for what the electric guitar can do in the 21st century. Del Rey says, “It’s amazing that if you sit down and listen to that whole record — how could all of these completely different musical pieces and styles come out of this one thing? But it’s really just a tool. It’s the skill of the people playing that makes the music happen. There’s something for everybody — and something to annoy everybody.”

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The ‘$100 Guitar Project’ sends a cheap instrument on an epic journey

When it arrived in October 2010, a sight-unseen online purchase from Elderly Instruments, the $100 used electric guitar was a plain looking red instrument with no name, an uncertain vintage, and a rusty single-bridge pickup that co-owners Nick Didkovsky and Chuck O’Meara described as looking like an old radio. In the two-plus years since, however, this humble instrument has voyaged 30,000 miles across the US, Europe, and Hawaii; and been played on, recorded, and autographed by 65 guitarists.

20131111195417

Though it's not true that Joe Staley has had nightmares of Dwight Freeney and his famous spin move, the Indianapolis Colts' premier pass rusher is on Staley's mind. How could he not be? The man has made left tackles around the NFL look like stumblebums as he pirouettes away from their clutches on the way to the quarterback. Since coming into the league in 2002, Freeney has 77 1/2 sacks. "It's his go-to move," Staley said. "He does it every single game, multiple times. He does a great job of taking advantage of what you do. He presents a challenge. He's real relentless in how he plays. He's fast and he has that spin move." The spin is Freeney's signature move, and no one does it quite like he does, with such panache. He starts out rushing a tackle from a position of superior leverage because he's on the short end at 6-foot-1, makes contact with the blocker and suddenly spins away. Freeney in this mode is not unlike the Tasmanian Devil of cartoon lore. "It's like a baseball pitcher with a fastball - can you hit the fastball?" Freeney said in a conference call. "Just because you know it's coming doesn't necessarily mean you can stop it." It is Staley's job to stop it Sunday at Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium, to keep Freeney from making life miserable for Alex Smith as he attempts to revive his career. Freeney is fifth in the league in sacks this season with seven. Teammate Robert Mathis, the defensive end on the other side who is right tackle Adam Snyder's responsibility, has 4 1/2 sacks. Freeney has started 2009 with at least one sack in each of the undefeated Colts' six games. Counting the last game of '08, he has seven straight games with a sack. Mathis has the club record of eight games in a row with a sack. Freeney represents another top-flight pass rusher with whom Staley must contend. It's a way of life for left tackles, always seeing the other team's best, as on Sept. 27 in Minnesota when Staley opposed another whirling dervish, Jared Allen. "It's fun to go one-on-one," Staley said, anticipating his matchup with Freeney. "He's short and explosive and has good leverage. You have to be consistent with where you put your punches (on him). It will be fun. I'm excited to play him." To help Staley and Snyder prepare for their opponents, tackle Tony Pashos, on injured reserve, put together video highlights of Freeney and Mathis. Pashos is familiar with both players, having faced Indy twice a season during his years with Jacksonville in the AFC South. "He did a real good job," Staley said. "He put film of every one of their moves together for us in a video, every one of their defensive linemen. He knows a lot about going against them." Speaking of his Sunday assignment, Snyder said, "I think Mathis is a great rusher. He poses the same threat as Freeney does. He's fast and aggressive. It's going to be a challenge for us up front." Back in Indy, Freeney has in turn watched his share of video on Staley. Freeney came away impressed with the abilities of the third-year tackle who has 5 inches and 50 pounds on him. "I do a lot of studying the left tackle," Freeney said. "I think he's very strong in technique and fundamentals. He's consistent. He does a good job in pass protection and run blocking. He's going to definitely be a good challenge." Freeney insists he has other moves in his bag of tricks, such as a straight bull rush and an outside "swim" move with an arm over the tackle to avoid contact. Whatever he brings, it's with quickness and power from this 268-pound defensive end. "It's like a guessing game. You try to get in the guy's head," Freeney said. "I have layups, jump shots and some other things I have in my repertoire. They're professionals on the other side. If they know that's all I was going to do was that, my grandmother could block me." "If you find a pitch he just can't hit, guess what? You're going to see a steady diet of it," Freeney said. For the 49ers, Alex Smith is ... 1. The QB of the future 43% 2. A decent temporary solution 36% 3. A sign that the team is going nowhere 21% Total votes: 2,709. To participate in this poll or other SFGate polls, go to sfgate.com/sports and sfgate.com/polls.

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Smallish pass-rush duo creates big problems

Though it's not true that Joe Staley has had nightmares of Dwight Freeney and his famous spin move, the Indianapolis Colts' premier pass rusher is on Staley's mind. The man has made left tackles around the NFL look like stumblebums as he pirouettes away from their clutches on the way to the quarterback. Since coming into the league in 2002, Freeney has 77 1/2 sacks. Teammate Robert Mathis, the defensive end on the other side who is right tackle Adam Snyder's responsibility, has 4 1/2 sacks. Freeney has started 2009 with at least one sack in each of the undefeated Colts' six games. Counting the last game of '08, he has seven straight games with a sack. To help Staley and Snyder prepare for their opponents, tackle Tony Pashos, on injured reserve, put together video highlights of Freeney and Mathis. Pashos is familiar with both players, having faced Indy twice a season during his years with Jacksonville in the AFC South. Freeney insists he has other moves in his bag of tricks, such as a straight bull rush and an outside "swim" move with an arm over the tackle to avoid contact. Whatever he brings, it's with quickness and power from this 268-pound defensive end.

20131207140101

The Tate has removed from public view works by artist Graham Ovenden, including a screenprint that features an image of a young naked child, saying that his conviction on six charges of indecency with a child and one of indecent assault "shone a new light" on his work. The 34 prints the national gallery owns were removed from its website and will no longer be available to view by appointment in Tate Britain's prints and drawings department while the museum awaits "further information". The Tate said it was "reviewing the online presentation of these editioned prints by him that are held in the national collection. Until this review is complete, the images will not be available online or the works to view by appointment". All the works were acquired in 1975, many from Mayfair art dealer the Waddington Galleries, which exhibited Ovenden's work in the early 1970s. The Tate said they were "part of a large gift of almost 3,000 works … at a point when Tate was proactively building its modern print collection". At the time, Ovenden, a friend of luminaries such as Sir Peter Blake and Sir David Bailey, had a strong artistic reputation and was yet to be affected by controversies over his depictions of young nude girls. The 34 works, dating from 1970-1975, depict children. One series of screenprints, titled Five Girls, includes a full-length image of a nude child that would be bound to raise concerns and comment if exhibited today. Other works are drawn from a series based on Lewis Carroll's Alice books; others still take a Nabokovian theme, with titles such as Lolita Recumbent and Lolita Seductive. The Alice in Wonderland exhibition at Tate Liverpool in 2011 included a set of eight of Ovenden's Alice prints. Ovenden was found guilty of six charges of indecency with a child and one allegation of indecent assault by a jury at Truro crown court on Tuesday. He was acquitted of two indecent assaults and the jury earlier found Ovenden not guilty of three charges of indecent assault on the direction of the judge, Graham Cottle. Ovenden had denied all the charges relating to four children between 1972 and 1985. Sentencing was adjourned until a later date by the judge and Ovenden was released on bail. The Tate said Ovenden's work had been "widely shown over more than 40 years" and that they were only one of several public institutions to own examples of his work. In an interview recorded in 2000 by the British Library, Ovenden said: "I'm aware of the sensuality of these young girls; I'm moved by their angelic side as well as their demon side; they have a total wonder in them. As an artist, I wish to explore that. Children are beautiful but I don't flatter them; I draw them with an edge." The Tate has no plans to remove the works entirely from the collection. It is bound by act of parliament not to deaccession – remove – works from its collection unless in specific circumstances, for example where the gallery holds a duplication. It is not the first time that the Tate has faced a controversy relating to images of nude children. In 2009, Richard Prince's work Spiritual America, an appropriation of a nude photograph of a prepubescent Brooke Shields, was removed from view at Tate Modern after a warning from the Metropolitan police that the image could break obscenity laws.

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Tate removes Graham Ovenden prints after indecency conviction

Ovenden was found guilty of six charges of indecency with a child and one of indecent assault at Truro crown court

20140406064718

NEW YORK — If Amazon has its way — and it did not become one of the country’s most valuable companies by drifting with the current — even watching home movies of your sister’s adorable children or a friend’s crazy cat will become marketing opportunities. The company began selling a device Wednesday that lets consumers watch Amazon’s extensive video library and play a wide array of games on television sets. “Amazon has a vested interest in making sure it is present at every moment of possible consumption, which is all the time,” said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research. “It wants to get into that television screen and start to build a relationship.” Amazon Fire TV is part of a multibillion-dollar effort by the company to move from selling goods produced by others, which is traditionally a low-margin business, to presiding over the entire process of creation and consumption. Physical formats such as books, CDs, and DVDs are disappearing, replaced by downloads and streaming. In books, Amazon has largely made this transition. It makes e-readers and tablets and then sells the content for them. Some writers produce their books exclusively for Amazon, happily living in the digital equivalent of a company town. Video is much more competitive. Netflix, which began by renting the same DVDs that Amazon was selling, is the leader both in streaming video and creating original shows to feature on it. “Streaming is the long-term future of video,” said William V. Power, an analyst for Robert W. Baird & Co. “Amazon needs to capitalize on that. The prize is controlling much of the living room and a big piece of the economy.” Fire TV, which arrives after years of explicit rumors and intense speculation, costs $99. In addition to content from Amazon’s own studios, it offers programming the retailer licenses for an estimated 20 million Amazon Prime subscribers. Those customers pay up to $99 a year for a membership that includes videos and shipping. Other Fire content will come from established players such as Hulu and Netflix. Yet another source will be homemade films. With a separate $40 controller, Fire TV can also be used to play games, including a version of the extremely popular “Minecraft.” “We’re missionaries about inventing and simplifying on behalf of customers,” Peter Larsen, an Amazon vice president, said at a Manhattan news conference held to reveal the device. Larsen, speaking on a stage outfitted to look like a living room, said devices from competitors, which include Roku, Google, and Apple, have three problems: It is too hard to search for content, performance is slow and unreliable, and the content is a closed system. He noted that Apple TV users could not get the full Amazon Prime experience. Among the improvements and enhancements promoted for Fire TV: a voice search function that allows users to say a name like George Clooney or a genre like horror and see results instantly pop up. Amazon is leveraging its position as a retailer to expand into new fields, something it has become very good at. “Because we’re selling millions” of set-top boxes already, “we hear what’s working and we hear what’s not working,” Larsen said. Jeffrey P. Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive, was not present at the news conference. Dave Limp, another Amazon executive, dismissed all the new and old companies that will be duking it out with Amazon in the consumer’s living room. “We don’t go at it from the perspective of who you’re going to compete against,” he said. “We don’t think of this as a sporting event where there has to be one winner.” But in a chart on Amazon’s site, where the company has already started selling the Fire TV, it made explicit comparisons with those competitors, whom it judged wanting. Amazon’s chart was immediately attacked for leaving out things that its competitors did better. For instance, Roku offers streaming sports, and Amazon does not. Since set-top boxes give consumers an incentive to cut the cable cord, Fire TV also puts Amazon in the sights of Comcast, the country’s dominant cable system. Consultants are already laying their bets. “The likely winners are Apple and Amazon, both of which offer entire ecosystems, are excellent at merchandising content, and are capable of subsidizing prices and making up the revenue elsewhere,” said Bill Rosenblatt, president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies.

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Amazon Announces $99 Set-Top Box

NEW YORK — If Amazon has its way — and it did not become one of the country’s most valuable companies by drifting with the current — even watching home movies of your sister’s adorable children or a friend’s crazy cat will become marketing opportunities. The company began selling a device Wednesday that lets consumers watch Amazon’s extensive video library as well as play a wide array of games on their television sets. “Amazon has a vested interest in making sure it is present at every moment of possible consumption, which is all the time,” said James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research. “It wants to get into that television screen and start to build a relationship.”

20140730161828

In case of a catastrophe, the cities of San Francisco and Portland now have an ally in Airbnb. The rapidly growing service for renting rooms, apartments and homes has signed agreements with the San Francisco’s and Portland’s disaster preparedness agencies to help those communities better aide residents during emergencies. The announcement was part of the White House’s Innovation for Disaster Response and Recovery Initiative, which was created after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and is focused on finding ways that technology can help in catastrophes. As part of the agreement, Airbnb will identify hosts willing to help displaced locals during an emergency, use the company’s technology to alert hosts and guests about emergencies, and offer disaster response training its hosts. Airbnb, which is based in San Francisco, has a history of helping locals during times of need. The startup reported that 1,400-plus Airbnb hosts in New York offered up their homes to Hurricane Sandy victims in 2012 at a discount or free of charge. Last year, Airbnb created the Disaster Response Tool, a set of emergency response features — emails sent to hosts asking if they can help take in residents and offer free bookings in affected areas — that can be quickly turned on anywhere where Airbnb is available. It’s worth noting Airbnb isn’t the only member of the so-called “sharing economy” market that is offering up its services during natural disasters. Earlier this month, Uber announced a nation-wide partnership with the American Red Cross that sees the popular ride-sharing startup donating its commissions from select trips to the American Red Cross. Uber will also offer free transportation to American Red Cross volunteers during such emergencies. Airbnb and Uber’s efforts come at a time when both companies have hit rough patches in terms of regulation and could benefit from currying favor with government officials. A number of cities including New York City have tried cracking down on Airbnb rentals. Meanwhile, some cities have targeted hosts with lawsuit for turning their homes into unofficial hotels. Uber is no stranger to regulatory challenges, as well. It currently faces lawsuits in Maryland and Virginia from traditional taxi companies, the same businesses that it’s competing against.

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Airbnb helps cities prep for disasters

Targeted by regulators, the online room rental service is making nice with cities by offering help during disasters.

20140821144953

It’s time once again for an annual Boston tradition. Get ready to kick the can down the subway tunnel. The MBTA is ready to roll out this year’s attempt to pull the transportation system out of another big financial hole. No doubt people will complain about higher costs, shrinking service, or both. We’ll see the details later this week. Another low-risk prediction: That plan will cover a projected budget shortfall of $161 million for the fiscal year ahead - on paper, at least - but do little or nothing about the T’s real money problems. See you next year. The T’s real problem is debt. The system owes too much - about $5.2 billion at the moment - and will never break free from an annual cycle of fiscal contortions to balance its books without some commitment to reduce the overall debt. In other recent years, shortfalls have been met by refinancing obligations further into the future and even raising more money with bonds based on the revenue from parking spaces decades into the future. This time, fare increases will almost certainly be part of the answer. “The T is not self-funding, and it never will be self-funding with the kind of debt it’s carrying and the kind of [service] commitment politicians want,’’ says David D’Alessandro, the former John Hancock Financial Services Inc. chief who led an independent review of MBTA operations in 2009. “They’ve got to change the economic model.’’ Here’s another way to look at the MBTA’s debt: It takes all the money the system raises from fares, more or less, to make the monthly nut on those borrowings. That amounts to about a third of the T’s budget. A business facing those kinds of numbers would consider reorganization in bankruptcy court. “We can’t continue to run a system in which 33 cents on every dollar goes to debt payments,’’ says Richard Dimino, president of A Better City, a research organization focused on economic competitiveness in Boston. “Without any intervention, the debt number is just going to grow.’’ It’s tempting to blame those problems on the transit system itself, the people managing it, and the unions representing employees. And, yes, they have all contributed. But the MBTA got stuck with billions of dollars in obligations that should have ended up on someone else’s balance sheet. Think of the MBTA’s debt as a pie divided into three, roughly equal slices. One slice is made up of state bonds that had funded transportation projects and were shifted onto the T’s books as part of a financial reorganization in 2000. Another slice consists of debts the MBTA has run up on its own since that change 12 years ago. The third slice paid for public transportation improvements that had been drawn up principally to help the Big Dig construction project, not the MBTA. The highway plan - and all the cars it would attract - needed environmental mitigation projects to win approval. They became MBTA activities - and obligations. That reorganization plan launched 12 years ago - known as “forward funding’’ - envisioned a financial future in which an economically independent MBTA could handle those debts and pay them down. Says D’Alessandro now: “Forward funding anticipated an economic model that was ridiculous.’’ The money wasn’t - and isn’t - there to pay the debt that has only grown larger. Eventually the state needs to assume at least some of the MBTA’s debt. It would be fair for the state to assume at least those obligations that were really run up to enhance the prospects of the Big Dig. The T would save more than $100 million in annual interest payments on that slice of debt alone. But even that change would face an uphill battle. Politicians beyond Boston don’t like the idea of supporting the MBTA with more state money, and they certainly don’t want to assume new debts. Cities - and the metropolitan areas that surround them - need functioning public transportation for more than convenience. It is an economic necessity for businesses and institutions that won’t come or stay without a transportation system that can get their employees to work every day. The MBTA certainly can provide that. But it needs a serious financial plan that finally addresses the debt burdens it can’t shoulder.

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The MBTA’s big debt problem

The MBTA owes too much and will never break free from an annual cycle of fiscal contortions to balance its books without some commitment to reduce the overall debt.

20141001120130

When Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray gashed the 49ers’ shorthanded defense for 118 yards in Week 1, it appeared to be a bad omen. Since its uneven season-opening performance, the 49ers’ run defense has been impenetrable: It has allowed a total of 152 rushing yards in the past three games, the fewest the 49ers have allowed in a three-game span since 1997. Outside linebacker Dan Skuta, who was 11 in 1997, smiled when he heard that statistic Tuesday. “I think some stats you don’t pay attention to and some you like because run defense kind of shows you the mind-set of your defense,” Skuta said. “So if you’re playing the run well, you know you’re playing tough and you’re playing physical.” The 49ers’ run defense has specialized in tough and physical for several seasons. From 2011 to 2013, the 49ers allowed the fewest yards per game (89.1) and yards per carry (3.7). Last season, they were the only team to not allow a 100-yard rusher during the regular season. But that was with All-Pro linebackers NaVorro Bowman (now recovering from a knee injury) and Aldon Smith (now suspended), who will miss a minimum of 15 games combined this season. In addition, nose tackle Glenn Dorsey (biceps injury), who started 13 games last year, will miss at least eight games. The 49ers’ pass rush has certainly been diminished without Smith, but it’s hard to detail any drop-off in their vaunted run defense. They have allowed 2.7 yards per carry in their past three games, and their competition (Bears, Cardinals and Eagles) makes that figure even more impressive: Philadelphia’s LeSean McCoy and Chicago’s Matt Forte ranked first and second, respectively, in rushing yards in 2013, and Arizona’s Andre Ellington had the most yards per carry (5.5) among running backs with at least 100 attempts. This wasn’t supposed to happen with two undrafted free agents from Division II colleges subbing for stars: Skuta, 28, has assumed Smith’s spot in the base defense, and Michael Wilhoite, 27, is filling in for Bowman. Wilhoite said he has settled into a rhythm with fellow inside linebacker Patrick Willis, a seven-time Pro Bowl selection. “It’s having confidence in myself and (Willis) having confidence in me that I can do the job on my side,” Wilhoite said. “He can trust that I’m going to be where I need to be so he doesn’t have to do anything extra. He can just do his job, and I’ll do my job, and we can count on each other. I think a lot of that just comes with experience and with snaps. And we’re comfortable right now.” Sunday, McCoy averaged 1.7 yards per carry and the Eagles had 22 rushing yards, the ninth-fewest the 49ers have allowed in their franchise history. Last year, when Wilhoite was subbing for the injured Willis during a two-game stretch, the 49ers allowed the seventh-fewest rushing yards (18) in franchise history in a win at St. Louis. In other words, the 49ers’ run defense has been historically dominant in two of Wilhoite’s six career starts. Wilhoite, who ranks third on the team in tackles (15), will lose his starting spot when Bowman returns. In the meantime, Bowman is serving as his unofficial coach while forecasting a starting role in his future. “I let him know that. This is his chance to put tape out there and show people that he can play in the NFL,” Bowman said. “I’m excited for him.” For his part, Wilhoite is excited for the next challenge. On Sunday, the 49ers will host the Chiefs and Jamaal Charles. Kansas City’s running back ranked third in the NFL in rushing in 2013 and is coming off a 92-yard, three-touchdown performance in a 41-14 win over New England on Monday. “It’s not about showing that I can play like Bow or Pat — that I’m as good as them or better,” Wilhoite said. “It’s just going out there and playing good football so we can go out there and win games. That’s it. That’s where my pride is — in winning games.” Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Run stoppers, now and then The 49ers have allowed 152 rushing yards in their past three games, the fewest they’ve allowed in a three-game span since 1997. A look at the two streaks: 9/14 vs. Chicago: 17 atts., 46 yds. 9/21 at Arizona: 27 atts., 84 yds. 9/28 vs. Philadelphia: 12 atts., 22 yds. Totals: 56 atts., 152 yds., 2.7 yds. per carry 10/12 vs. St. Louis: 13 atts., 30 yds. 10/19 at Atlanta: 16 atts., 39 yds. 10/26 at New Orleans: 18 atts., 55 yds. Totals: 47 atts., 124 yds., 2.6 yds. per carry

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Even with fill-ins, 49ers’ run defense remains solid

When Cowboys running back DeMarco Murray gashed the 49ers’ shorthanded defense for 118 yards in Week 1, it appeared to be a bad omen. Try an aberration. Since its uneven season-opening performance, the 49ers’ run defense has been impenetrable: [...] that was with All-Pro linebackers NaVorro Bowman (now recovering from a knee injury) and Aldon Smith (now suspended), who will miss a minimum of 15 games combined this season. [...] nose tackle Glenn Dorsey (biceps injury), who started 13 games last year, will miss at least eight games. The 49ers’ pass rush has certainly been diminished without Smith, but it’s hard to detail any drop-off in their vaunted run defense. Philadelphia’s LeSean McCoy and Chicago’s Matt Forte ranked first and second, respectively, in rushing yards in 2013, and Arizona’s Andre Ellington had the most yards per carry (5.5) among running backs with at least 100 attempts. Wilhoite said he has settled into a rhythm with fellow inside linebacker Patrick Willis, a seven-time Pro Bowl selection. Kansas City’s running back ranked third in the NFL in rushing in 2013 and is coming off a 92-yard, three-touchdown performance in a 41-14 win over New England on Monday.

20141021193502

The story of Marc and Sergi Alós’s business success is one of innovating a traditional product into something modern and appealing to youth. Of discovering an unexploited market niche and rushing into it. Of constantly creating new products to turn one-time buyers into repeat customers. And, as always, it contains an element of luck. But most of all, Marc and Sergi’s story is about poo. It all began in the Spanish region of Catalonia in 1992, when Marc and Sergi’s mother Anna María Pla, a ceramicist, bought molds for Christmas nativity figurines from a retiring craftsman in Barcelona and took over his business. Though it began well enough, the trade was declining; China started to export plastic figurines, and Spanish society was becoming less religious. Facing a steep drop in sales, the family began to search for a new product line. And then, in 2003, Marc, 42, and 39-year-old Sergi saw their salvation: the Catalonian crèche. That is, the caganer. At some point, in the late 17th or early 18th century — for some reason, historians have yet to turn their full firepower on this — caganers appeared on the outskirts of the Catalonian manger. These figurines depicted a pagès, or Catalonian farm worker, in his traditional white shirt, red cummerbund, and red Smurf-like cap. Unlike your typical nativity attendee, however, he squats, with his black pants around his ankles and a soft-serve swirl of poo on the ground behind him. In family-friendly terms, caganer means “pooper.” The more serious-minded explanation is that the pooper is a fertility symbol (“The caganer fertilizes the earth so the next year it gives us its bonanza,” says Pla, who retired last year); for others, it’s just a funny custom for kids who like to find the hidden pooper when they visit a relative’s house. It wasn’t the meaning that attracted Marc and Sergi, but the possibilities inherent in updating a funny tradition: 2003 was an election year in Catalonia. They had noticed that some artisans occasionally turned non-nativity characters into poopers — nuns, angels, the devil — Marc and Sergi decided to try poopers in the likenesses of local politicians. It was an immediate hit. Loath to appear uncool in the face of an irreverent homage, local politicians had their pictures taken with their caganers. Soon enough, not having one was a sign of a low Q Score (or, well, a low Poo Score); when the relatively unknown Jordi Hereu became mayor of Barcelona in 2006, the newspaper El Periódico underscored his anonymity with the headline, “Hereu does not have a pooper.” Before introducing the politician poopers, the business — now called Caganer.com — was selling between 300 and 500 traditional caganers a year. But as the politician poopers juiced sales, Marc and Sergi added sports stars, cartoon characters, and international celebrities. The pooper business went ballistic. Pooping likenesses of the Barcelona soccer team took off, leading to strong sales of figurines for stars like Lionel Messi. And foreign tourists — over 7 million tourists come to Barcelona every year — scooped up caganers of celebrities like Angela Merkel, Marilyn Monroe, Pope Benedict XVI, and Barack Obama. (Obama’s pooper, decorated with the logo “Yes, we can,” is the bestselling caganer outside of the traditional pagès.) The family even reaped some benefit from the news cycle. “The year we brought out Tiger Woods was the year all his affairs came out. And this year, we brought out Nelson Mandela,” says Alós. A decade ago, the family moved its business to a warehouse in Torroella de Montgri, a small town 90 miles north of Barcelona. There, surrounded by character molds, unpainted figurines, and bagged inventory, Alós tells me that today the business sells about 35,000 poopers annually, pulling in some 180,000 euros ($250,000). He says that it has about 80% of the ceramic pooper market, and that the business grows between 10% and 15% annually. “The caganer was always known here. But we made it internationally popular,” Alós says. Each year, the family decides on the 40 or so new characters they will add (there are some 325 in active production) and Marc, who, in addition to poopers, also makes large public art, carves the originals out of plaster. A mold is made, clay reproductions are fired, and the figurines are painted by people from local foundations for the mentally handicapped. They are then sold for anywhere from four to 50 euros online, in tourist shops, in the department store El Corte Inglés, and in the Barcelona airport. Marc runs production while Sergi leads the business side. While selling ceramic poo is a funny business, it’s still a business, and Marc and Sergi face the same issues as any entrepreneur. There are uncontrollable variables, like a recent injury to Lionel Messi, which has hurt his pooper sales. There are also the margins. To smooth out sales, the brothers have begun to shift a good part of the business from Christmas fair retail to wholesaling, but that means less profit (“You have to work double to earn the same,” Alós says). And then there is the issue of a limited market size, which the family has addressed by diversifying their business interests with a nautical travel agency and a digital marketing consultancy. But, at the end, their story is still mostly about poo.

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Spain's Christmas tradition? Defecating celebrity figurines

The story of Marc and Sergi Alós’s business success is one of innovating a traditional product into something modern. But most of all, it’s about poo.

20150128002300

Never mind McDonald’s MCD big U.S. sales declines, the American hamburger is enjoying a golden era. Last year, U.S. restaurants and cafeterias served 9 billion hamburgers, a jump of 3% that stood in contrast to the declining fortunes of the grilled chicken sandwich – the burger’s only real competition in the sandwich wars. Servings of chicken sandwiches fell 9% to 1.3 billion. The continued burger boom is partly the result of the fast growth of smaller chains like Shake Shack, which recently filed to go public in a $1 billion IPO, as well as In-N-Out Burger, Five Guys, and Whataburger. Those chains are also benefitting from the overall increased spending on eating out at restaurants by Americans now feeling better about their finances and job prospects after holding back for years. The National Restaurant Association on Tuesday forecast that industry sales would rise 3.8% this year to $709.2 billion, helped by lower gas prices and job gains. “The overall industry is definitely in a better place now than several years ago,” said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research for the restaurant association. Still, the restaurant industry will continue to face some challenges this year, the industry group said. For one thing, food costs are expected to rise again this year, following a 5% jump in wholesale food prices last year. Only lower prices for dairy and pork will provide some relief. For another, with unemployment easing, the restaurant industry will likely be under pressure to raise wages because of increasing competition for workers. Still, the restaurant association is hopeful after years in which people skimped on going out for a bite to eat. Now, with money in their pockets, there’s a lot of pent-up demand for restaurant meals.

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Burgers jump in popularity as Americans go eat out more

Spending at restaurants should rise 3.8% in 2015, according to the National Restaurant Association, while the burger boom is set to continue.

20150219220005

Wal-Mart is celebrating a surprisingly strong U.S. holiday season by spreading the wealth a bit. The world’s largest retailer and the nation’s largest private employer is spending $1 billion to increase hourly wages for its current U.S. store associates to more than $9 per hour, or higher, beginning in April. That increase is at least $1.75 above the federally mandated minimum wage. The decision will impact thousands of full and part-time U.S. employees. Here are some other key points from Wal-Mart’s latest earnings report. What you need to know: Wal-Mart WMT , often maligned by labor advocates that have long argued the retailer can pay its employees more, is seemingly heeding that call. Even Fortune’s Stephen Gandel has argued Wal-Mart could afford to pay its employees up to 50% more without disappointing Wall Street. Wal-Mart isn’t aiming as high as Gandel suggested, but it is certainly making a notable move with the increase. Wal-Mart said by February of next year, all current U.S. associates would make $10 an hour or more. The company is also piloting a training program to help employees move out of entry-level positions and potentially make $15 an hour and more with increased responsibilities. Wal-Mart employees about 500,000 full-time and part-time associates at its’ U.S. Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. The pay hike comes as Wal-Mart reported a strong 1.7% increase in U.S. same-store sales, a key metric for retailers. That was better than the 0.7% jump that analysts had anticipated, according to a poll conducted by Consensus Metrix. “Our fourth quarter was the first positive traffic comp we’ve had since the third quarter of fiscal year 2013,” said Greg Foran, Wal-Mart U.S. president and CEO. Wal-Mart booted traffic during the critical six-week holiday season, resulting in strong sales of toys, home, seasonal and apparel goods. Wal-Mart completed almost 1 billion total transactions during the holiday season, including a particularly strong Cyber Monday. The big number: Wal-Mart’s overall total revenue climbed 1.4% to $131.57 billion for the fiscal quarter ended January 31. That wasn’t as strong as the $132.28 billion projected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Wal-Mart’s top line results have frequently missed Wall Street’s expectations the past few years. Per-share adjusted earnings, meanwhile, totaled $1.61 versus the $1.54 predicted by analysts. What you might have missed: While Wal-Mart ended the year on a high note, President and CEO Doug McMillion said “we’re not satisfied.” He and the leadership team says they want to continue to improve the customer experience, in part by better integrating physical stores with the company’s e-commerce and mobile commerce business. “We have work to do to grow the business,” McMillion said. “We know what customers want from a shopping experience, and we’re investing strategically to exceed their expectations.” Because of the higher wages and investments in training and e-commerce, Wal-Mart expects current-year operating profit to be pressured. Wal-Mart is spending about 20 cents per share for the full year on the higher wages and associate training and educational programs. As a result, Wal-Mart sees 2016 fiscal-year profit between $4.70 to $5.05 per share with sales expected to rise between 1% to 2%, hurt by some pressure from the stronger U.S. dollar.

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Wal-Mart to increase hourly wages for thousands of store associates

The pay hike, which will cost $1 billion, comes as the world's largest retailer reports a strong holiday quarter.

20150301090103

FORTUNE — Deciding how best to combat infringement of intellectual property — or even, perhaps, whether we should combat it at all — is made difficult by the fact that nobody really knows the extent of the harms it causes. The Rand Corporation believes it might have the beginnings of a reliable methodology in the works, but even its creators are highly uncertain about its prospects, mainly because success would depend on the willingness of companies to share proprietary sales data and forecasts. One side of the digital-piracy debate claims that the problem is existential. The other side claims it’s non-existent. The media industry issues “studies” that are often laughably skewed to back up claims that piracy is killing their businesses. The industry’s critics claim (based on not much real data) that piracy not only doesn’t do much if any harm, but that it even sometimes helps to sell legitimate copies of movies, music, and other digital products. MORE: The RIM video that will make you squirm Logic tells us that if a person decides to download an illicit copy of a movie when he or she would otherwise have paid for it, the movie business loses money. But how many people download illicit copies only because they’re free, and would never have paid for it? We have no way of knowing. Rand, at the behest of the European Union, has created a basic framework for estimating losses that would take such variables into account. Viewing the market from the supply side, it would compare sales projections to actual sales, controlling for all the various non-piracy-related variables — the economy, bad marketing, supply-chain disruptions and the like — that could cause a difference between the two. Theoretically, the result would indicate the actual amount of sales lost to piracy, which could then be extrapolated to determine, for example, how many jobs are lost. Theoretically. The best Rand can say is that the difference would be “due at least in part to [intellectual property rights] infringements.” In how big a part? Still unknown, and probably unknowable with certainty. Rand says “the statistical model then attempts to identify the portion of unexplained unfulfilled demand that is highly correlated with factors that drive … infringements of a particular product in a particular country. These factors may include: the rule of law, control of corruption, level of tourism, access to broadband Internet or government effectiveness.” MORE: New Internet lobbying group takes on Big Media All very difficult to quantify. The approach, however, is certainly much better than most existing examinations of the problem. Media-financed studies often take a ridiculously blunt approach, essentially counting up the number of illicit downloads, multiplying that by the prices of songs, movie tickets, or rentals, and saying “here’s how much we’ve lost.” A model like Rand’s almost couldn’t help but be better than that. But as Rand notes, large swaths of the industry would have to open its books to researchers, and it’s far from certain that they would. The model is also meant to measure counterfeit physical goods, so makers of fashion, luggage, etc., would also have to take part. The model was tested using data from a single “multinational technology firm producing consumer goods targeted by counterfeiters,” and Rand says the results were promising. But other firms are “extremely reluctant” to share data. Partly, that’s because they understandably don’t want their proprietary data to get into the hands of competitors. But another concern is that “firms may try to manipulate their forecasting error data before submitting them to be included in our model so as to influence estimates of the size of the market.” MORE: The baffling claim against Facebook In other words, we would still, to some degree, be relying on the media industry for estimates of how badly the media industry is hurt by privacy. And so far, that hasn’t worked out so well.

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Measuring piracy may be tech’s Holy Grail

Accurate measurements of the effects of infringement of intellectual property rights are hard to come by. The Rand Corporation thinks it might have a method.

20150524081502

H IGH interest rates have crippled the home building industry and stifled the home buying aspirations of many Americans over the last 18 months. Although the prime has probably peaked, there is continuing pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower the cost of money more rapidly. But, the nation's preoccupation with mortgage rates has obscured the fact that the rising cost of other housing resources - land, building materials and energy - may present far more important long-term problems for the housing industry. In its recently published Interim Report, President Reagan's new Commission on Housing concentrated on how to reduce Government intervention in the housing market. Although the commission was established to ''assess those factors which contribute to the cost of housing,'' its report gives little indication that the White House is interested in the complete range of reasons behind spiraling home prices. The Administration's apparent reluctance to initiate new housing policies clashes with the growing need for better land management, alternative building materials and residential energy standards. The median price of a new house in the United States increased steadily over the last decade. A standard new house cost $64,500 in 1980, compared with $23,400 in 1970. This is an increase of more than twice that rate that prevailed during the 1960's. During this period, the rate of increase in home prices was 50 percent above that of the Consumer Price Index. A close look at the major components that make up the price of a house gives a clear picture of the relative importance of the resources needed in housing. In 1980, financing accounted for oneeighth of the price of a new single-family home, while land accounted for roughly one-quarter and building materials about one-third. While financing has doubled its portion since 1949, it is still a minor item in comparison with land and materials. The cost of land has been the single most important housing problem over the last decade. As rising affluence and population growth have pushed up demand for residential land, prices have soared. During the 1970's, the average cost of a housing lot rose by 6.6 percent a year, somewhat slower than the inflation rate. This average, however, masks more dramatic price rises in rapidly growing cities. Land costs quadrupled in the San Diego area and tripled in Seattle between 1975 and 1980, for example. Thus, the American ideal of a sprawling, grass-covered yard may be the first victim of the boom in land costs. In Connecticut, for example, more than half the vacant land zoned for residential development is limited to lots of one and two acres. This is quite a contrast with Village Homes, a 240-household development in Davis, Calif. The complex has eight homes per acre, with small front lawns and shared backyards. House prices have also been driven up by the rising cost of building materials, which have risen slightly faster than the cost of financing and nearly 30 percent faster than the C.P.I. In particular, according to a study by the Council on Wage and Price Stability, ''soaring lumber prices have been a recurring problem of increasing severity in every expansion of housing demand since the mid-60's.'' Softwood lumber plywood costs, for example, have tripled in the last 10 years. It takes more than 11,600 square feet of softwood lumber and 5,800 square feet of plywood to build a new home. With an average of 1.7 million new housing starts every year over the last decade, it is little wonder that about two-fifths of the total annual United States production of these woods is used by home builders. A LTHOUGH the United States is in no imminent danger of being deforested, rising demand overseas, especially from Japan, growing use of timber for firewood and paper products and the inevitable resurgence of housing demand threaten to have an explosive impact on lumber prices. Minimizing this problem will require closely coordinated timber management involving both the Forest Service and timber companies. To limit the demand for lumber, the housing industry needs to turn to alternative construction materials. Plywood, particle board, metal siding and nonwood flooring products are already frequently replacing sawed wood. The construction industry now uses 6.5 billion pounds of plastic each year. Increasing this amount several times by the end of the century could save materials and energy, for plastic building materials embody significantly less energy than steel or aluminum. Until recently, the energy used to build a home or consumed in the day-to-day running of it were rarely a consideration for home buyers. Now energy costs have emerged as an issue of growing concern. A home builder's choice of construction materials has significant energy implications. Softwood products embody on average 7,700 British thermal units and plywood, 9,300 B.T.U.'s per square foot. In addition, rising fuel costs now represent between one-third and onehalf of basic cement production expenses. Home builders have traditionally ignored this, resulting in a highly energy-inefficient housing stock. Single-family homes and high-rise apartments dominate the market, despite the fact that they are the most energy-intensive to build and consume the most energy to maintain. The home construction industry is where the American automobile industry was a couple of years ago: blindly building an energyinefficient product that is increasingly difficult to sell. Recent studies, however, indicate that a builder's choice of materials can result in up to a 40 percent energy savings over a 15-year period. And a survey in the early 1970's found that multifamily structures consumed at least one-third less energy than single-family dwellings did. These findings need to be translated into policies that encourage builders to construct energy-efficient dwellings. It is logical that the resource problems facing housing in this decade will inevitably reshape living patterns. The single-family, free-standing house is a peculiar development based on cheap energy, land and materials. To conserve resources and to hold down prices, a growing portion of the market must be townhouses and small, multifamily dwellings. Federal mortgage programs are ideally suited to offer incentives to speed this shift. The days are gone when simply manipulating the mortgate rate will solve housing problems. For while a stroke of the pen can reduce mortgage rates, society has far less leverage over the cost of land, building materials and energy. These problems require a long-term resource management strategy - a perfect task for the President's Commission on Housing. We can only hope that the group's apparent opposition to Government's role in the housing market will not blind it to the nation's long-term housing needs. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Bruce Stokes is a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit research organization. He is author of Worldwatch Paper, ''Global Housing Prospects: The Resource Constraints.'' Illustrations: new home costs table

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Business Forum - HIGH MORTGAGE? LOOK AT PRICES OF LAND - NYTimes.com

H IGH interest rates have crippled the home building industry and stifled the home buying aspirations of many Americans over the last 18 months. Although the prime has probably peaked, there is continuing pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower the cost of money more rapidly. But, the nation's preoccupation with mortgage rates has obscured the fact that the rising cost of other housing resources - land, building materials and energy - may present far more important long-term problems for the housing industry. In its recently published Interim Report, President Reagan's new Commission on Housing concentrated on how to reduce Government intervention in the housing market. Although the commission was established to ''assess those factors which contribute to the cost of housing,'' its report gives little indication that the White House is interested in the complete range of reasons behind spiraling home prices. The Administration's apparent reluctance to initiate new housing policies clashes with the growing need for better land management, alternative building materials and residential energy standards.

20150524083101

AS a rule, the Metropolitan Opera begins each season with a familiar production staffed with as many top-ranking singers as it can round up and/or afford. Last night's performance seemed on paper to be another such traditional opening. The opera, after all, was Bellini's ''Norma,'' in nominally the same production that dates back to 1970, when Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Carlo Bergonzi and Cesari Siepi were the principals. However, as it turned out, very little of the evening could be recognized from previous ''Normas'' in the house. The three leading singers were taking their parts for the first time at the Metropolitan and so was the condu ctor, James Levine. Moreover, the sets had been extensively redes igned by their creator, Desmond Heeley, and Fabrizio Melano had resta ged the entire production. The tenor, Placido Domingo, was a ppearing for the first time anywhere as Pollione, the unfortunate Ro man proconsul and fatherof Norma's two children. Mr. Domingo made a s plendidly heroic figure out of Pollione, who emerges in many performa nces as a male cipher between two female exclamation marks. His voi ce was equally heroic, though it was pressed to the limits of its en durance in Pollione's punishing first-act recitative and cavatina. The focal point, however, was Renata Scotto's Norma, a part that does not seem on reflection to be one she needed to add to her repertory. Miss Scotto was the target of rude cat-calling by partisans in one corner of the house as she entered to begin the opera's most famous piece, ''Casta diva.'' She sang it, none too steadily, in the traditional downward transposition, but then so did Maria Callas. (Miss Sutherland, with her coloratura agility, had no trouble taking the same aria up a full tone, to G, but hers was a rare Norma in most ways.) Miss Scotto could float soft tones above the staff quite beautifully, and when the music lay in her most comfortable middle voice her tones penetrated the house nicely. But when she was forced to sing full out in the upper regions, intonation and vocal technique deserted her. She scooped and slurred and wobbled. She had a hard time of it in the florid passages, concentrating her vocal and dramatic efforts on building up a kind of crude intensity that soon became tiresome. However, ''Norma'' is a bridge opera leading from Classical style to Verdi and can support a more blood-tingling interpretation than it sometimes receives. Mr. Levine's performance as a whole tended to emphasize the visceral and in this he was at one with his Norma. The most consistently sensitive singing and acting of the evening came from Tatiana Troyanos, whose Adalgisa perhaps seemed a bit stifled emotionally in tandem with Miss Scotto's Norma. But Adalgisa is not asked to do much but express fear and remorse. She cowers a lot, as who wouldn't when faced with a berserk Druidess given to swinging a knife around and threatening to carve up everyone in sight, including her children. Miss Troyanos gave a dignified, touching performance. As for the touched-up production itself, Mr. Melano and Mr. Heeley seemed at times to be going back to the Bayreuth decor and staging of the 1950's and 60's. A couple of pieces of the old unit set were retained from the 1970 ''Norma,'' but there was a new emphasis on circles and phallic symbols. At the center was a kind of miniaturized Bayreuth saucer - more a butter plate, really - on which much of the action was played out. Huge, mottled moons descended and rose at odd moments. What appeared to be a live male person made an appearance, spread-eagled on a wheel, to be sacrificed to the Great Druid in the sky. Some of the maneuvering of soldiers and vestal virgins was a little clumsy, but on the whole the director moved his forces around skillfully. The spear carriers do need some additional practice at brandishing their arms, however: we almost lost a vestal virgin or two at one point in the ''Guerra! Guerra!'' chorus. Since Druid ceremonies and apparently most of their ordinary activities as well seem to have been carried out in the moonlight, Gil Wechsler had a real challenge as the lighting designer. He managed well. The Cast NORMA, by Bellini; libretto by Felice Romani. Conducted by James Levine. Staged by Fabrizio Melano. Sets and costumes by Desmond Heeley. Lighting by Gil Wechsler. Presented by the Metropolitan Opera. Norma ...................................Renata Scotto Adalgisa .............................Tatiana Troyanos Pollione ..............................Placido Domingo Oroveso ..............................Bonaldo Giaiotti Clotilde .............................Therese Brandson Flavio ....................................Dana Talley

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TOP-RANKING SINGERS STAR IN EXTENSIVE RESTAGING

AS a rule, the Metropolitan Opera begins each season with a familiar production staffed with as many top-ranking singers as it can round up and/or afford. Last night's performance seemed on paper to be another such traditional opening. The opera, after all, was Bellini's ''Norma,'' in nominally the same production that dates back to 1970, when Joan Sutherland, Marilyn Horne, Carlo Bergonzi and Cesari Siepi were the principals. However, as it turned out, very little of the evening could be recognized from previous ''Normas'' in the house. The three leading singers were taking their parts for the first time at the Metropolitan and so was the condu ctor, James Levine. Moreover, the sets had been extensively redes igned by their creator, Desmond Heeley, and Fabrizio Melano had resta ged the entire production. The tenor, Placido Domingo, was a ppearing for the first time anywhere as Pollione, the unfortunate Ro man proconsul and fatherof Norma's two children. Mr. Domingo made a s plendidly heroic figure out of Pollione, who emerges in many performa nces as a male cipher between two female exclamation marks. His voi ce was equally heroic, though it was pressed to the limits of its en durance in Pollione's punishing first-act recitative and cavatina.

20150524083628

BERKELEY HEIGHTS ''EARTH SONG,'' an environmental sculpture combining an ancient spatial concept with contemporary sound, is currently on view on the grounds of John E. Runnels Hospital here. Intended to serve as a place of meditation, this work by Rhoda Roper, a ceramic artist, was inspired by the mystifying stone circles scattered throughout the British Isles. It was executed in collaboration with Don Slepian, whose electronic composition is played on a tape recorder housed within the sculpture. The piece will remain on display here through June 14. Many visitors no doubt will be reminded of a scaled-down Stonehenge. Altogether, 17 stoneware pieces are clustered in groups of three or four to form two concentric circles; their jagged shapes are derived from geologic structures, but their creamy glaze seals them with a potter's signature. Sizes vary. The tallest are about five feet high, while some are a perfect height for seats. The separate elements are spaced so that one can easily enter and leave the inner circle. In its present configuration, ''Earth Song,'' which measures 18 feet or so across, should fit into an average gallery. However, certain things would be lost by taking it inside. Outdoors, the sprayed-on pattern of underglaze in smoky blues and greens merges with the shadows of nearby maple trees. And, as the sunlight shifts, different sections of the shiny surfaces are brought to life. Mr. Slepian's task was to create a wall of sound to provide a sort of psychic insulation from the outer world. His solution was to produce two sets of sounds continually running counter to each other. For example, there is an interval where thin linear tones varying in frequency are punctuated by a series of ''plunks'' that resonate like an amplified harp. Occasionally, there are periods of silence. The pace is geared to elicit contemplation. The effect of the multi-channeled arrangement - four speakers are within the hollow forms - is haunting and, at times, eerie. Despite this, it should be noted that the sound does not offend the pervading quiet of the hospital. There were problems with the tapes at first, but adjustments were made and they are now functioning smoothly. It is a credit to both artists that the necessary apparatus has been artfully concealed. The project represents an ambitious undertaking, for it took almost a year and a half-ton of clay. It was paid for in part by a grant from the Union County Cultural and Heritage Program. In her application for this assistance, Mrs. Roper had explicitly requested that the work be shown at a hospital because ''that seemed a place where people might respond to something with a spiritual theme.'' Runnels Hospital is run by Union County. Both artists live in nearby Summit. Previously, Mrs. Roper has exhibited at major museums in New Jersey and New York. Mr. Slepian, a former director of the Children's Dance Theater in Hawaii, has created many sound tracks to accompany performances. Because of its environmental nature, the success of the work cannot be determined without considering its context. Ideally, it should be in an open field, where it might command the space on its own terms; its present setting, a peninsula of grass, is bordered by black-topped drives and a rear view of a brick-and-stucco architectural conglomerate. Since the scale of the work, although large for ceramics, is not imposing enough to overpower the landscape, the serious viewer has to consciously overlook surroundings that include fire escapes and delivery entrances. Such effort, it seems, should not be needed. As it is, the sculpture might be seen as an appropriate statement for a time when no shrine is far removed from practicality or commerce. At any rate, it is certain that, if ''Earth Song'' offers sanctuary for some, there will be others for whom questions will be raised. Either way, it should prod complacency. One advantage of the site is that it is easily accessible to the hospital's staff members and ambulatory patients. The recording, in fact, is timed to play from noon to 3 P.M. to accommodate lunch-hour pilgrimages. At other times, special arrangements can be made to have the music played by calling the administrative office of the hospital at (201) 322-7240. There is one aspect of the construction that is troubling. Apparently for some technical reason, several of the pieces are built in two sections, one above the other. In several, where the division coincides with lines defined by structure, the visible process is incorporated into the design. In these and in those that are single elements, there is satisfying ambiguity: They refer both to nature and to art. But others have a disturbingly obvious break across their middles that betray their manufacture. One can hope that such unresolved problems will encourage Mrs. Roper to go further and perhaps take even greater risks. Objections notwithstanding, ''Earth Song'' should not go home to gather dust in the artist's studio. It would be worthwhile to test its eloquence in a variety of settings. Perhaps one will sing back. Calendar of Events Through June 19 - Garden art at America House Gallery, 24 Washington Avenue, Tenafly. Today and tomorrow - Jazz 88/ Craft Market at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Rutherford. Show and sale of work by 88 juried crafts people to benefit WBGO, public radio station in Newark. Entertainment, including jazz and juggling. Hours: Saturday and Sunday, 10 A.M.-6 P.M.; May 25, 10 A.M.-5 P.M. Illustrations: photo of 'Earth Song' by Rhoda Roper

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BERKELEY HEIGHTS ''EARTH SONG,'' an environmental sculpture combining an ancient spatial concept with contemporary sound, is currently on view on the grounds of John E. Runnels Hospital here. Intended to serve as a place of meditation, this work by Rhoda Roper, a ceramic artist, was inspired by the mystifying stone circles scattered throughout the British Isles. It was executed in collaboration with Don Slepian, whose electronic composition is played on a tape recorder housed within the sculpture. The piece will remain on display here through June 14. Many visitors no doubt will be reminded of a scaled-down Stonehenge. Altogether, 17 stoneware pieces are clustered in groups of three or four to form two concentric circles; their jagged shapes are derived from geologic structures, but their creamy glaze seals them with a potter's signature.

20150524084634

TEL AVIV— The Golan Heights is especially significant to Israelis. In contrast to their attitudes toward the West Bank, which involve considerations of security mingled with historical attachments and avowals of a supposed divine right of possession, their sensitivity toward the Heights stems from security considerations alone. Whoever dominates the Heights both determines the security of dozens of Jewish communities in the upper Galilee, which lies below, and controls the primary water sources of Israel. In contrast to attitudes toward all the other conquered territories, a clear consensus exists, embraced by more than 90 percent of Israel's population, that even if a peace treaty were concluded between Syria and Israel tomorrow, an Israeli presence nevertheless would be essential on the Heights. Beyond this consensus, however, there are differences between Israeli ''doves,'' among whom I include myself, and ''hawks.'' These diversities break down as follows. The ''doves'' don't consider the present cease-fire border between Syria and Israel to be the permanent border, and realistically understand that Israel must withdraw from the present buffer-zone line, even though a permanent Israeli presence in the Heights must be ensured. The ''doves'' are motivated by one consideration only: There must be a guarantee of the continued existence and security of Israel within secure borders. All other considerations are alien to our spirit. We are no less patriotic than any other sector in Israeli society and we do not lack sentiment toward the Jewish nation's history and its homeland. In order to attain peace, which is so vital to the future safety of Israel, we support compromises that will continue the peace process while at the same time ensuring Israel's security. The recently adopted Knesset measure to extend Israeli law to the Golan Heights is causing Israel infinite harm. Syria has not, to date, showed any willingness to enter into peace negotiations with Israel. On the contrary, every statement or action by Damascus indicates just the opposite. On the other hand, to this very day, Syria has adhered to the 1974 truce agreement between Syria and the United Nations and Israel and the United Nations, and every six months it reaffirms this agreement, which provided the basis for having United Nations forces monitor the 1973 cease-fire. In reality, Israel controls the Heights and will continue to do so as long as no other agreement is reached between Syria and Israel. The law recently enacted makes no practical difference. It certainly does not improve Israel's administrative and military hold on the Heights. Moreover, it encourages extremism in the Arab world, hands diplomatic weapons to Israel's enemies, and weakens prospects of negotiations with Syria. In addition, it is especially embarrassing to Egypt, which signed the peace treaty with Israel despite the risk of strained relations with other Arab countries. What prompted the Likud Government to initiate a law that, from all aspects, is highly negative? If we examine both foreign- and domestic-policy considerations, a common denominator is the Government's lack of understanding of Israel's status in the global alignment in general and the Middle East in particular. Another explanation is the Government's desire to prove to Israeli ''hawks'' that it is not a Government of retreat but rather one that knows how to annex when it wants to. Beyond this, the Likud Government has allowed declaratory acts - which lean on ''historical and divine rights'' - to replace coherent policy and political knowhow. Although the Begin Government recently won two no-confidence votes, those votes clearly showed the narrowness of the parliamentary margin that the Government enjoys. This narrowness is reflected in public opinion on fundamental issues of Israeli politics, the economy, and society. Furthermore, there is evidence in recent Israeli history that yesterday's ''doves'' become today's ''hawks'' and that today's ''hawks'' may become tomorrow's ''doves.'' Indeed, this happened in the case of Camp David; it might happen again. What happens if Israeli needs in future peace negotiations change attitudes toward the Golan Heights? If Israel reached a point where no option except a painful compromise remained, Israel might lose many of its bargaining cards - losses that would have been avoidable if the Government had not adopted extremist positions at the outset, as the Likud Government is doing today. There is an ancient Hebrew saying: ''Wanting too much leaves you with nothing.'' This, unfortunately, is the lesson of the policy - if it can be termed a policy - that the present Government is pursuing. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Haim Shur, former editor of the daily Al Hamishmar, is international secretary of Mapam, the United Workers Party of Israel, which is in the opposition Labor Alignment in the Knesset.

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ISRAEL AND THE HEIGHTS

The Golan Heights is especially significant to Israelis. In contrast to their attitudes toward the West Bank, which involve considerations of security mingled with historical attachments and avowals of a supposed divine right of possession, their sensitivity toward the Heights stems from security considerations alone. Whoever dominates the Heights both determines the security of dozens of Jewish communities in the upper Galilee, which lies below, and controls the primary water sources of Israel. In contrast to attitudes toward all the other conquered territories, a clear consensus exists, embraced by more than 90 percent of Israel's population, that even if a peace treaty were concluded between Syria and Israel tomorrow, an Israeli presence nevertheless would be essential on the Heights.

20150524110106

The Hartford Ballet has mounted a gala program to celebrate its 10th anniversary at 8 P.M. Thursday through Saturday in Bushnell Hall. Drawing on the background of its director, Michael Uthoff, whose parents were members of the Jooss Ballet in Europe, the company has imported Anna Markard, daughter of Kurt Jooss, to direct ''The Green Table.'' The ballet was choreographed by her father and acclaimed as a masterwork at its Paris premiere in 1932. In addition, Ruth Laredo, the noted pianist, will provide onstage accompaniment for ''Ballade,'' ''Little Improvisations'' and ''Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe,'' playing the music of Chopin, Schumann and Scriabin, respectively. Choreography for ''Ballade,'' receiving its world premiere, is by the company's associate artistic director, Anthony Salatino. ''The Green Table'' is an expressionist ballet in which a conference table is a symbol of diplomatic stalemate while wars are waged around it. It is acknowledged to be a prototype of modern balletic storytelling. The ballet's cabaret-style score by Frederick Cohen will be executed on two pianos. Costumes and masks were designed by Hein Heckroth. Continuing the family tradition, Mr. Uthoff has cast his 12-year-old daughter, Michelle, in a supporting role. She is a student at the School of the Hartford Ballet. Tickets are $4 to $16 and may be reserved through Ticketron or the Bushnell box office, 246-6807. THEMES OF THE GREEKS The Hartford Stage Company will open its most ambitious production ever this week. ''The Greeks,'' adapted from the works of Euripides, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Homer by John Barton and Kenneth Cavander, was first produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. Mark Lamos will direct. ''The War,'' ''The Murders'' and ''The Gods'' are extrapolations of themes that run through the ancient Greek epics, and not translations or updates of the plays themselves. Costumes and sets will be abstract, avoiding national or period identification. The three segments will be presented in rotation except for two marathon performances Feb. 21 and April 4, when all three may be seen in sequence. The cycle will take almost 12 hours, with individual segments beginning at noon, 4:30 P.M. and 9 P.M. Previews will be held at 8 P.M. Tuesday through Thursday. Regular performances begin Friday, running through April 4. Tickets, at $6 to $18, may be reserved by calling 525-5601. SCENES OF WAR War is the theme of the new exhibition at the New Britain Museum of American Art that opens t oday and continues through March 28. The show has been assembled from the museum's collection of illustrations , engravings, paintings, sculpture and posters. Among the artists represented in scenes of strife dating from classical times to the Vietnam conflict are John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, Frederic Remington, Howard Pyle, John Steuart Curry, Stevan Dohanos, Jack Levine and Ernest Shinn. Models of military aircraft and naval vessels and a collection of toy soldiers round out the exhibit. The museum is located at 56 Lexington Street and it is open fro m 1 P.M. to 5 P.M., Tuesday through Sunday. Condu cted tours will be offered at 2 P.M. and 3:30 P.M. on Feb. 21 an d 28. For more information call 229-0257. ROOSEVELT EXHIBITION Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the controversial 32d President of the United States, is the subject of an exhibition of books, memorabilia, buttons, ribbons, banners and leaflets celebrating his 100th birthday in the Mortensen Library of the University of Hartford. Books in the exhibitionabout the President and his Administration include ''Looking Forward,'' a 1933 precis of his intended social legislation. ''On Our Way'' is an assessment of his first 100 days in office, during which programs for business and agricultural recovery, unemployment relief and the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority were enacted. A payroll deduction notice indicating the beginning of the Social Security system may be viewed by visitors. Included in paychecks dated Jan. 1, 1937, it is believed to be one of very few still in existence. A children's book written by Eleanor Roosevelt, a copy of The New York Herald Tribune prior to Roosevelt's defeat of Thomas E. Dewey in 1944 and a copy of The New York Daily News of April 13, 1945, reporting his death, are among the items. The library is open from 8 A.M. to midnight on weekdays, 10 A.M. to midnight Saturday and noon to midnight Sunday. The exhibit will remain on view until Feb. 28. SHAW IN NEW BRITAIN New Britain's Hole-in-the-Wall Theater at 121 Smalley Street has based the visual aspect of its current production of George Bernard Shaw's ''Salome'' on the widely known illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley. Written by Oscar Wilde originally in French, the play's original production was to have had Sarah Bernhardt in the title role. But because censorship at the time forbade the depiction of biblical characters on the stage, it was not seen until many years later. Mr. Wilde is quoted as asserting at the time that ''Salome'' was a mirror in which audiences would see themselves. ''The dull would find dullness,'' he said, ''the artist, art; the the vulgar, vulgarity.'' Peformances will be given at 8:30 P.M. Friday and Saturday through March 13. Call 223-9500 for reservations. Admission is by donation. Eleanor Charles

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Connecticut Guide - HARTFORD BALLET GALA - NYTimes.com

The Hartford Ballet has mounted a gala program to celebrate its 10th anniversary at 8 P.M. Thursday through Saturday in Bushnell Hall. Drawing on the background of its director, Michael Uthoff, whose parents were members of the Jooss Ballet in Europe, the company has imported Anna Markard, daughter of Kurt Jooss, to direct ''The Green Table.'' The ballet was choreographed by her father and acclaimed as a masterwork at its Paris premiere in 1932. In addition, Ruth Laredo, the noted pianist, will provide onstage accompaniment for ''Ballade,'' ''Little Improvisations'' and ''Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe,'' playing the music of Chopin, Schumann and Scriabin, respectively. Choreography for ''Ballade,'' receiving its world premiere, is by the company's associate artistic director, Anthony Salatino.

20150629230738

FORTUNE – This week, Coca-Cola KO and Ikea bet billions of dollars on India’s consumers – curiously enough, at a time when growth across one of the world’s fastest-growing economies has markedly slowed. Over the next several years, Coca-Cola, the world’s biggest soft drink maker, and its local partners will spend $5 billion to expand distribution and add capacity to meet rising demand. This follows a move by Ikea, the world’s largest furniture maker, to enter India with a $1.9 billion investment. It expects to open 25 stores there over the next 15 to 20 years. Indeed, the commitments will probably take some pressures off of New Delhi policymakers, who’ve been trying to boost faltering foreign investor sentiment, as India’s economy hasn’t been growing as fast as it once did. For the fiscal year ended March 31, GDP grew 6.5%, the slowest pace in almost a decade. Sectors such as manufacturing, mining and agriculture did poorly, raising new concerns about the economy. MORE: Ratan Tata looks back The investments also come as India’s currency, the rupee, has fallen sharply against the U.S. dollar. Consequently, this has frustrated some foreign businesses with units in India, since the money they repatriate in dollars is worth less and that puts a dent on earnings. But Coke and Ikea aren’t nearly as dismayed. Looking long-term, India’s economy is too hard for the biggest companies to ignore. A few reasons: With 1.2 billion people, India is the world’s second-most populous country; a rapidly growing middle class; and even with slower growth at 6.5%, India’s economy looks far better than much of the developed world as parts of Europe struggles with an ongoing debt crisis and the U.S. economy has grown at an average of about 1.6% over the past 10 years. More broadly, the latest investments illustrate what’s perhaps a bigger draw: a response to open-market reforms. Ikea’s entrance into India was made possible by a policy change last year that allows some retailers to own 100% of their Indian businesses. Before, single-brand retailers were allowed to own only 51% of a partnership with an Indian company. The change is significant, since it could open India, one of the last big consumer markets of the world, to many of the biggest retailers that were previously shut out, said Urjit Patel, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution based in Mumbai. MORE: Muhtar Kent’s new Coke Coke is another example. The world’s largest soft drink maker has had a turbulent history in the country. It first began selling its products in India in 1955, but left in 1977 when government regulations changed and required company to have a local partner and hand over its secret ingredients. Coke returned in 1993 after India liberalized its economy, which included changing rules allowing for wholly owned subsidiaries. Since then, the company has been particularly bullish on India, having spent some $2 billion since it returned. Clearly what will drive India’s growth won’t just be its growing population and rising incomes. India’s bureaucratic government and unpredictable market regulations have been a gamble for many companies. At a visit to Fortune in January, Honeywell CEO Dave Cote said: “I have no math to support this, but I have always felt that just government bureaucracy cost India three GDP points a year. And I am a fan of the country.” While the number of foreign investments in 2011 rose by 20% to 932 projects over the previous year, the average deal was worth only $63 million – lower than the average $73 million in 2007, according to Ernst & Young. As more restrictions disappear, more deals will be made. Ironically enough, if history repeats itself, a flux of market reforms might emerge in the coming years – just as they did two decades ago when India underwent a severe economic slowdown that prompted government officials to push through changes that helped liberalize its economy.

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India slows, becomes investment hotspot?

Why Coca-Cola, Ikea and other big companies are choosing to go into India just as its growth begins to slow.

20150819120432

Foo Fighters rocker Dave Grohl has lived up to his nice guy reputation once again, pulling a crying man out of the audience at a live show to sing the Foo Fighters’ song My Hero to him face-to-face. The singer, wearing a moon boot and holding crutches after breaking his leg earlier in the band’s tour in Gothenburg, Sweden, was performing an acoustic version of the 1998 hit song in Englewood, Colorado. A couple of minutes into the song Grohl began telling what promised to be an emotional story to the crowd. “There’s some cities where we come to play, and we do multiple nights in the same venue,” H\he began before spotting a man who later said his name was Anthony crying a few rows in. “There’s always a person I…. don’t cry mother f-----, I know you’re drunk, don’t cry,” he said, spotting the man. As the crowd and guitarist Pat Smear laughed, Grohl decided he’d found a better story standing right in front of him. “Haha I love you man, look at you,” He told him. “You know what, f--- that speech I was just going to make, I’m saying this s--- to you right now.” “I’m gonna sing this song right in your f----- face, prison style, I’m going man to man.” Anthony appears to attempt to make an escape, before Grohl urges him to come to the front row. With the aid of the crowd he’s carried to the front row, where Grohl tells him to stay before changing his mind. “Bring him up [to the stage], he’s a grown man crying,” he told security. After urging the crowd not to let Anthony cry again, Grohl stands and sings to Anthony, encouraging him to join in throughout. Anthony leaves the stage after thanking the band, having helped add another chapter to the rock n’ roll legend of Dave Grohl. “That’s great thing about a Foo Fighters show. You never know what you’re going to get,” said Grohl, summing up the moment for the crowd. Foo Fighters’ fans have long thought My Hero to be about Grohl’s Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain, though Grohl has, fittingly in this instance, stated the song is about “everyday people”. Do you have any news photos or videos?

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Dave Grohl gives crying fan the show of a lifetime

Foo Fighters rocker Dave Grohl has lived up to his nice guy reputation once again, pulling a crying man out of the audience at a live show to sing the Foo Fighters&rsquo; song My Hero to him face-to-face.

20150823232517

The decision comes after official figures last month showed that inflation in the U.K. fell to its lowest level since May 2000 in December, and is likely to fall even further, according to BoE Governor Mark Carney. Read MoreUK inflation plummets to 14-year low in December The annual rate of consumer price inflation halved to 0.5 percent in December year-on-year, from 1.0 percent in November. Minutes of the rate-setting MPC's January meeting showed that Martin Weale and Ian McCafferty, the committee's two hawks, joined others in voting for no change in rates due to higher risk of prolonged low inflation. Prior to December's meeting, Weale and McCafferty had voted for an increase in rates every month from August. "While Governor Carney has recently warned that interest rates might go up sooner than are currently expected, there is absolutely no chance that this will come today, and probably not for the remainder of this year," said Robert Kuenzel, director of euro area economic research at Daiwa Capital Markets. Read MoreBoE's Carney slams euro zone austerity Meanwhile, data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and Nielsen released Wednesday showed that the U.K. is now battling the deepest level of food deflation on record. "For twenty-one consecutive months, prices in Britain's shops have fallen, this month by -1.3 percent," BRC Director General, Helen Dickinson, said. "It's the second time in three months that we've seen food prices fall, accelerating to their lowest levels on record." "Our view is that rates will begin to rise in fourth quarter this year but any guidance from the central bank will help to shape our views. We stand by our view that despite the fall in the short-term inflation outlook and a number of surprises from a number of central banks, restarting the BoE QE programme is not on the cards," chief economist at Investec, Philip Shaw said.

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Bank of England leave rates as inflation weighs

The Bank of England left its benchmark interest rate unchanged Thursday, as the prolonged risk of stubbornly low inflation makes a hike in 2015 less likely.

20150824114005

Start-ups nowadays present a greater risk to investors because they're getting too much money before maturing as companies, Bill Gurley said Friday. "The problem that's driving the risk is just the large amounts of money that are going into these nascent private companies," the general partner at Benchmark told CNBC's "Squawk Alley." "If you go back 10 to 15 years ago, it was very rare for any company to raise more than, say, $50 million prior to their IPO. Now we're cramming hundreds of millions of dollars into companies that are very early-staged." The Wall Street Journal reported on Feb. 18 that there are 73 start-ups valued at at least $1 billion around the world. Gurley added that receiving large amounts of money at such an early stage can ultimately cripple startups down the road. "The money that goes in piles up in terms of liquidation preference and eventually that turns into such a big weight that they can't get more financing. You saw that with Aereo," he said. Read MoreThe unicornification of Silicon Valley continues Aereo, a company that provided live television streaming on Internet-connected devices, filed for bankruptcy last November and raised about $2 million from its assets auction this week. Hopefully, if we get five to 10 of those, people will start acting a little more sane," he also said. Nevertheless, Gurley said he believed this trend would continue. "From my point of view, it's better if we don't accelerate the stupidity. If that happens, we're going to have a really big correction. I'd rather see something that's more pragmatic."

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Gurley: Here’s the problem with start-ups today

Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark, said Friday what he believes is the biggest problem presented by start-ups today.

20150927120339

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 02, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MIR3®, Inc., the innovator of real-time Intelligent Notification (IN™) and response technology, and Fusion Risk Management, Inc., provider of the innovative and award-winning Fusion Framework® Continuity Risk Management System™, today announced the companies will officiate as gold co-sponsors of the Disaster Recovery Journal Fall World 2015 conference. Fall World 2015 is the premier business continuity conference in the nation and will take place in San Diego, California, at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel, from September 27 to 30. DRJ Fall World 2015 will abound in educational and networking opportunities for attendees of all experience levels, with general sessions for all and breakout sessions rated by experience. On Monday morning, recognized industry experts Ann Pickren, chief operating officer of MIR3, and David Nolan, chief executive officer of Fusion Risk Management, will lead the conference general session: Flourish, Flounder or Fail? The Relationships You Cultivate Can Make or Break You! On Monday evening, the companies will co-host the DRJ hospitality event with a tropical beach party including music, cocktails, and dinner on the Promenade Plaza at the conference hotel. “Fall World is the recognized place for business continuity and resilience professionals to gather, share ideas and learn about the latest developments in BC/DR,” said Ann Pickren. “Together with MIR3 we’re proud to share new approaches, real-world insights, and industry-leading technologies to address today’s business continuity challenges,” said David Nolan. “The unique integration of Fusion’s business continuity management software with MIR3 notification systems offers the game-changing solutions BC/DR practitioners seek out at Fall World.” MIR3 and Fusion Risk Management will be featured on the exhibition floor and in vendor conference rooms to meet with attendees and share live demonstrations of the Intelligent Notification system (booth #415) and Fusion Framework software (booth #408). MIR3 will be awarding prizes that include Harman Kardon Esquire Mini Portable Wireless Speakers, and providing their latest white paper, Best Practices in Using a Notification System. About MIR3 MIR3, Inc. is the leading developer of Intelligent Notification and response software, which helps companies and organizations enhance communication, protect assets, and increase operational efficiency. MIR3 technology enables advanced rapid, two-way communication for IT, business continuity, and enterprise operations for many of the Global Fortune 100 companies, as well as government entities, universities and companies of all sizes in countries around the globe. For more information, visit www.mir3.com. Follow MIR3 on Twitter: @MIR3. About Fusion Risk ManagementFusion Risk Management, Inc. provides the innovative and award-winning Fusion Framework Continuity Risk Management System, the most advanced and easy to use system for operational risk management and contingency planning, as well as world-class advisory consulting services across Business Continuity, Crisis/Incident Management, IT Disaster Recovery, IT Risk Management, Vendor Risk Management, and more. Founded in 2006 by leading industry executives, Fusion provides software and services to enterprise organizations, and establishes innovative partnerships to deliver transformational solutions. Fusion is an ISV Application Partner of Salesforce.com and the Fusion Framework System is built on the Force.com platform. Fusion is headquartered in Rolling Meadows, IL. Visit us on the Web at www.fusionrm.com, call +1 (847) 632-1002, and find us on the Salesforce.com AppExchange at http://sforce.co/1UnmmF0. MIR3 CONTACT: Maryann Dow MIR3, Inc. 858.369.7335 Maryann.Dow@mir3.com

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MIR3 Joins With Fusion Risk Management as Gold Sponsor of DRJ Fall World 2015

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 02, 2015-- MIR3 ®, Inc., the innovator of real-time Intelligent Notification and response technology, and Fusion Risk Management, Inc., provider of the innovative and award-winning Fusion Framework ® Continuity Risk Management System™, today announced the companies will officiate as gold co-sponsors of the Disaster Recovery Journal Fall...

20151018021359

Francis Alÿs is running across a field, chasing a tornado that whirls and whips and plumes into the clear Mexican sky. It is a small tornado, it must be said, but big enough to engulf trees, and any passing Belgian that gets in its path: a storm of dust, stones, clods of earth, straw and animal droppings. The artist pants across the dry earth with his handheld camera and steps right into the the thunderous sizzle and roar, the no-visibility brown-out. Inside the vortex there is a sudden momentary stillness, as he stands in a column of dead air, before being pelted once again by the infernal dust. Time and again he races towards these high-altitude tornadoes before disappearing. Tornado is an almost hour-long video, as gripping as it is terrifying. Here comes another one; there he goes again. Eventually, we glimpse the artist, bruised and gulping for air, prone in the dust. Filmed over 10 years, it is the latest and most surprising work in a new show that focuses on the Antwerp-born artist's actions and performances. Alÿs never struck me as a brave guy. He is probably best known in the UK for the exhibition he mounted at the National Portrait Gallery last year, of over 200 amateur portraits of Saint Fabiola, collected from auctions and thrift stores, all based on a lost 19th-century original by Jean-Jacques Henner. The collection is still touring the world. On another occasion, Alÿs released a wild fox into the same gallery, to lope and wander through the rooms at night, followed by CCTV security cameras. Like a fox, Alÿs does a lot of walking and standing about and watching, making understated films and videos, as well as genial little paintings and jerky, hand-drawn animations. Tate Modern's exhibition is a delight: thought-provoking, funny and full of pathos, as well as danger. I have seen other survey shows of his work, but none as good as this. It begins with a film of a mirage quivering on a Patagonian road and ends on a similarly quiet note, with a short animation of a woman pouring liquid from one glass to another, and back again, to a quietly lilting song. In between, there are marching bands, the wail of police sirens, shouts and silences, like that stillness at the centre of the tornado. One room is entirely dedicated to silence, with rubber tiles deadening the sound of one's footfalls, each tile decorated with a picture of a finger raised to the lips, like a sign in some old-fashioned library. Alÿs has lived in Mexico City since the mid 1990s, and many of his works take place in the city's teeming streets and around the Plaza de la Constitución, a huge paved piazza with a very tall flagpole at its centre. He has shepherded sheep around this flagpole, to the sound of church bells; he has filmed the city's itinerant workers queuing in its shadow, as it sweeps like a sundial through the long day. He has even queued with the artisan plumbers, electricians and housepainters who stand there with their painted signs, offering their services for hire. Alÿs had his own sign: Tourist, it read. What can a tourist offer apart from an outsider's bewilderment, a guidebook's secondhand knowledge, ignorance and cultural misunderstanding? A tourist can always go home, but Alÿs decided to stay in Mexico City for decades. Once, he pushed a large block of ice through the streets, skidding and sliding till all that was left was a dirty pebble melting on the greasy tarmac. Sweating through the streets, you think he might evaporate, too, and that what we are watching is a man performing his own insignificance and futility. But I also imagine his persistence as a walking anecdote: "Did you see that stupid gringo, pushing that block of ice?" Alÿs is a perpetual gringo, whether walking through Mexico, running a stick across the railings in front of posh London houses, or trailing a line of green paint from a leaking can through divided Jerusalem, following the invisible Green Line. Another time, Alÿs walked into a Mexican gun shop and bought himself a pistol, cocked it and carried it in full view through the streets, walking fast, the gun aimed at the sidewalk. He looks like a man intent on some murderous purpose. In the end, the cops roar up and he is bundled into the patrol car. We watch this performance – if performance it is – twice, on two adjacent screens, the action on the righthand screen emblazoned with the word re-enactment. Alÿs, one decides, is foolhardy rather than brave. He walks a fine line between public nuisance and menace, holy fool and extremely annoying person. There is something about his height (he is well over 2m tall), his gangling lope and faux-naive innocence that not only allows him to get away with such acts, but also to persuade others to go along with his schemes. In 2002, he persuaded several hundred students and locals to arm themselves with shovels and attempt to move a huge sand dune on the outskirts of Lima, Peru; they shuffled in line over the dune, shovelling the sand in front of them as they went. Of course, it didn't work. There's more to When Faith Moves Mountains than mere absurdity. All that effort was an attempt at collectivity, and meant to highlight the possibility of co-ordinating some kind of urbanism among the dunes and the uncontrolled, ramshackle, ad-hoc housing developments around the Peruvian capital. People do daft things all the time, but it doesn't often make for meaningful art. In Alÿs's case, it does. He once crossed the border between Mexico and the US by going the long way round – an entire Phileas Fogg-style circumnavigation, in order to bypass the border crossing of a few heavily policed yards. He recently returned from Kabul, where he took part in a UN-sponsored NGO mission to decide what to do about the Bamiyan Buddhas, the pre-Islamic Buddhist monuments blown up by the Taliban in 2001. The world is full of painful absurdities, and in his art Alÿs celebrates hope and the power of the imagination, in the face of misery and iniquity. Here comes the mariachi band, with farting trombones, wailing trumpets and clashing cymbals, sweatily orchestrating Alÿs's repeated attempts to drive a VW beetle up a steep unmade road to the brow of a hill, somewhere in Tijuana. The band strikes up, gathers itself, sets off full of hope and bravura, and as the car runs out of steam so does the band. The music wilts, dies and then the car sets off again, full of purpose, going nowhere. Weirdly, hilariously, it is an inspiration.

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Francis Alÿs treads the thin green line

Artist Francis Alÿs has poured paint through Israeli border controls, leapt into tornadoes and attempted to move mountains. Is he brave or stupid? Adrian Searle finds out in an inspiring new show of his work

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Community members gather in prayer during a candlelight vigil to honor the victims of the mass shootings at the Inland Regional Center Threats and attacks against Muslims have increased since the Dec. 2 , when two shooters killed 14 people and injured 21, according to advocacy groups. and San Bernardino, threats and attacks directed at the Muslim community around the country have escalated on the ground, online and in the public discourse," Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, tells PEOPLE. "The Anti-Defamation League has tracked well over three dozen threats, attacks and other incidents directed toward the American Muslim Community," he says. The San Bernardino shooters, identified as married couple , were killed in a shootout with police following their killing spree. Both were radicalized "for some time" before the shooting in San Bernardino, FBI Assistant Director David Bowdich confirmed at a Bowdich emphasized that, as of yet, the FBI has found no evidence to suggest that the plot was planned in conjunction with people outside of the United States. As a result of the San Bernardino shooting and the Nov. 13 Paris terror attack that left 130 dead and 352 injured, "violent incidents, such as the shooting of a taxi driver in Pittsburgh by a passenger ranting about ISIS, are particularly shocking," says Greenblatt. "Still, threats or symbolic attacks, such as the one that occurred in Philadelphia when a pig's head was thrown at a mosque, can be particularly chilling as well," he says. "Furthermore, the Sikh community continues to be victimized by the ignorance of anti-Muslim forces." Corey Saylor, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says that, "As of right now, 2015 has been the worst on record since we started tracking in terms of mosque incidents. "In recent weeks, someone drove past a mosque in Connecticut and put bullets through the front of it," he adds. "Someone smeared feces all over a mosque in Texas." He says there was a spike in incidents against Muslims after the Paris terror attacks. "Then the San Bernardino shootings happened and anecdotally it feels like it got worse. I think it's the worst period since 9/11. People are getting targeted just for looking wrong." Saylor and others say comments by and other presidential candidates about Muslims are helping to spread fear against them. "When you have Trump, Ben Carson, Rick Santorum and others who have a national platform spreading the kind of fear that ISIS is looking for, that is just doing the job for them. ISIS clearly wants us to turn on each other and keeps doing everything it can to make that happen," Saylor says. "In my understanding, from talking to national security experts, ISIS wants Muslims to feel alienated so that it will swell their ranks," he adds. To combat this, citizens should reach out to their legislators, write op-ed pieces and participate in social media "to show that fear mongering won't work," says Saylor. In light of the recent attacks, Americans fear terrorism and mass shootings more than ever, according to the Three-quarters of Americans say that terrorism is a critical issue in the country, the poll says, and more than half of Americans also say Muslims haven’t done enough to fight extremism in their own communities. Even so, says Greenblatt, "No community should ever feel threatened because of who they are or what their religious beliefs are," says Greenblatt. "When any community is fearful about their safety and security, then no community is safe."

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Harassment Against Muslims Increases After San Bernardino Massacre : People.com

Incidents of violence and hostility are rising as Americans fear terrorism and mass shootings more than ever, according to a new poll

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A man has died after a tree fell onto a moving car during a severe storm lashing Sydney this afternoon. The man was a passenger in the car when the tree fell on it as it travelled easterly on Nepean Street in Emu Plains just after 2pm. He died at the scene, while the female driver was taken to Westmead Hospital in a critical condition with pelvic and abdominal injuries. The man died at the scene. (9NEWS) Trees have been downed across Sydney in heavy winds. (9NEWS) For the latest on power outages, visit the Ausgrid alerts page. CCTV from a nearby storage facility showed the full force of the damaging winds, as a wall collapsed and a roof was lifted from a structure under the strain of heavy gusts. A home in Mount Druitt was badly damaged after a fell through the home's facade, narrowly missing an 84-year-old woman inside. East Hills Girls High School was damaged by fire. (Laura Ashleigh) Lightning is also believed to have sparked a fire which tore though a section of East Hills Girls High School in Panania. The Princes Highway in Rockdale was closed after a section of a building collapsed onto the street. Energy provider Ausgrid is working to restore power across the state, with at least 38,000 homes left without electricity at one point this afternoon. Motorists are advised to delay travel where possible and take care as the storm passes over. The collapsed building facade in Rockdale. (Gorana Coric) A fallen tree damaged a home in Mount Druitt. (9NEWS) • Rockdale: the Princes Highway remains closed in both directions due to a partial building collapse at Bestic Street. • Blakehurst: fallen wires are causing heavy northbound traffic near Blake Avenue. • Hammondville: Fallen trees are causing hazards for motorists at several locations on Heathcote Road. • Wetherill Park: The Horsley Drive is closed in both directions between the M7 and Ferrers Road due to fallen trees. • Clarendon: Hawkesbury Valley Way is closed in both directions between Moses Street and Percival Street due to a fallen tree. • Cranebrook: The Northern Road has reopened after being closed southbound due to a fallen tree earlier. A man has died after tree fell on a car in Emu Plains. (9NEWS) Earlier, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for south west Sydney. Wind gusts of up to 96km/h were detected at Camden Airport and up to 122km/h at Sydney Airport. A severe thunderstorm warning is now in place for Sydney. Fairfield, Leppington and Liverpool are expected to bear the brunt of the wild weather. Thunderstorms are also set to hit the Central Tablelands, Hunter and Illawarra regions this evening. It follows a spate of wild weather at the beginning of 2016 that saw the heaviest rain in the city since April last year and flooding that devastated the state’s mid-north coast and Hunter region. The warning area as of 2pm AEDT. The Bureau of Meteorology said that despite today’s heat, a forecast of light north-westerly winds reaching speeds of about 20-35km/h meant any fire danger was likely to stay in the low-moderate range. The BOM advises beachgoers seeking respite from the heat to take extreme protective measures in the sun, with the UV Index expected to reach an extreme level. Full warning from the Bureau of Meteorology. (Visit the BoM site here for updated details) The State Emergency Service advises that people should: * Move your car under cover or away from trees. * Secure or put away loose items around your house, yard and balcony. * Keep clear of fallen power lines. * Keep clear of creeks and storm drains. * Don't walk, ride your bike or drive through flood water. * If you are trapped by flash flooding, seek refuge in the highest available place and ring 000 if you need rescue. * Unplug computers and appliances. * Avoid using the phone during the storm. * Stay indoors away from windows, and keep children and pets indoors as well. * For emergency help in floods and storms, ring the SES (NSW and ACT) on 132 500.

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Man dies after tree falls onto car in Sydney storms

Sydneysiders are already sweltering with temperatures nudging 40 degrees today - but relief will be swift, with the city likely to receive a downpour and thunderstorm late this afternoon.

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03/31/2016 AT 11:50 AM EDT is under fire from Democrats and Republicans alike for his suggestion Wednesday that women who undergo abortions should face punishment if the U.S. bans the procedure. Trump later walked back his comments in a statement saying that the doctors who perform abortions should be held responsible, rather than the women who obtain them – but by then the backlash was already well under way. was one of the first to condemn Trump's comments, taking to Twitter to say: "Just when you thought it couldn't get worse. Horrific and telling. -H" She followed up with a barrage of tweets about Trump and women's health care, including one reminding voters that "Trump isn't that different from every other Republican candidate who would also outlaw abortion." Clinton later told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow in an interview that Trump "would make both women and doctors criminals." "What he said today is among the most dangerous and outrageous statements that I've heard anybody running for president say in a really long time," the former secretary of state added. also blasted Trump on Twitter Wednesday, writing, "Your Republican frontrunner, ladies and gentlemen. Shameful." in response to the billionaire businessman's abortion remarks. The Vermont senator, who also sat down with Maddow Wednesday night, said calling Trump's comments " 'shameful' is probably understating that position. To punish a woman for having an abortion is beyond comprehension … One would say, 'What is in Donald Trump's mind?' – except we're tired of saying that. I don't know what world this person lives in." The attacks poured in from Trump's GOP rivals as well, with Ohio Gov. John Kasich releasing a statement saying, "The past 24 hours revealed in the clearest way yet that Donald Trump is not prepared to be president." Thursday morning, Kasich hit Trump again for his "irresponsible" comments on abortion, nuclear weapons, the Supreme Court and the Geneva Conventions. "It's like a panoply of mistakes and outrageous statements," Kasich said. "You know what it is with Donald? It's just a stream of consciousness … you can't operate like this." The Twitterverse also had some thoughts on Trump's abortion stance: some form of punishment in addition to living under a trump presidency might violate the eighth amendment ...patronizing, insulting, infantilizing public debate about YOUR BODY isn't punishment enough. https://t.co/pKAQdOeXTq There has to be some form of punishment for people who say there has to be some form of punishment for women who have abortions. trump's punishment for women having abortions will be turning your womb into a TRUMP WOMB. big gold letters and it goes bankrupt in a year obviously Trump was saying the punishment for the woman should come if abortion were made illegal. Which he says he favors. Even GOP hopeful Ted Cruz faulted Trump's abortion comments, tweeting on Wednesday, "We shouldn't be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and gift to bring life into the world." The Texas senator also released a statement saying, "Once again Donald Trump has demonstrated that he hasn't seriously thought through the issues, and he'll say anything just to get attention. On the important issue of the sanctity of life, what's far too often neglected is that being pro-life is not simply about the unborn child; it's also about the mother – and creating a culture that respects her and embraces life. Of course we shouldn't be talking about punishing women; we should affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world."

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Backlash from Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz : People.com

"What he said today is among the most dangerous and outrageous statements that I've heard anybody running for president say in a really long time," Hillary Clinton said of Donald Trump's controversial comments on abortion

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Before you go, we thought you'd like these... According to Stephen Hawking, the human race is in danger of being wiped out in the next 100 years, and it's all our own fault. According to the BBC, the physicist says he believes humanity will face dangerous scenarios of our own making during the next century, including nuclear war, global warming and genetically-engineered viruses. See more of Hawking through the years: Stephen Hawking: Humans may not survive another 100 years PRINCETON, NJ - OCTOBER 10: Cosmologist Stephen Hawking on October 10, 1979 in Princeton, New Jersey. (Photo by Santi Visalli/Getty Images) Stephen Hawking (born in 1942), British mathematician and scientist, 1989. (Photo by Jean-Regis Rouston/Roger Viollet/Getty Images) Professor Stephen Hawking poses for a photograph in his office at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, U.K, in April 1991. Hawking has written countless scientific papers as well as books, receiving 12 honorary degrees and becoming Cambridge's Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a post held by Sir Isaac Newton over 300 years earlier. (Photo by Bryn Colton/Getty Images) SF.Hawking.1.bv.2Â5/PASADENA  Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking in his Cal Tech office. (Photo by Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) (GERMANY OUT) - COL*08.01.1942-Physiker, Mathematiker, Grossbritannien- Porträt (Photo by LS-PRESS/ullstein bild via Getty Images) LONDON - DECEMBER 16: (EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION IN UK TABLOID NEWSPAPERS UNTIL 48 HOURS AFTER CREATE DATE AND TIME) Scientist Stephen Hawking and wife Elaine Mason arrive at the European Premiere of 'Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events' at the Empire Leicester Square on December 16, 2004 in London. (Photo by Dave Benett/Getty Images) OVIEDO, SPAIN: British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking gives his conference to open the XXV Prince of Asturias Awards Anniversary event in Oviedo, Northern Spain, 12April 2005. Stephen Hawking won the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord in 1989. AFP PHOTO / Miguel RIOPA (Photo credit should read MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP/Getty Images) FRANKFURT, GERMANY - OCTOBER 19: Professor Stephen Hawking (L) and his wife Elaine Mason attend the international bookfair on October 19, 2005 in Frankfurt, Germany. South Korea is the guest of honour at the 57th annual Frankfurt Book Fair where 270.000 people are expected to visit the world's most important book fair, and 7000 exhibitors from 100 countries are present. (Photo by Ralph Orlowski/Getty Images) FRANKFURT/MAIN, Germany: British physicist Stephen Hawking visits his German publisher Rowohlt's stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair 19 October 2005. The Frankfurt book fair opened its doors for the 57th time with the focus on authors from the Korean peninsula, but the presence of some 60 writers from the South and none from the North spoke as much of politics as literature. AFP PHOTO DDP/THOMAS LOHNES GERMANY OUT (Photo credit should read THOMAS LOHNES/AFP/Getty Images) BEIJING, CHINA - JUNE 18: (CHINA OUT) Cosmologist Stephen Hawking visits the Temple of Heaven on June 18, 2006, in Beijing, China. Hawking has arrived in Beijing prior to his lecture at the Great Hall of the People today where he will discuss the origins of the universe at the Strings 2006 International Conference, hosted by the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Theoretical Physics. The conference runs from June 19 ?24 at the Beijing Friendship Hotel. (Photo by ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images) BEIJING - JUNE 19: (CHINA OUT) British scientist Stephen Hawking, delivers a lecture entitled 'The Origin of the Universe' at the Great Hall of the People June 19, 2006 in Beijing, China. British scientist Stephen Hawking is also visiting Beijing to attend the conference on the riddle of string theory which, if solved, could help unlock the mysteries of black holes and the creation of the universe, according to reports. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images) BEIJING - JUNE 21: British scientist Stephen Hawking attends a conference during the 2006 International Conference on String Theory on June 21, 2006 in Beijing, China. Hawking is visiting Beijing to attend the conference on the riddle of string theory which, if solved, could help unlock the mysteries of black holes and the creation of the universe, according to reports. (Photo by Cancan Chu/Getty Images) JERUSALEM, -: British scientist Stephen Hawking is helped to turn his head as he arrives 10 December 2006 at the Israeli premier's offices to meet with Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. Hawking is in Jerusalem for a lecture at the Bloomfield Museum of Science. AFP PHOTO/Yoav LEMMER (Photo credit should read YOAV LEMMER/AFP/Getty Images) LONDON - JANUARY 17: Professor Stephen Hawking delivers his speech at the release of the 'Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' on January 17, 2007 in London, Ebgland. A group of scientists assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have moved the Doomsday Clock forward two minutes closer to midnight as an indication and warning of the threats of nuclear war and climate change. (Photo by Bruno Vincent/Getty Images) KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, UNITED STATES: British cosmologist Stephen Hawking(L) has his communication device adjusted by an aide at a pre-flight press conference 26 April 2007 at Kennedy Space Center, FLorida. Hawking, who has spent his career pondering the nature of gravity from a wheelchair, is set to experience weightlessness during a 'vomit comet' flight in Florida Thursday. The idea is to give 'the world's expert on gravity the opportunity to experience zero gravity' said Peter Diamandis the chief executive of the Zero Gravity Corporation. Hawking, 65, the British author of the blockbuster 'A Brief History of Time,' will be surrounded by a medical team on the padded plane as it flies a roller-coaster trajectory to produce periods of weightlessness. AFP PHOTO / ROBERT SULLIVAN (Photo credit should read ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP/Getty Images) KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, UNITED STATES: British cosmologist Stephen Hawking passes well wishers before boarding a plane 26 April 2007 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Hawking, who has spent his career pondering the nature of gravity from a wheelchair, is set to experience weightlessness during a 'vomit comet' flight in Florida Thursday. The idea is to give 'the world's expert on gravity the opportunity to experience zero gravity' said Peter Diamandis the chief executive of the Zero Gravity Corporation. Hawking, 65, the British author of the blockbuster 'A Brief History of Time,' will be surrounded by a medical team on the padded plane as it flies a roller-coaster trajectory to produce periods of weightlessness. AFP PHOTO / ROBERT SULLIVAN (Photo credit should read ROBERT SULLIVAN/AFP/Getty Images) Professor Stephen Hawking gives a lecture entitled 'Why We Should Go Into Space' during the 50 Years of NASA lecture series at George Washington University in Washington, DC, April 21, 2008. AFP PHOTO/Jim WATSON (Photo credit should read JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images) South Africa former President Nelson Mandela (R) meets with British scientist Professor Stephen Hawking (L) in Johannesburg on May 15, 2008. Hawking, who has devoted his career to finding the origins of the universe, is in the country to begin a search for Africa?s answer to Einstein. Some of the world?s leading high-tech entrepreneurs and scientists have backed a ?75m plan to create Africa?s first postgraduate centres for advanced math and physics, after the British government declined to provide funding. AFP Photo/Denis Farrell / POOL (Photo credit should read DENIS FARRELL/AFP/Getty Images) (FILES) British scientist Stephen Hawking attends the 2008 Cambridge Honnorary Degrees 2008's procession on June 23, 2008 at Cambridge University in east England. Renowned British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has bet 100 dollars (70 euros) that a mega-experiment this week will not find an elusive particle seen as a holy grail of cosmic science, he said Tuesday September 9, 2008. In the most complex scientific experiment ever undertaken, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will be switched on Wednesday, accelerating sub-atomic particles to nearly the speed of light before smashing them together. AFP PHOTO/SHAUN CURRY/FILES (Photo credit should read SHAUN CURRY/AFP/Getty Images) WASHINGTON - AUGUST 12: U.S. President Barack Obama (R) presents the Medal of Freedom to physicist Stephen Hawking during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House August 12, 2009 in Washington, DC. Obama presented the medal, the highest civilian honor in the United States, to 16 recipients during the ceremony. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) US President Barack Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to British theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking during a ceremony in the East Room at the White House on August 12, 2009. Obama awarded 16 individuals the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor. AFP PHOTO/Jewel SAMAD (Photo credit should read JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images) PASADENA, CA - JANUARY 14: Scientist Stephen Hawking of 'Into The Universe With Stephen Hawking' speaks via satellite during the Science Channel portion of the 2010 Television Critics Association Press Tour at the Langham Hotel on January 14, 2010 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images) NEW YORK - JUNE 02: Physicist Stephen Hawking onstage during the 2010 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on June 2, 2010 in New York City. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images) Physicist Stephen Hawking attends the 2010 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center on June 2, 2010 in New York City. LOS ANGELES - MARCH 9: 'The Hawking Excitation' -- When Wolowitz gets to work with Stephen Hawking (left), Sheldon (Jim Parsons, right) is willing to do anything to meet his hero, on THE BIG BANG THEORY, Thursday, April 5 (8:00-8:31 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. (Photo by Sonja Flemming/CBS via Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND - AUGUST 29: Professor Stephen Hawking speaks during the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympics at the Olympic Stadium on August 29, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking poses for a picture ahead of a gala screening of the documentary 'Hawking', a film about the scientist's life, at the opening night of the Cambridge Film Festival in Cambridge, eastern England on September 19, 2013. Hawking tells the extraordinary tale of how he overcame severe disability to become the most famous living scientist in a new documentary film premiered in Britain. AFP PHOTO / ANDREW COWIE (Photo credit should read ANDREW COWIE/AFP/Getty Images) British actor Eddie Redmayne (R) pose with British scientist Stephen Hawking (L) at the UK premiere of the film 'The Theory of Everything' in London on December 9, 2014. The film is based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, by Jane Hawking, and stars Eddie Redmayne protraying the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking. AFP PHOTO / JUSTIN TALLIS (Photo credit should read JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP/Getty Images) LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - DECEMBER 09: (EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION IN UK NEWSPAPERS UNTIL 48 HOURS AFTER CREATE DATE AND TIME) Professor Stephen Hawking attends the UK Premiere of 'The Theory Of Everything' at Odeon Leicester Square on December 9, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images) LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 08: Lucy Hawking and Stephen Hawking attend the EE British Academy Film Awards at The Royal Opera House on February 8, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage) LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 18: The world's best know scientist Professor Stephen Hawking takes VisitLondon.com's Official Guest of Honour Adaeze Uyanwah on a personal guided tour of his favourite places in the city's famous Science Museum on February 18, 2015 in London, England. On the tour Professor Hawking said he was pleased to lend his synthesised 'voice' to actor Eddie Redmayne for his Oscar-nominated performance in The Theory of Everything but added ' unfortunatley Eddie did not inherit my good looks.' (Photo by Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for London & Partners) LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 30: (SUN NEWSPAPER OUT. MANDATORY CREDIT PHOTO BY DAVE J. HOGAN GETTY IMAGES REQUIRED) Stephen Hawking attends 'Interstellar Live' at Royal Albert Hall on March 30, 2015 in London, England. (Photo by Dave J Hogan/Getty Images) And he told the Radio Times further progress in science and technology could increase that risk. "We are not going to stop making progress, or reverse it, so we must [recognize] the dangers and control them." Of course, Hawking has voiced his concerns on this topic before. Just last year, he warned that artificial intelligence could wipe out the human race. These latest comments come just days before Hawking is scheduled to give this year's BBC Reith Lectures, which will explore research into black holes. The first part of the lecture will air on BBC Radio 4 Jan. 26, and you can catch part two Feb. 2. RELATED: See incredible photos taken of Earth from space Stephen Hawking: Humans may not survive another 100 years A large lightning strike on Earth lights up solar panels on the International Space Station in this NASA picture taken by astronaut Kjell Lindgren released September 2, 2015. REUTERS/NASA/Kjell Lindgren/Handout via Reuters THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. IT IS DISTRIBUTED, EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS A photo taken by Expedition 46 flight engineer Tim Peake of the European Space Agency (ESA) aboard the International Space Station shows Italy, the Alps, and the Mediterranean on January, 25, 2016. REUTERS/NASA/Tim Peake/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS A photo taken by European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Tim Peake aboard the International Space Station shows an Aurora over northern Canada, taken from a point just north of Vancouver, January 20, 2016. The Canadian Rockies, Banff and Jasper national parks are visible in the foreground. The Bright lights of Edmonton, Red Deer and Calgary (left of center) are also visible. REUTERS/NASA/Tim Peake/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, home to Super Bowl 50, as seen from the International Space Station, February 7, 2016. Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly, who took the photo, wrote, "Got to see the #SuperBowl in person after all! But at 17,500MPH, it didn't last long." REUTERS/NASA/Scott Kelly/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS The robotic arm in Japan's Kibo laboratory successfully deploys two combined satellites from Texas universities from the International Space Station, January 29, 2016. The pair of satellites -- AggieSat4 built by Texas A&M University students, and BEVO-2 built by University of Texas students -- together form the Low Earth Orbiting Navigation Experiment for Spacecraft Testing Autonomous Rendezvous and Docking (LONESTAR) investigation. REUTERS/NASA/Tim Peake/Handout ATTENTION EDITORS - FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS Scott Kelly ‏(@StationCDRKelly): "Day 256. #MilkyWay births 7 new stars a year, so 2 star births to go. #GoodNight from @space_station! #YearInSpace" Scott Kelly (‏@StationCDRKelly): "#EarthArt Get over your mountains with rock and grit. #YearInSpace" Scott Kelly ‏(@StationCDRKelly): "Day 251. Greetings to my friends in #Macedonia. #GoodNight from @space_station! @kevinbleyer" Scott Kelly ‏(@StationCDRKelly): "#Auckland #NewZealand, Sorry we don't see you much during your day but you look great down there. #YearInSpace" NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, who recently past the halfway mark of his one-year mission on the International Space Station, photographed the Nile River during a nighttime flyover. Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) wrote, "Day 179. The #Nile at night is a beautiful sight for these sore eyes. Good night from @space_station! #YearInSpace." (Photo via NASA) NASA astronaut Scott Kelly captured images and video from the International Space Station during an early morning flyover of the United States. Sharing with his social media followers, Kelly wrote, "Clear skies over much of the USA today. #GoodMorning from @Space_Station! #YearInSpace." (Photo via NASA) An astronaut aboard the International Space Station took this photograph of small island cays in the Bahamas and the prominent tidal channels cutting between them. For astronauts, this is one of the most recognizable points on the planet. The string of cays — stretching 14.24 kilometers (8.9 miles) in this image — extends west from Great Exuma Island (just outside the image to the right). Exuma is known for being remote from the bigger islands of The Bahamas, and it is rich with privately owned cays and with real pirate history (including Captain Kidd). (Photo via NASA, Caption via M. Justin Wilkinson, Texas State University, Jacobs Contract at NASA-JSC) Kjell Lindgren (@astro_kjell): "#London. Beautiful in the daylight, even prettier at night." Pico de Orizaba, Mexico (NASA, International Space Station, 02/10/11) Photo: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Flickr Brasilia, Brazil at Night (NASA, International Space Station, 01/08/11) Photo: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Flickr Ice Floes, Kamchatka Coast, Russia (NASA, International Space Station, 03/15/12) Photo: NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center/Flickr Nile river viewed from space Japan, Narita, View of earth. (Photo by: JTB/UIG via Getty Images) (Photo by: JTB Photo/UIG via Getty Images) The Yarlung Zangpo Grand Canyon (or Tsangpo Gorge) in Tibet is the deepest canyon in the world, and longer than the Grand Canyon. February 25, 2004. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) The city of Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland, and lies along the Firth of Forth. April 29, 2006. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) The place in the United States where four states come together: the four corners area in the western United States. The states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico share a common point. June 11, 2001. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) Salzkammergut, Austria. Large parts of the region were listed as a World Heritage Site in 1997. June 22, 2003. Satellite image. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images) UNITED STATES - JULY 18: A view of the Earth during a solar eclipse. The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth. This shadow moves across the Earth at nearly 2,000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse - others see a partial eclipse where only part of the Sun appears blocked by the Moon. This spectacular picture of the Aug. 11, 1999 solar eclipse was one of the last ever taken from the Mir space station. Mir was decommissioned after more than ten years of use. *Image Credit*: Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (Photo by NASA/SSPL/Getty Images) IN SPACE - AUGUST 31: In this satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Tropical Storm Ernesto (R) is shown at 9:45 am EDT is shown east of northern Florida while Hurricane John heads towards Mexico's west coast August 31, 2006. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images) AUGUST 11: This satellite handout from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows Tropical Storm Charley bearing down on Jamaica the morning of August 11, 2004. The storm is expected to cross through Jamaica and Cuba before making its way into the Gulf of Mexico later in the week. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images) Rub Al Khali, a sand desert South East of Saudi Arabia ; sand dunes are sculptured and moved by the winds, in blue the argillakeeous subsoil, and in white the salt crusts left out by the oueds in the rainy season., Rub Al Khali Desert, Saudi Arabia, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of Oceania with cloud coverage. This image in Lambert Conformal Conic projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Oceania With Cloud Coverage, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of Africa with major rivers. This image in Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Africa With Major Rivers, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of Europe. This image in Lambert Conformal Conic projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Europe, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of Asia with major rivers. This image in Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., Asia With Major Rivers, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of North America with major rivers. This image in Lambert Conformal Conic projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., North America With Major Rivers, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) True colour satellite image of South America. This image in Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area projection was compiled from data acquired by LANDSAT 5 & 7 satellites., South America, True Colour Satellite Image (Photo by Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) UNSPECIFIED : Clouds and sunglint as seen during the STS-96 mission from the Space Shuttle Discovery. (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images) KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, UNITED STATES: A view of the Puna de Atacama area of Argentina 24 Janaury from US space shuttle Endeavour at an altitude of 160 nautical miles as part of EarthKAM involving 51 middle schools from three nations. Endeavour is docked with the Russian space station Mir for five days of joint science operations and transfer of supplies to the Russian space station. AFP PHOTO/NASA (Photo credit should read AFP/AFP/Getty Images) More from AOL.com: Taxi drivers in Hungary demand Uber to be shut down Donald Trump jokes Hillary Clinton sounds like a barking dog Oscars 'heartbroken' over lack of diversity, Academy pledges 'big changes'

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Stephen Hawking: Humans may not survive another 100 years

Professor Stephen Hawking says humans are at risk of a lethal 'own goal', from a series of dangers of our own making.

20160617020530

WHILE high prices are forcing some buyers who would like to live in Manhattan to flee to the other boroughs or to the suburbs, others are finding affordable options at street level, where dwellings commanding a view of the sidewalk sell at steep discounts. The lobby-level apartment is in vogue, though whether it is a bargain hunter's dream or a fool's paradise depends on who's talking. Of course, ground-floor apartments have always been favored for live-work situations, by residents with physical disabilities and by doctors, whose offices account for many street-level units. And the exclusive maisonettes concentrated on Park and Fifth Avenues, joining private street entrances with an attended lobby and other amenities of a full-service building, remain sought-after hybrids between town house and co-op. But in this market, the average ground-floor apartment seems to have a growing appeal, mainly because of still-rising prices. "I've never seen such a period in which people have been open to so many different things," said Donna Olshan, president of Olshan Realty, in part because inventory is the tightest she's seen in 25 years. "The ground-floor apartment is sort of the outer reaches of what people used to consider. The thing about the ground-floor apartment is, it can be a dog or it can be very compelling." The dog factor can include bad light, noise, an awkward layout because of the encroachment of the lobby, and security concerns, which brokers say can discourage women in particular. The most compelling positive factor is the cut-rate price. "If you don't have an issue with a location in the building, you're going to get more space for your money," said Jonathan J. Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc., a Manhattan-based real estate appraiser. He estimates that in an elevator building, a lobby-level apartment with neither a separate entrance nor a garden is worth 10 to 20 percent less than an equivalent apartment on the second floor, and 15 to 25 percent less than an apartment on the third floor. Among the 80 ground-floor residential co-op and condo sales tracked by Mr. Miller's firm last quarter, the average sales price was $767,114, which was 28.3 percent below the $1.07 million average for all apartments. Real estate brokers like Kim Mogul Wright of Douglas Elliman attest to the bargains. Twice in the last two years, Ms. Wright sold the same ground-floor dwelling -- a 1,350-square-foot two-bedroom apartment with a dining room, one-and-a-half baths and a maid's room in a part-time doorman building on West 88th near Riverside. In 2002, her first set of clients paid $602,000 for the prewar space with bedrooms arrayed along a quiet side street. The couple made improvements totaling about $20,000, and Ms. Wright helped them sell last May, for $801,000. "A similar apartment on the third floor sold for $917,000 around the same time, and it needed quite a bit of updating," Ms. Wright said, while a smaller, ninth-floor apartment without a separate dining or maid's room sold for $860,000 a short time later. Even in this market, agents say, bidding wars over ground-floor properties erupt less often -- and at a less-frenzied pitch. Sheila Lokitz, a senior vice president at the Corcoran Group, described as "really cute" the prewar 700-square-foot studio she listed in October at $450,000 in a desirable building on West 69th near Central Park West. It went into contract a month later, after attracting plenty of attention but no bidding war. "If you went by the percentages of the amount of people who came and the amount of offers we had, you would have a lot more offers on another floor," she said. Rentals offer a similar discount. "Typically you can get a 700-square-foot one-bedroom with a garden for maybe $2,100 to $2,200, and the same one-bedroom on a higher floor in an elevator building, without a garden, for $2,400 to $2,600," said Andrew Heiberger, president of Citi Habitats. Renters may also find an extra hook for negotiation in a ground-floor unit. "If there's no gate on a window, you might say you'll put one up but want $50 off the rent," said Ralph Barocas, senior vice president and partner at Rent-Direct.com, an online apartment search service. There are notable exceptions to the ground floor bargains: brownstones and walk-ups. "The higher you go, the lower the value," said Mr. Miller, the appraiser. The first level of a brownstone is valued for its rear garden and by people who would rather not deal with stairs. Still, light often trumps ease of access, especially in walk-up apartments. "In a walk-up, higher floors get more light," said Ms. Lokitz of Corcoran. "My customers have always wanted light." With natural light sometimes reduced to cavelike proportions, ground-floor dwellers admit to more plant casualties. But they also cite the advantages of their location. "I wear high heels with abandon," said Isabelle Claxton, 57, a health-care public relations executive who has owned two ground-floor homes. After visiting 10 apartments one day last May with her broker, Jill Meilus of the Corcoran Group, Ms. Claxton offered the $350,000 asking price for the newly renovated, 750-square-foot alcove studio on East 22nd Street with 10-to-14-foot ceilings and shared access to a rear garden. The studio had been on the market for two months, Ms. Claxton recalled, but she offered list price "because I didn't have to do a single thing to it." A veteran of mailbox-level living, she harbored no doubts on that score. "It's more like having your own house, in a way," she said. Inclined to agree with her are dog owners, who prize easy egress, and families with small children, who like the fact there are no neighbors below to disturb. Other benefits of a ground-floor abode include strong water pressure, faster and cheaper moves, easy curb-to-doorway unloading of Target and Costco bags (not to mention luggage), and quicker emergency escapes.

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Living on the Ground Floor: Bargain or Fool's Paradise?

Ground-floor Manhattan apartments seem to have growing appeal, mainly because they are more affordable option as housing prices continue to rise; disadvantages include bad light, noise, awkward layouts and security concerns; photos (M)

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A large wind turbine, similar to the 130 such devices that would have been used for the Cape Wind project. It’s a question developer Jim Gordon may be asking if he doesn’t get some help soon on Beacon Hill. Some probably thought the wind farm for Nantucket Sound was already dead, done in by an inability to land crucial financing more than a year ago. But Gordon doesn’t give up easily. Gordon and Dennis Duffy, vice president at Gordon’s Energy Management Inc. in Boston, recently pinned their hopes on a state energy bill that would prompt utilities to contract with offshore wind developers. But they were blindsided when a version was drafted specifically to exclude them. The project that has refused to die may have met its final fate. The first House version, released last month, would prevent any firm with offshore rights that date back before 2012 from bidding on these energy contracts. Its language would prohibit one project: Cape Wind’s. Last week, the House leadership doubled down, adding a section that would prevent any offshore wind project within 10 miles of an inhabited area from bidding. Again, a certain Nantucket Sound wind farm was the only proposal to be shut out. Duffy came out swinging, with a statement that accuses Cape Wind’s old enemy, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, of blocking what could be Cape Wind’s last best hope for survival. The alliance this spring hired Tom Finneran, the former House Speaker-turned-lobbyist — just weeks before the energy bill was released by House Speaker Bob DeLeo’s leadership team. DeLeo, a former Boston Latin classmate of Finneran’s, was also part of the leadership team when Finneran ran the House. Bill Brett for the Boston Globe Tufts Health Chief Operating Officer Tom Croswell of Lexington, left, and former House Speaker Tom Finneran of Mattapan in 2012. Then there’s the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership, a high-powered group of big-company chief executives that worked behind the scenes over the years to kill Cape Wind, pointing to the project’s costs and the burden it would impose on energy bills. The partnership persisted even after Cape Wind lost its contracts with National Grid and Eversource last year, going on record against the project as recently as April. Some insiders point to Cape Cod’s legislative delegation, which has been largely opposed to the project. And there are pro-wind forces that aren’t stepping up to help Cape Wind because they’ve moved on to other priorities or are worried that the project could scuttle the energy bill by drawing a target for Cape Wind’s enemies. A spokesman for Offshore Wind Massachusetts, the trade group that represents three wind farm developers looking to build farther offshore, said it was not behind the exclusionary language in the House legislation and welcomes competition from Cape Wind. But it’s not rushing to Cape Wind’s aid. Audra Parker, the alliance’s CEO, is normally outspoken about every twist and turn in the Cape Wind saga. She’ll talk about where things stand with her group’s legal fight against Cape Wind in Washington. But she said she won’t comment about the Massachusetts legislation until the bill is done. Finneran, meanwhile, makes no secret of the fact he has talked to legislative leaders about Cape Wind. They understand, he said, that the deep-water options proposed by the other developers are superior to the “horse-and-buggy” technology Cape Wind is looking to deploy in Nantucket Sound. Finneran also said that Cape Wind “would mar a really very special, precious resource” — Nantucket Sound. Cape Wind developers should instead consider the deeper waters, south of Martha’s Vineyard, Finneran said. “The deep-water sites have been vetted thoroughly by the federal government, and they have taken into account virtually every factor that man could imagine,” Finneran said. DeLeo spokesman Seth Gitell said the Legislature gave Cape Wind “every opportunity to succeed.” He cited a 2008 bill that paved the way for Cape Wind to obtain those utility contracts that it lost last year. Gitell echoed Finneran’s concerns, saying the deeper waters are “where the wind is ideal, and offshore wind projects will have the best chance of success and will be the best deal for ratepayers.” Opponents say Cape Wind would be too expensive, based on the prices in the now-discarded utility contracts. But Gordon and Duffy said those are outdated prices, and that Cape Wind deserves a chance to compete on price with the newer arrivals, such as Dong Energy and Deepwater Wind. The developers behind Cape Wind were banking on this wind bill to land the financing that has escaped them so far. They still have some hope of persuading Senate leaders to strike the anti-Cape Wind language from the energy bill. But timing is not in their favor: The closer we get to the July 31 end of the Legislature’s formal sessions, the more likely it will be that leaders on Beacon Hill will pick options that would allow them to steer clear of controversy, to get certain bills passed quickly. Cape Wind would bring more than its fair share of debate to the table.

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Cape Wind faces a new foe: former House Speaker Tom Finneran

The main opposition group hired the former speaker turned-lobbyist weeks before an energy bill was released by the current House leadership.

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Negotiators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the union representing its 3,300 nurses again failed to reach a contract agreement Friday that would avert a planned strike, but said they would continue trying to work out a deal over the weekend. Unless the hospital and the Massachusetts Nurses Association reach a deal, the union has threatened a one-day strike, beginning 7 a.m. Monday. Brigham plans to lock out the union nurses for an additional four days while using temporary replacement workers. Both sides negotiated for 12 hours on Friday and said they would resume talks Saturday morning. “Nurses will not give up this fight,” the union said in a statement Friday night. “Today nurses moved significantly on wages and are seeking a fair settlement. Without a fair agreement that values patients over profits, Brigham nurses are prepared to strike for 24 hours starting Monday morning.” Hospital officials said they remain hopeful that a strike will be avoided, but said they are continuing their “comprehensive preparedness efforts” to ensure that patients receive care if the walkout occurs. Both sides have agreed to meet for another round of contract negotiations Friday. The planned strike is already disrupting care at Brigham, where surgeries are being canceled and patients are being transferred in preparation for a possible walkout by a significant portion of the hospital’s workforce. The union and Brigham, a teaching hospital owned by Partners HealthCare, disagree on wages, benefits, and staffing levels for nurses. Hospital and union officials continued their bitter exchange of public statements this week, even as negotiators made a last-ditch effort to reach a compromise. Union officials accuse hospital leaders of “corporate greed” and disrespect for nurses, which led them to stage a job action. Hospital officials say the union’s demands on wages and health benefits are unaffordable. “There is nothing we want more than to avert a strike and the disruption that would occur,” Brigham’s chief executive, Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, said at a press conference Friday. Nabel said she was disappointed hospital-union relations have deteriorated so badly, and she questioned whether the union truly wanted to avoid a strike, given that the job action was coordinated with two other nursing strikes in Minnesota and California. Brigham has been preparing for a strike for several days. It plans to scale operations down to 60 percent of normal and employ about 700 replacement nurses. Brigham’s chief operating officer, Dr. Ron M. Walls, said the 793-bed hospital had 570 patients on Friday. It plans to reduce that number to 450 patients by Monday. Many patients already have been transferred to other hospitals. Walls said Brigham would not transfer adult patients without their consent. But for babies in the newborn intensive care unit, state officials can authorize a transfer without parental consent if they believe the infants won’t be able to receive safe care at Brigham, he said. “We don’t anticipate getting to that,” he added. Patients in the newborn ICU include premature babies who need tubes and machines to feed and breathe. Thirteen infants already have been transferred from the unit. Brigham plans to reduce its surgeries from about 120 a day, to about 90 a day. Surgeons will use just 15 operating rooms, instead of the regular 42. Hospital officials said they will not turn away patients seeking emergency care during the planned strike. All patients coming to the emergency department would be treated, they said, but those needing to be admitted may be transferred to another hospital. Brigham leaders said they are working to ensure patients receive safe care during a strike, but the nurses union issued a statement saying its members are worried about patient safety. “That is why Brigham nurses voted overwhelmingly for a 24-hour strike starting Monday morning,” the union said. “It is solely the hospital’s decision to jeopardize safe patient care with a subsequent four-day lockout.” The hospital and the union have been negotiating a contract for about 10 months.

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Brigham will keep ER open if nurses strike

No deal had been announced as of 9 p.m. Friday, 12 hours after talks began, but both sides remained at the bargaining table and said they were continuing discussions into the night.

20160713214948

"I know you are looking at the label, but believe me," the clerk at Fulton said. "Don't pay any attention to the label." When his remarks were repeated to Herbert Slavin, an owner of M. Slavin, he said: "How do you know he is an expert? We do not misrepresent." The Times tested two salmon fillets sold as wild by Grace's Marketplace, one labeled "Rainforest," indicating it came from Washington State, the other "Columbia River." Joe Doria Jr., an owner of Grace's, said that one of his suppliers, Alaskan Feast, had sold wild Alaskan troll king salmon to the store. But Daniel Kim, an owner of Alaskan Feast, said he had not sold the store Rainforest or Columbia River wild salmon, adding that it would have been almost impossible to buy any fresh wild salmon from either source in March. Mr. Doria offered another explanation: "Sometimes when these fish come off the boat they get separated, and I got sent the wrong salmon from my supplier." In addition, Mr. Kim called to say that a whole salmon one of his salesman at the Fulton Fish Market sold to this reporter as wild was actually farmed. He said his salesman had "made a mistake." The fish was not analyzed. Margaret Wittenberg, the vice president for marketing and public affairs at Whole Foods, said its wild salmon was properly labeled and came from the trolling of California's wild king salmon. The Times's findings were confirmed by two Norwegian researchers, Dr. Bjorn Bjerkeng, a leading researcher in the analysis of salmon carotenoids at the Institute Aquaculture Research in Sunndalsora, Norway, and Dr. Harald Lura, a fish biologist and expert in salmon reproduction, who said of the study, "The methodology and results are convincing." Wild salmon become pink by eating sea creatures like krill, which contain a carotenoid called astaxanthin. Farmed salmon are naturally grayish but turn pink when they are fed various sources of astaxanthin, including one that is chemically synthesized and others that originate from yeast or microalgae. During Craft's two-week testing, it determined that the controlled sample and the one from Eli's had more than 60 percent of the form of astaxanthin that occurs naturally, within the range of 50 to 80 percent typical for wild salmon. All the other samples except the one from Whole Foods had 30 percent or less of the form dominant in wild salmon. The sample from Whole Foods had 37.9 percent. The farmed samples tested high in either the synthetic or the yeast forms of astaxanthin. Laura Fleming, a spokeswoman for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, a state agency that promotes wild seafood, said, "The symptom is not confined to Manhattan." She added, "We've had calls from various places around the country over the last several years from indignant fans telling us that stores are promoting product as wild Alaskan salmon when in fact it is not wild salmon at all." "The extent of the problem is certainly surprising," Ms. Fleming said, "especially in a place like New York, where the most sophisticated consumers in the country live, people who really scrutinize a purchase." Federal regulations governing country-of-origin labeling took effect on Monday. They require fish to carry a paper trail back to the source, but they apply to full-service markets like grocery stores, not to fish markets. Joseph Catalano, a partner at Eli's and the Vinegar Factory who is responsible for the fish those markets sell, said he was not surprised by the test results. "The bottom line on all this is money," he said. Faced with fillets of wild and farmed salmon, even renowned chefs like Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin and Mr. Pasternack of Esca, who pay top dollar for the choicest seafood, could not visually distinguish one from the other. After the fillets were cooked, however, they could taste the difference. "The most obvious clue is flavor," said Ms. Fleming of the Alaskan agency, "but by that time it's too late." Correction: April 13, 2005, Wednesday A front-page picture caption on Sunday with an article about tests by The Times that showed New York City stores sell farm-raised fish as "fresh wild salmon" referred imprecisely to the salmon shown. Although it was for sale at Eli's of Manhattan on the Upper East Side, where a sample tested as wild salmon, it was not the sample.

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Stores Say Wild Salmon, but Tests Say Farm Bred

Growing concerns about safety of farm-raised fish have given fresh wild salmon price as high as $29 per pound as opposed to $5 to $12, but tests show that fish sold as wild at six of eight New York City stores were farm raised; many in seafood business suspect wild salmon should not be so available from November to March; with West Coast catches restricted by quotas, farmed fish constitute 90 percent of American salmon sales; photos, graph (L)

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This is the story - some Austen scholars say "theory" - at the heart of Becoming Jane, a new biopic of the author. Anne Hathaway, the American actress last seen in The Devil Wears Prada, plays Austen. Scottish actor James McAvoy, very much the British actor of the year after his performance in The Last King of Scotland, plays Lefroy - a lad we first encounter in the film bare-chested and fighting in a boozy brothel. Austen purists may wish to have a little sit-down before going to see Becoming Jane. "There's fire in it," says McAvoy enthusiastically of a film that offers a pacy, even "sexed-up" take on Austen. If there had been a Lefroy in Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy would have stayed in that lake. But, says McAvoy, we must understand Lefroy's laddish behaviour in the context of his obligations as a young man taken under the wing of his lawyer uncle in a time when to marry "correctly" was to marry for money. "Lefroy had a lot of responsibilities placed on his shoulders from the age of 12. His mother had married badly, he was the eldest son, and he knew that if he made his way in the world, he would save his family's ailing fortunes. And if you know that from a really early age, you're going to go off the rails." McAvoy attributes much of Becoming Jane's narrative brio to Hathaway. "I'm loath to use the word 'feisty' but," he continues with a grin, "she has made her feisty! Anne had very strong opinions about playing Jane, and I had very strong opinions just because I'm quite opinionated. So we clashed at first. But quite quickly we realised that we could be each other's best allies because we both cared about the same things: we wanted the production to have some integrity and not just be a British rom-com in tights." Historical accuracy was also important. Having done his research, McAvoy firmly believes Austen did have a meaningful and ultimately life-changing relationship with Lefroy. He is also insistent that Lefroy - who eventually became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland at the time of the potato famine - would not have had an Irish accent, contrary to the thoughts of Becoming Jane's producers. "It's completely disrespectful to an Irishman to suggest the English overlords all had Irish accents, just because you want a bit of the Irish blarney for the American audiences," he says. Such forthrightness and confidence go some way to explaining why, at 27, McAvoy has come very far very fast. His TV roles, in White Teeth, State of Play and Shameless (on which he met his wife, actress Anne-Marie Duff), quickly led to a clutch of great and eclectic big-screen roles, from Mr Tumnus in Narnia to the student quiz geek in last year's comedy Starter for Ten. It's largely due to McAvoy's jolting performance that Becoming Jane is more than just a handsomely mounted chick-flick or a Mother's Day treat. And this ability to transcend genre limitations bodes well for his upcoming action movie debut, in the comic book adaptation Wanted alongside Morgan Freeman; filming begins next month, but McAvoy is already looking rather buff, courtesy of some stints in the gym. More exciting still is his immersion in another great literary world. Later this year we'll see McAvoy playing the male lead in Atonement, the keenly anticipated film of Ian McEwan's novel by director Joe Wright (Pride and Prejudice). Even this most coolly assured of young actors is finding himself swept up in the decades-spanning majesty of McEwan's epic account of love and war. "I finished [shooting] that film last August," he says, "but I had to go in yesterday and record some additional dialogue. It immediately made me start crying again. I find it so easy to empathise with that story, because it's part of us, it's part of our history," McAvoy concludes with characteristic impassioned intensity. "It's part of Britain."

http://web.archive.org/web/20160721004559id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/culture/film/starsandstories/3663499/Sexing-up-Jane-Austen.html

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'Sexing up' Jane Austen

Rising star James McAvoy talks to Craig McLean about his role as the 'real' Mr Darcy in the upcoming film about the author's life.

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Given the prevailing political winds, Republicans are feeling a little pessimistic about the 2016 election cycle right now, but the party is not without opportunities. Many in the GOP believe Sen. Michael Bennet (D) is vulnerable in Colorado – one of the country’s most unpredictable battleground states – and with the right candidate, this could be one of the few Democratic seats in play this year. Finding the right candidate, however, has proven to be tricky. Initially, Colorado Republicans tried to recruit Rep. Mike Coffman (R) to run, but he declined. When they turned to Rep. Scott Tipton (R), he bowed out, too. So did state Attorney General Cynthia Coffman (R) and Rep. Ken Buck (R). Left without a top tier contender, quite a few second-tier Republicans jumped into the race, and soon the state GOP, which had too few candidates, suddenly had too many: 13 Republicans were competing for the Senate nomination. State officials said Monday that U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser failed to collect enough signatures to earn a place on the June 28 primary ballot – a stunning blow that threatens to sink a campaign once hyped as the best in the Republican field. Under state rules, Senate candidates who choose to petition their way onto the ballot must gather signatures from 1,500 or more voters in each of Colorado’s seven congressional districts – at least 10,500 in all. Keyser fell short by 86 signatures in Colorado’s 3rd District, according to the Colorado secretary of state’s office, which reviewed his petition. Part of the issue here is that Colorado, unlike many other states, does not allow voters to sign more than one ballot-access petition. In other words, if I sign a petition to get Candidate A on the ballot, and then I do the same for Candidate B, the latter won’t count. If Candidate B submits the petition with my signature, it’ll be excluded from the overall count. And as a result, the top Republican candidate in this race may be disqualified. It’s not a done deal, however, and Keyser’s campaign team is filing an appeal and threatening “legal action.” If Keyser is excluded, who’s left in the GOP field? As things stand, only two candidates have qualified for the primary ballot – former Colorado State University Athletic Director Jack Graham and Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn. Two more – businessman Robert Blaha and former Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, both of whom have run failed congressional campaigns – have submitted ballot signatures and are awaiting official confirmation. The primary is June 28.

http://web.archive.org/web/20160731185728id_/http://www.msnbc.com:80/rachel-maddow-show/leading-gop-senate-candidate-faces-disqualification?

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Leading GOP Senate candidate faces disqualification

The top Republican candidate in Colorado's Senate race may be disqualified for failing to turn in the necessary number of ballot signatures.

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Every so often you read a news article so revealing that it triggers this thought: I wonder if we’ll look back on that story in five years and say, “We should have seen this coming. That story was the warning sign.” For me that article was a July 25 piece in The Washington Post about how jilted mistresses of corrupt Chinese government officials have become the country’s most important whistle-blowers — turning to the Internet to expose the antics of senior bureaucrats. The Post detailed the case of a 26-year-old named Ji Yingnan, who had been engaged to wed Fan Yue — a deputy director at the State Administration of Archives — until she discovered that he had been married with a son the entire time they were together. To get her revenge, Ji “has released hundreds of photos online that offer a rare window into the life of a Chinese central government official who — despite his modest salary — was apparently able to lavish his mistress” with no end of luxury items, The Post reported. The first time “they went shopping, Ji said, the couple went to Prada and paid $10,000 for a skirt, a purse and a scarf. A month after they met, Fan rented an apartment for them that cost $1,500 a month and spent more than $16,000 on bedsheets, home appliances, an Apple desktop and a laptop, according to Ji. Then he bought her a silver Audi A5, priced in the United States at about $40,000, she said. ... ‘He put cash into my purse every day,’ said Ji in a letter to the Communist Party complaining about Fan’s behavior.” It gets better. The Post reported that “a well-known Chinese blogger who has posted Ji’s photos and videos on his Web site said he spoke with Fan last month. Fan told the blogger that he didn’t spend as much money as Ji claims, saying it was less than $1.7 million but more than $500,000. ‘This woman is not good. She is too greedy,’ the blogger, Zhu Ruifeng, said Fan told him.” Oh, I see. It was less than $1.7 million. That’s good to know! This guy is a senior bureaucrat in the state archives. What sort of illicit activity was he up to in the file rooms to earn that kind of cash? Every government has corruption, including ours. But China’s is industrial strength. My colleague David Barboza last year exposed how then Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s mother, son, daughter, younger brother, wife and brother-in-law had collectively amassed $2.7 billion in assets. But when you see how much money a deputy archives director was able to amass — and how brazenly he spent it — you start to wonder and worry. When I visited China in September, I wrote that I heard a new meme from Chinese businesspeople whom I met: “Make your money and get out.” More than ever, I heard a lack of confidence in the Chinese economic model. We should hope that China can make a stable transition from one-party Communism to a more consensual, multiparty system — and a stable diversification of its low-wage, high-export, state-led command economy — the way South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore have done. Its huge savings will help. The world can ill afford a chaotic transition in China. With America stuck in slow growth, Europe mired in stagnation and the Arab world imploding, China has been a vital economic engine for the global economy. If China’s sagging growth and employment rates meet rising discontent with corruption by officials — trying to get their own while the getting is still good — we will not have a stable transition in China. And if one-sixth of humanity starts going through an unstable and uncertain political/economic transition, it will shake the world. It would be great if Chinese reporters, bloggers, citizens’ groups and, yes, Internet-empowered mistresses could expose corruption in ways that help make that transition both necessary and possible. But these virtuous civil society actors will only succeed if they find allies in the Communist Party, if they can empower those party cadres who understand the risk to stability, and to their party’s future, posed by runaway corruption. The Ji and Fan story is very entertaining. But if it is just the tip of an iceberg of corruption that destabilizes China, it won’t be a laughing matter. How Chinese officials behave or misbehave not only will affect us — from the value of our currency to the level of our interest rates to the quality of the air we breathe — it may be the biggest thing that affects us outside of our own government. There is reason for worry. “The boldness that Chinese leaders have shown in growing their economy from a backwater into the world’s second largest has not been matched, of course, in developing democratic institutions, but more importantly in developing good and honest governance,” said Jeffrey Bader, President Obama’s former senior adviser on China and the author of “Obama and China’s Rise.” But, if China’s leaders don’t take on this issue, he added, “then there will be more corruption, more alienation of ordinary people, and more questions about China’s stability. That would be bad news not only for China, but for the United States, whose future is intertwined with China’s.” An earlier version of this column misspelled the surname of a New York Times reporter. It is David Barboza, not David Barbosa. A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 31, 2013, on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Revenge Of the Mistresses. Today's Paper|Subscribe

http://web.archive.org/web/20160801194228id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/2013/07/31/opinion/friedman-revenge-of-the-mistresses.html?

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Revenge of the Mistresses

Corruption in China has a ripple effect. Who knew the account of a government official’s extramarital affair would be a warning sign?

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When I told a senior government official that I had put £20 on Brexit as an insurance policy – we believers in Europe will need something to cheer us up if the vote goes that way – his reply was: “Only twenty quid?” This reaction epitomises the extremely gloomy mood among most of my pro-European friends and acquaintances. And while they dismiss Alexander “Boris” Johnson’s antics as beneath contempt, many people are surprised at the way my old friend Lord Lawson is putting himself around as someone who boasts about living in France but is blithely relaxed about the prospect of Brexit, indeed actively propagating it. Lawson’s position is also interesting because he is a grandfather. The opinion polls have to be treated with a kilogram of salt after last year’s general election; however, even allowing for polling error, what seems incontrovertible is the finding that the young tend to be strongly in favour of our remaining in the European Union, whereas the so-called “grey vote” is predominantly in favour of Brexit. With due respect to the grandfather generation, they do not, according to the polls, seem to be paying much attention to the views and ambitions of the younger people who will have to cope with the consequences of Brexit rather longer than they will. Moreover, one of the paradoxes of the position in which David Cameron has landed us is that he has managed to shoot himself in the foot by altering the system by which the young come on to the register. Thus, instead of being automatically eligible to vote on reaching the age of 18, they have to go through a conscious act of registering. This may have suited Cameron when he was panicking about losing the last election – and let us not forget that it was concern about the electoral threat from Ukip that induced him to commit to a referendum in the first place. Unfortunately it does not suit him now. It is a safe bet that, as a result of that earlier cheap electoral trick, many of the youngsters on whom Cameron and Osborne should be relying on for the referendum will find that, unlike their grandparents, they have not got around to being eligible to vote on the biggest political issue of their young lives. Of course, another paradox in this bizarre affair – an affair that has now become big news around the world – is that the prime minister cannot possibly win this referendum without the support of the Labour party. As I have gone about my travels in recent weeks, a constant refrain has been: where is Labour? Yes, the stakes are so large that her majesty’s opposition, and commentators such as myself, have – to coin a phrase – no alternative but to support Cameron and Osborne on this issue, even if we regard their economic policies as misguided and their social policies as harmful and destructive. Well, the Labour party turned out on parade last Thursday, and Jeremy Corbyn pronounced that there was an “overwhelming” case for our remaining in the EU. This is statesmanlike behaviour and judgment. Whatever the deficiencies of the EU, we are not going to remedy them if we leave. And the Lawson/Johnson idea that we can renegotiate our way into the advantages of belonging to an organisation that we have just left is for the birds. Messy divorces do not work like that. From my own recent soundings in Europe, I can conclude with reasonable confidence that every one of the other 27 states of the EU desperately wants us to “Remain”. But I also conclude that, if we do indulge in Brexit, the attitude of the others, their patience having been sorely tried, will be seriously uncooperative. The process of renegotiating trade arrangements, and from a position of the weakness of the suppliant, could take decades, just as it took successive Conservative and Labour governments decades to be admitted to what is now the EU in the first place. All this stuff about “no problem in negotiating new arrangements” is redolent of the 1950s, when, having failed to sign the Treaty of Rome in the first place, we tried to join the others in a broad European Free Trade Association. That came to nothing and, as our negotiator at the time, Reginald Maudling, commented in his memoirs: “The French argument basically was that the British wanted to take everything and give nothing, that we were not communautaire.” In the end we set up, with other non-Common Market members, a rival that proved inadequate and led to our eventual applications to join the real thing. There are lots of things wrong with the real thing. But we really do have the best of both worlds by remaining in the union while being outside the eurozone and the Schengen passport-free area. Above all, Europe and the rest of the advanced economies are faced with so many problems that what is needed now is maximum cooperation, not splendid isolation. Oh, and by the way: much of the regulation so many people complain about was necessary to make the single market work. Britain, under Margaret Thatcher and her hard-working negotiator Arthur Cockfield, was the main force behind the formation of the single market. And those latter-day Thatcherites who evoke the lady’s name in favour of Brexit should heed the words of her biographer Charles Moore: “Mrs Thatcher was the most effective promoter of European integration Britain has ever known.”

http://web.archive.org/web/20160802160749id_/http://www.theguardian.com:80/politics/2016/apr/17/brexit-messy-divorce-trade-negotiations

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Brexit would be a messy divorce, and very hard on the children

The Leave campaign’s idea that renegotiation of trade terms with the EU will be easy is absurd. We will be suppliant outsiders, just as we were in the 1950s

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Eight infrared LEDs and new algorithms have been added to improve night vision and motion detection. Nest Cam is smart enough to tell the difference between a torch and sunlight, so it won’t get confused and switch to day mode if an intruder shines a light at it. The Nest Cam costs £159 and will be available to purchase from a range of retailers including Amazon, John Lewis, Currys, PC World and B&Q in July. For an additional monthly fee, users can subscribe to the Nest Aware cloud service, which allows them to scroll through 10 days of content for £8 per month or 30 days for £24 per month. All video is stored and processed in the cloud. This allows Nest Cam to provide more accurate alerts when it detects movement in the house, and identify areas where common false alarms occur, like shadows moving across ceilings. Users can make and share up to three hours of clips, including timelapses, and create custom 'activity zones' around areas of interest – such as a door – so they can be alerted to anyone coming in or going out. "The cloud is not just used for video recording, but when you stream back to your phone, it can also be used for image processing – whether it's algorithmic or to enhance resolution in certain areas or just get more depth, and you do that in real time," said Mr Paillet. The Nest Cam has a built-in microphone and speaker, so the user can talk to whoever is in their home via the smartphone app. Nest said that all data is encrypted in the cloud and while it is being transmitted between devices, to ensure it remains private and secure. Although the primary purpose of the camera is home security, Nest also sees the potential for it to be used as an entertainment device. Nest is piloting the ability for users to stream directly to YouTube Live from a Nest Cam. Unbox Therapy creator Lewis Hilsenteger, American videographer Devin Graham and YouTube personality Justine Ezarik have all been taking part in the pilot, giving viewers a behind-the-scenes look at their lives. Nest said that some of the most popular camera feeds will stream directly to Nest’s own YouTube channel, so people can see live video of everything from puppies to scenic landscapes. The launch of Nest Cam coincides with a refresh of the rest of Nest's product portfolio, with the launch of the second-generation Nest Protect smoke alarm, new features for the Nest Learning Thermostat, and a new app for Android and iOS. The new Nest Protect includes a sensor that can detect the small particles generated by fast-burning fires, as well as the large particles from slow-burning fires. It also carries out automatic safety checks and allows users to silence false alarms from their phones. The Nest Learning Thermostat is getting new features via a software update, including safety temperature alerts to warn users if their home gets too cold, and the ability see smoke and carbon monoxide alerts from their Nest Protect on their thermostat screen. Meanwhile the new app has a new look and added features that make it easier to control Nest products, as well as the ability for users to view live videos of their home via a Nest Cam and record clips. "We’ve built a portfolio of best-in-class products that each stand on their own while doing more together," said Nest chief executive Tony Fadell. "The result? Energy saved, lives spared, and countless memories recorded and shared.” The new Nest Protect costs £89 and is available for purchase at nest.com. The new Nest Learning Thermostat software will begin rolling out today and will take up to two weeks to reach Nest customers. The Nest app is available for free in the Google Play Store and iOS App Store. The news comes after French startup Netatmo launched a new smart home camera earlier this week, that will compete directly with Nest Cam. Netatmo's camera, which is called Welcome, costs £199, and features proprietary face recognition technology that is capable of recognising registered people's faces even if it only catches a glimpse of them as they walk past. It does not require a cloud subscription. Follow the Telegraph on LinkedIn. Share this article with your network.

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Google's Nest launches home-security camera

Nest Labs, the home automation company bought by Google for $3.2 billion last year, has launched its first new product since the acquisition &ndash; a home security camera

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Miss Hersee, better known as the "Test Card girl", said she was "bemused" that the BBC had reintroduced its most famous test card, which features her as an eight-year-old girl playing noughts and crosses on a blackboard with a toy clown. "I had absolutely no idea it was being brought back," she said. "The BBC didn't tell me anything about it. I thought it had all gone away for good, but I suppose I don't mind that it is being brought back." Miss Hersee, 50, who lives in the New Forest, Hants, with her mother and her two teenage children, said that she was surprised the BBC had not updated the image. "I am a bit bemused as I would have thought they would want to modernise it, but if they feel it is suitable to use after all these years, then fine," she said. "I suppose the feeling of nostalgia is all around at the moment." The BBC test card, known as Test Card F, which shows Miss Hersee wearing a red shirt and red hairband, and Bubbles, the clown, surrounded by colour scales and test graphics, was transmitted from 1967 to 1998. Designed by Miss Hersee's father, George Hersee, a BBC engineer, it is being broadcast again on the BBC's high definition (HD) channel to help viewers tune their HD sets, and is currently shown for 90 seconds every two hours when programmes are not on air. Technicians have rescanned the card in HD to allow viewers to set the colour, contrast and sharpness on modern televisions. "I haven't actually seen the image on television for about 10 years and we don't have an HD television so I would have to go into one of those electrical shops that sells televisions to see it, but I suspect if I did do that, I would just cringe and walk out," said Miss Hersee, a film and theatre costume maker, who has worked on films including The Last Emperor and Dangerous Liaisons and the west end production of The Phantom of the Opera. "My children think it is amusing that the test card is back and they are more excited about it than I am." Test Card F has been broadcast for an estimated 70,000 hours since it was first shown on BBC 2 in 1967, and Miss Hersee, who was paid around £100 by the BBC when the image first appeared, is thought to hold the record for the most TV appearances by a single person. "I think it [the record] is staggering, and now it has been brought back, there is no hope for anyone else to get anywhere near that record," she said. "When we did it, nobody thought it would last for more than a few years, because none of the other test cards had." Miss Hersee said that she believed her father, who died in 2001, would be "proud" to see the return of his test card. "I think my father would also be surprised that the BBC have decided to use it again," she said. "But I think he would be quite proud of the fact that something he'd done so long ago has been brought back. I'd think he'd be smiling at the achievement that yet another generation will see his work."

http://web.archive.org/web/20160808121546id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/news/uknews/4214042/Test-card-girl-bemused-by-her-return-to-British-television.html

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Test card girl 'bemused' by her return to British television

She has clocked up more air time on television than anyone else. But for Carole Hersee, her return to our screens after an absence of more than 10 years has come as a complete surprise.

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Cue pandemonium. Bolt tore past the ranks of cameramen and flexed his limbs into the ‘Lightning Bolt’ pose that has become, on these occasions, almost an accepted ritual. Except this time, it was anything but. “This was definitely my hardest race,” he said. “If I wanted to continue my legend, I had to win. That was all the pressure I needed.” The agony was all Gatlin’s. As stoic and as diplomatic as he sought to be in the aftermath, claiming it had been an honour simply to race Bolt, the reality was that he had tossed his greatest chance away. He had the times and he had the technique, but ultimately he lacked the nerve. Still leading by a head with five metres to go, he seemed to sense the fast-approaching Bolt in his peripheral vision and tightened, leaning too early so that he lost balance and allowed the peerless Usain to snatch the prize at the death. • Usain Bolt beats Justin Gatlin into second place, as it happened Track and field had the champion it craved, even if it legitimately feared a dastardly piece of Gatlin subversion. At 33, having enjoyed two years of dominance over 100m, the persona non grata from Florida will never have a more glaring shot at glory at this. But at a time when athletics is convulsed by an ever-growing doping crisis, Gatlin, having served a four-year ban for two separate drugs violations, was a pariah in the eyes of all besides his mother. “I’m dead, mummy, I’m dead!” he cried in 2006, upon learning that he had tested positive for an anabolic steroid. Nine years on, it was in the arms of mum Jeanette that he sought comfort again, reflecting on the distance travelled and the moment lost. “That was my plan, to go and embrace her,” Gatlin said. “My mother and father have been through all my ups and downs. It has been a journey, for them and for me. I love them.” The result signalled the most astonishing turnaround from all that had gone before. Gatlin, blessed with a fluid start and a stride pattern of metronomic consistency, had looked untouchable in his semi-final, his time of 9.77 seconds almost two tenths quicker than that of Bolt, who almost fell over out of the blocks. But even in the wake of that stumble, the one who kept the faith was Bolt himself. He played up for the cameras on the start line for the final, ticking off his full showboating routine, while Gatlin prepared to play the part of the usurper. Except the blistering pace that led many to suspect that he would threaten Bolt’s world record of 9.58 never quite materialised, as the icon two lanes to his right swept through to seize the night. Young American Trayvon Bromell and Canada’s Andre de Grasse, destined though they were to be footnotes in this extraordinary final, shared the bronze with the same time of 9.92. • Bolt: "I just want to run fast and do it clean" The worry had been that Bolt’s bravado would trump any common sense. Surely, despite all the crossed fingers for the contrary, Gatlin had his number? It pays, though, not to think too logically where Bolt is concerned. More than any runner past or present, he is capable of the most outrageous sorcery, and he saved his most memorable conjuring trick for the race that mattered, for the same amphitheatre where he had set two world records seven years earlier. “You can never put doubts in your mind,” he said. “You have already lost the race if you doubt yourself, so I was pretty confident. After the semi-finals my coach said, ‘Listen, you are thinking about it too much. There’s too much on your mind. You’ve done this a million times, so just go out there and get it done.’ That’s what I did.” A triumph of good over evil? That might be over-simplistic, but the lines were sharply drawn as soon as the cheers rang out for Bolt’s name in the warm-up, in contrast to the cat-calls for Gatlin’s. Despite all the hoopla ahead of this duel, Gatlin still appeared genuinely shocked by his casting as the villain. “I don’t see Usain Bolt pulling anybody out of fires,” he protested, in a BBC radio interview before the final. “I’m not plotting anything with evil minions.” Maybe it was not Bond versus Blofeld, but it was an arresting image. Gatlin could be under few illusions, from the love that swept over Bolt here, about how much the watching world had wanted him to lose. The same questions that have dogged him since his hugely controversial return surfaced again in a lively post-race press conference, as Gatlin was asked whether Bolt’s victory was valuable for athletics. “I’m thankful,” he deadpanned, nonsensically. Could he be more specific? “Specifically, I’m thankful.” Was this not a very important issue? “Very importantly, I’m thankful.” Bolt, sitting to his right, chortled at the farce of it. We were not about to elicit any atonement or illumination from Gatlin on the evening of his most chastening disappointment. He could yet challenge his nemesis in the 200 metres final next Saturday, but in this, the defining power struggle that is the blue-riband race, he fell short. Bolt, who equalled the record of Carl Lewis and Maurice Greene with a third 100m world title, had spectacularly “got it done”. Not only had he defied the naysayers, he had kept the tattered honour of his sport just about intact. It was his greatest miracle in a career of many.

http://web.archive.org/web/20160808122342id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/sport/othersports/athletics/11819155/Usain-Bolt-beats-Justin-Gatlin-by-one-hundredth-of-a-second-in-100m-World-Championship-final.html

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Usain Bolt beats Justin Gatlin by one hundredth of a second in 100m World Championship final

Despite running a comparatively modest time by his record-breaking standards, Bolt's victory represented his greatest miracle in a career of many

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Johnson & Johnson JNJ -0.12 % and the life-sciences division of Google Inc. on Thursday named a veteran medical-equipment executive to lead their joint venture to develop robots that will assist in surgery. Johnson & Johnson in a news release said Scott Huennekens will serve as chief executive of the independent company, which is called Verb Surgical Inc. Mr. Huennekens served as CEO of intravascular-imaging company Volcano Corp. from April 2002 to February 2015. Financial terms of the new joint venture, which was initially announced in March, weren’t disclosed. The focus of the new company is minimally invasive surgery, which uses tools and other technology to reduce scarring, blood loss and pain, and to speed recovery times. The partnership is between Ethicon, a part of Johnson & Johnson, and Verily Life Sciences LLC, formerly Google Life Sciences. The new company will be based in Mountain View, Calif. The surgical robotics effort aims to integrate Google’s expertise in computer science, advanced imaging and sensors into tools that surgeons use to operate. Real-time image analysis could help surgeons see better and software could highlight blood vessels, nerves or the edges of tumors that are difficult to see with the naked eye, Google said. Google and Ethicon also hope to better organize the information surgeons need when they operate. Surgeons typically consult multiple, separate screens in the operating room to check preoperative medical images, such as MRIs, results of previous surgeries and lab tests, or to understand how to navigate an unusual anatomical structure. The surgical robotics partnership isn’t related to another Google robotics initiative, called Replicant, that is developing large robots that can perform basic, repetitive human functions. Write to Ezequiel Minaya at ezequiel.minaya@wsj.com

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Johnson & Johnson, Google Name CEO for Surgical-Robot Venture

Johnson & Johnson and the life-sciences division of Google Inc. said they had appointed a veteran medical-equipment executive to lead their joint venture to develop robots that will assist in surgery.

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ISTANBUL — Turkey will release some 38,000 prisoners under a penal reform announced on Wednesday as the arrests of tens of thousands of people suspected of links to last month's attempted coup burden overstretched jails. The reform, extending an existing probation scheme, was one of a series of measures outlined on Wednesday in two new decrees under a state of emergency declared after the July 15 failed putsch. The government gave no reason for the reform. Related: Turkey's Purge to Coup-Proof Its Military May Backfire Turkey's Western allies worry President Tayyip Erdogan is using the crackdown to target dissent. Angrily dismissing Western concerns over stability in the NATO member, Turkish officials say they are rooting out a serious internal threat. The decrees, published in the country's Official Gazette, also ordered the dismissal of 2,360 more police officers, more than 100 military personnel and 196 staff at Turkey's information and communication technology authority, BTK. Those dismissed were described as having links to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of orchestrating the bloody coup attempt. Gulen denies involvement in the failed putsch. Under the penal reform, convicts with up to two years left in sentences are eligible for release on probation, extending the period from one year. The "supervised release" excludes those convicted of terrorism, murder, violent or sexual crimes. To be eligible for the scheme, prisoners must have served half of their sentences. Previously they were required to have already served two thirds of their sentence. Possible military coup in Turkey People take cover near a bridge during an attempted coup in Istanbul, Turkey July 16, 2016. REUTERS/Yagiz Karahan Turkish solders stay with weapons at Taksim square as people protest agaist the military coup in Istanbul on July 16, 2016. Turkish military forces on July 16 opened fire on crowds gathered in Istanbul following a coup attempt, causing casualties, an AFP photographer said. The soldiers opened fire on grounds around the first bridge across the Bosphorus dividing Europe and Asia, said the photographer, who saw wounded people being taken to ambulances. / AFP / OZAN KOSE (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images) Turkish solders stay with weapons at Taksim square as people protest agaist the military coup in Istanbul on July 16, 2016. Turkish military forces on July 16 opened fire on crowds gathered in Istanbul following a coup attempt, causing casualties, an AFP photographer said. The soldiers opened fire on grounds around the first bridge across the Bosphorus dividing Europe and Asia, said the photographer, who saw wounded people being taken to ambulances. / AFP / OZAN KOSE (Photo credit should read OZAN KOSE/AFP/Getty Images) People demonstrate outside Ataturk international airport during an attempted coup in Istanbul, Turkey, July 16, 2016. REUTERS/Huseyin Aldemir TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 16: People react against military coup attempt, at Kizilay square in Ankara, Turkey on July 16, 2016. (Photo by Abdulhamid Hosbas/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) A group of approximately 50 young citizens of Turkey hold their national flag and shout slogans in support for Turkish President Recep Tayip Erdogan and his government, in Sarajevo on early on July 16, 2016. Turkish citizens, mostly students who reside in Bosnian capital, responded to Erdogan's call for citizens to get out on the streets and show support for Turkey's government during the military coup. / AFP / ELVIS BARUKCIC (Photo credit should read ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP/Getty Images) Turkish military block access to the Bosphorus bridge, which links the city's European and Asian sides, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 15, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer Turkish security officers detain Turkish police officers (in black) on July 15, 2016 in Istanbul, during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge. The Turkish military on July 15 said that it had assumed power over Turkey, in what the prime minister has termed an illegal act. 'The power in the country has been seized in its entirety,' said a military statement read on NTV television, without giving further details. The military's website was not immediately accessible. / AFP / Yasin AKGUL (Photo credit should read YASIN AKGUL/AFP/Getty Images) ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 15 : 'There is an uprising attempt from within the army,' says Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. 'Those who are doing this will be punished in the hardest way.' (Photo by Ahmet zgi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) ISTANBUL, TURKEY - JULY 15: Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's Bosphorus Brigde on July 15, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. Istanbul's bridges across the Bosphorus, the strait separating the European and Asian sides of the city, have been closed to traffic. Reports have suggested that a group within Turkey's military have attempted to overthrow the government. Security forces have been called in as Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim denounced an 'illegal action' by a military 'group', with bridges closed in Istanbul and aircraft flying low over the capital of Ankara. (Photo by Gokhan Tan/Getty Images) Turkish soldiers block Istanbul's iconic Bosporus Bridge on Friday, July 15, 2016, lit in the colours of the French flag in solidarity with the victims of Thursday's attack in Nice, France. A group within Turkey's military has engaged in what appeared to be an attempted coup, the prime minister said, with military jets flying over the capital and reports of vehicles blocking two major bridges in Istanbul. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told NTV television: "it is correct that there was an attempt," when asked if there was a coup. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel) A Turkish soldier stands on guard on the side of the road on July 15, 2016 in Istanbul, during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge. The Turkish military on July 15 said that it had assumed power over Turkey, in what the prime minister has termed an illegal act. 'The power in the country has been seized in its entirety,' said a military statement read on NTV television, without giving further details. The military's website was not immediately accessible. / AFP / Yasin AKGUL (Photo credit should read YASIN AKGUL/AFP/Getty Images) Turkish security officers detain Turkish police officers (in black) on July 15, 2016 in Istanbul, during a security shutdown of the Bosphorus Bridge. The Turkish military on July 15 said that it had assumed power over Turkey, in what the prime minister has termed an illegal act. 'The power in the country has been seized in its entirety,' said a military statement read on NTV television, without giving further details. The military's website was not immediately accessible. / AFP / BULENT KILIC (Photo credit should read BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images) ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 15 : 'There is an uprising attempt from within the army,' says Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. 'Those who are doing this will be punished in the hardest way.' (Photo by Ahmet zgi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 15 : 'There is an uprising attempt from within the army,' says Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. 'Those who are doing this will be punished in the hardest way.' (Photo by Ahmet zgi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) ANKARA, TURKEY - JULY 15 : 'There is an uprising attempt from within the army,' says Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim. 'Those who are doing this will be punished in the hardest way.' (Photo by Ahmet zgi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) Police officers stand guard near the Turkish military headquarters in Ankara, Turkey, July 15, 2016. REUTERS/Tumay Berkin TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY Turkish military block access to the Bosphorus bridge, which links the city's European and Asian sides, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 15, 2016. REUTERS/Stringer Turkish soldiers are seen on the Asian side of Istanbul, Friday, July 15, 2016. A group within Turkey's military has engaged in what appeared to be an attempted coup, the prime minister said, with military jets flying over the capital and reports of vehicles blocking two major bridges in Istanbul. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told NTV television: "it is correct that there was an attempt," when asked if there was a coup. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel) An injured man is carried near a bridge during an attempted coup in Istanbul, Turkey July 16, 2016. REUTERS/Yagiz Karahan A group within Turkey's military has attempted to overthrow the government, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said as security forces closed bridges along the Bosphorus and descended on Ankara and Istanbul. A group within Turkey's military has attempted to overthrow the government, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said as security forces closed bridges along the Bosphorus and descended on Ankara and Istanbul. "This measure is not an amnesty," Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag wrote on Twitter of the penal reform. "Around 38,000 people will be released from... jail in the first stage as a result of this measure." He did not say why the reform was needed but Turkey's prison population has trebled over the last 15 years. There were 188,000 prisoners in Turkey as of March, some 8,000 more than the existing capacity. The 38,000 would represent just over 20 percent of the prison population. Another measure said the president could appoint as head of the armed forces any general or admiral, removing the requirement that the military chief be a top commander of the army, navy or air force. Under another move, the TIB telecoms authority will be closed. Alongside tens of thousands of civil servants suspended or dismissed, more than 35,000 people have been detained in the purge. More from NBC News: Man Who Planned New Year's Eve ISIS Attack Pleads Guilty Why Obama Likely Won't Be Able to Close Guantanamo Jerry Sandusky Takes the Stand to Deny Sex Abuse

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Turkey to release 38,000 prisoners to make space for coup plotters

The country announced Wednesday that they will release almost 40,000 prisoners under a penal reform ahead of coup suspects.

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Donald Trump said he we would have turned Air Force One around and left China if he had to walk down a staircase without red carpet like President Barack Obama did at the G-20 summit. Obama’s arrival on Saturday got off to a rough start when he was forced to use a secondary exit to get off the presidential plane. Other world leaders sauntered down red-carpeted stairs during their arrival at the city of Hangzhou. Trump was quick to declare it a snub by Chinese officials when talking at a function in Brook Park, Ohio. "They won't even give him stairs, proper stairs to get out of the airplane. You see that? They have pictures of other leaders who are ... coming down with a beautiful red carpet. And Obama is coming down a metal staircase," Trump said. "I've got to tell you, if that were me, I would say, 'You know what, folks, I respect you a lot but close the doors, let's get out of here.’ "It's a sign of such disrespect.” Hillary Clinton’s spokesman Jesse Ferguson used Trump’s remarks to lambast the billionaire’s leadership ability. "Temperament Update: Trump would leave G-20 mtg b/c the staircase offended him and he was wrong abt (sic) the staircase," Ferguson tweeted. The arrival of Obama at a Chinese airport was a tense affair with terse words exchanged between aides prior to a photo opportunity. A Chinese official argued with National Security Advisor Susan Rice about where she could stand. "This is our plane, we're standing under our wing," a White House press aide told a Chinese government official. He responded by saying, "This is our country, this is our airport, okay?" The tarmac row then developed into a Twitter slanging match, with a US spy agency posting, then promptly deleting, a tweet about the incident that read "Classy as always China". © Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016

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Trump would leave China if not offered a red carpet at G-20

Donald Trump said he we would have turned Air Force One around and left China if he had to walk down a staircase without red carpet like President Barack Obama did at the G-20 summit.

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The first thing you notice are the alarms. Walk into the intensive care unit in just about any American hospital, and you’ll be bombarded with beeping and blaring noises and flashing lights. It may look high tech. It’s not. It’s “no different than it was 50 years ago,” said Dr. Peter Pronovost, a critical care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “There are stacks and stacks of machines with wires sticking out of them. It’s chaos.” ICUs are one of the most crucial departments of any hospital — heroic places with devoted staff who pull the sickest of patients from death. But many ICU physicians say they’re also woefully — and often dangerously — out of date. Six million patients in the United States pass through ICUs each year, and studies show serious and sometimes fatal medical errors are routine. And a recent review published in the journal Critical Care found no major advances in ICU care since the field’s inception in the 1960s. Now, a handful of doctors and nurses in such places as Baltimore, Boston, and San Francisco are trying to yank the ICU into the 21st century. Pronovost, for instance, has called in submarine engineers and the physicists who built the spacecraft that whizzed past Pluto last year to help redesign intensive care. They’ve been shocked at how primitive even new ICU units can be: “They walk through the ICU and just flinch,” Pronovost said. One of the most pressing problems: None of the medical devices so critical to patient care — ventilators, pumps, drug infusers, pulse rate monitors — talk to each other, and, in what’s dubbed “the alarms race,” all try to outdo each other by beeping ever louder. Nurses answer a false alarm on average every 90 seconds, he said. “We have alarm fatigue. We’ve become numb to the noise and start to block them out,” said Rhonda Wyskiel, a former ICU nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital who now works to develop patient safety measures for hospitals at the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, which Pronovost directs. Pronovost, who made his name devising a checklist for doctors to consult before inserting a central venous catheter — a simple innovation that dramatically cut bloodstream infections — is now trying to create a “smart ICU.” “What I want to do for the ICU is what Steve Jobs did for the iPhone,” he said. To take one example: Many patients’ beds need to be partially raised to prevent pneumonia. Nurses are supposed to check angles each shift, sometimes using paper protractors. It’s a vital check that sometimes isn’t done or is not documented. Pronovost’s solution: a $2 sensor that could monitor the angle of the bed continuously. Another sensor could monitor the compression devices that are supposed to pump patient’s limbs to prevent deadly blood clots but are often left unplugged. He’d also like to connect ventilators to patient medical records to make sure vital information like the patient’s height — which affects the ventilator setting — is transferred. In his ideal world, all devices in the ICU would be networked and continually monitored, cutting the cacophony of alarms and the nursing workload. ICU nurses face an average of 200 duties per shift and spend a lot of time checking and double-checking orders and logging simple data from one device into another. Devices that actually communicate with each other and integrated information would leave them more time to spend with patients instead of machines, Wyskiel said. Such thinking is long overdue, said Dr. Marie Csete, an anesthesiologist and critical care specialist who now heads the Huntington Medical Research Institutes in Pasadena, Calif., and has coauthored a series of papers proposing ICU upgrades in the Journal of Critical Care. She said patient monitoring “needs to be designed from the ground up” because the current outmoded system is dangerous, inefficient, and impersonal. “Somewhere under the ventilator, rapid infuser, and stacks of drips, there is a patient, but where do you put your gaze?” said Csete. “We’re creating a generation of doctors who look at screens instead of patients.” Csete knows the dangers first hand: A few years ago, her mother, who was 87 at the time, nearly died in a Florida hospital after an aortic valve replacement. While in the ICU, she developed multiple organ failure and pneumonia. Orders were ignored, alarms were disregarded, and no one seemed to be paying attention. “If I hadn’t been there, she would have been dead the second day.” Csete said. “I was not impressed.” But reengineering an ICU is a huge undertaking, and one that involves a skill set not taught in medical school. “When physicians see the amount of math involved, they just scatter to the hills,” Csete said. The paralyzing weight of electronic data Take the problem of data overload. All those noisy devices in the ICU generate an immense amount of data. In a modern ICU, a single patient can generate 2,000 data points per day, said Dr. Brian Pickering, an anesthesiologist and critical care physician at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. In a 24-bed ICU like his, that’s 50,000 data points a day. Important information is easily lost, or forgotten. Pickering joined the Mayo Clinic nine years ago from Ireland, where patient data were still logged on a paper chart at the end of the bed. He was overwhelmed, he said, by electronic records in the United States that had too many tabs and screens and were difficult to navigate. “Point. Click. Point. Click. Point. Click. Back and forth,” he said. “That may work if you’ve only got one patient. But I’ve got 24 in the ICU, and any one of them could be in crisis at any minute.” With colleagues, Pickering created an “electronic intern,” called AWARE, that identifies the most important information a physician needs and highlights it, organizing it around organ systems. (The system is now being sold to hospitals through a Rochester startup called Ambient Clinical Analytics; Pickering and the Mayo Clinic benefit financially from the sales.) Another app now being tested, called EMERGE, extracts data from patient records to warn clinicians if an intervention they are planning might cause harm. “There’s so many things physicians can’t find, so things get missed,” said Hildy Schell-Chaple, an ICU nurse at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center who has been testing EMERGE, which was developed at Johns Hopkins. Yet another approach comes from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, which is testing a secure microblogging platform that allows everyone on an ICU care team to see all messages relating to a patient. It promotes better communication between staff and the patient, and ideally, leads to fewer errors. That is, if people use it, said Dr. Anuj Dalal, the hospitalist who designed the program. He said some staff members think of the system as too much work. They prefer e-mail, or even old-fashioned pagers. “From a technology standpoint, it’s usable,” Dalal said. “Getting people to use it is a completely different thing.” Learning to see the patient as a person Similar resistance has slowed the adoption of telemedicine, which can link specialists trained in critical care medicine to small hospitals lacking such expertise. The remote specialists can order treatments, check prescriptions, detect errors, and even talk directly to patients. Early on, some physicians and nurses in ICUs so disliked the feeling of being watched by distant experts that they threw lab coats or towels over cameras. Slowly, acceptance is growing; telemedicine systems are in place in about 16 percent of the country’s ICU units, said Dr. Craig M. Lilly, a critical care specialist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and expert on telemedicine. A 2014 study showed telemedicine can reduce ICU mortality — in large part by ensuring that nurses and physicians respond quickly when patients take a turn for the worse. “Sometimes the nurse doesn’t notice, sometimes the nurse is busy doing other things, sometimes the nurse is too chicken to wake up the doctor at 2 a.m., and sometimes the doctor just won’t listen to a nurse,” Lilly said. New technology may also help ICUs — once notorious for alienating families and keeping them at arm’s length — involve loved ones in a patient’s care. UCSF is now testing bedside tablets that patients or families can use to upload photos and descriptions of themselves. They can let doctors know what they like to be called, what their hobbies are, what they fear about their hospital stay, and what their healing goals are. The care team can then see them as individuals — and not, Schell-Chaple said, as just some 48-year-old man in Bed 8 who had a liver transplant. “The ICU environment,” she said, “is not set up to treat people with respect and dignity.” A push to have devices share their data The biggest hurdle to building a truly smart ICU has been medical manufacturers that don’t want to open up their devices and share the data they collect. “I used to be guilty of that too, and it’s unfortunately so shortsighted,” said Joe Kiani, founder of Masimo, a manufacturer of noninvasive patient monitoring devices based in Irvine, Calif. “We all think we have this amazing data and we want to hoard it, thinking we’ll monetize it some day.” But Kiani soon came to realize that free data flow and linked devices were key to improving patient safety. He founded the Patient Safety Movement Foundation in 2013 and is working to get medical device manufacturers to sign pledges that they’ll share data from their devices. Some 60 of about 100 key device manufacturers have signed on, said Kiani, who is an electrical engineer by training. He’s spent the past decade working on a device, called Root, that can collect and simplify multiple streams of patient data. “I now see a future where everything’s connected,” he said. “Hospitals are finally having a eureka moment.”

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In ICUs, a critical lack of coordination

Doctors and engineers are fighting to yank one of a hospital’s most important units into the modern era.

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Racing Victoria has won a long-running battle against horse trainer Mark Riley after it successfully appealed a decision that cleared him of a doping charge. Riley was slapped with a three-year racing ban after he was found to have administered a prohibited substance to his horse Gold For Kev following a race at Sandown Racecourse in July 2014. Riley appealed the matter to VCAT and then the Victorian Supreme Court, submitting the rules of racing did not allow "rounding up" when testing for a prohibited substance. Most of the 80 categories on the Australian Rules of Racing's prohibited substance list are banned absolutely, but some cease to be prohibited if they are present at or below specified levels. Riley's case concerned "alkalinising agents", which are acceptable at or below levels of 36.0 millimoles per litre in plasma. When a blood sample was taken from Gold For Kev in July 2014, testing revealed alkalinising agent levels of 37.061 millimoles per litre. The lab rounded that up to 37.1 mmol/L, but noted a measurement uncertainty of 1.0 mmol/L. Taking the uncertainty into account, the reading was treated as 36.1 mmol/L and the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board found Riley guilty of administering a prohibited substance and banned him for three years. Riley said this was against the rules and was last year cleared by the Supreme Court. Justice Kevin Bell found the rules did not permit a disqualification to be imposed on the basis of rounded-up results. Racing Victoria filed an appeal and on Wednesday the Court of Appeal found in its favour. Riley has been ordered to pay Racing Victoria's costs.

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Racing Vic wins trainer doping dispute

Racing Victoria has won its appeal against horse trainer Mark Riley after he twice successfully fought a three-year ban for doping.

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There have been 137 deaths from unprovoked shark attacks in Australia in the past century, including one in 2015 and two so far this year. In contrast, 280 people drowned in waterways in 2015/16. * Shark detection and mitigation strategies include tagging, acoustic receivers, installation and maintenance of barriers in areas including Albany and Busselton, and the government's SharkSmart website. * The state abandoned its controversial catch-and-kill policy after a 13-week trial in 2014. Individual sharks can be killed if they pose a serious threat to public safety under orders from WA's Fisheries Department. * Last unprovoked death: 60-year-old female diver at One Mile Reef, June 2016 * The state government announced a shark management strategy in 2015 including coastal aerial patrols, satellite listening stations, in-water surveillance trials, drones and drum lines. A trial of two eco-friendly shark barriers was called off this year after they failed to withstand rough conditions. * Great white sharks are a protected species, but the federal government has signalled it will consider a cull on NSWs north coast after 17-year-old surfer Cooper Allen was attacked at Ballina on Monday. * Last unprovoked death: 41-year-old male surfer at Shelly Beach, Feb 2015 * The shark control program, introduced in 1962, relies on mesh nets and drum lines (large, baited hooks) at areas including the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, central and far north Queensland. There is also a 24-hour emergency shark hotline to report sightings or damaged equipment. * Last unprovoked death: 48-year-old male swimmer at Palm Island, 2011 * The state's Primary Industries website advises the risk of a shark attack is "extremely low". * Great white sharks are a protected species. * Last unprovoked death: 23-year-old male diver at Glenelg, August 2005 * There are a number of shark refuge areas where fishing is prohibited to protect sharks. * Last unprovoked death: 35-year-old female diver at Tenth Island, June 1993 * Victoria restricts the intentional capture of great white sharks for commercial or game fishing, like all other states, in addition to greynurse, elephantfish, school and gummy sharks. * Last unprovoked death: Mornington Peninsula, 1987 * Tiger and bull sharks live in NT waters but are not considered as much of a threat as crocodiles. There is a personal possession fishing limit of three sharks. Sawfish, northern river and speartooth sharks are protected. * Last unprovoked death: 38-year-old female at Cobourg Peninsula, October 1934 (Sources: Australian Shark Attack File - Taronga; ABS Causes of Death, Australia, 2015; Royal Life Saving Drowning Report 2016)

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States move to stop shark attacks

Western Australia, NSW and Queensland - the states with the most recent fatal shark attacks - all have detection and prevention methods in place.

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The Syrian army and its allies have driven out rebels from a strategically important area of eastern Aleppo in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in Aleppo. One rebel official denied the report that al-Sakhour had fallen, an advance that would cut the rebel-held eastern districts of Aleppo in two, while another said the situation was not yet clear. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebels had lost control of more than a third of eastern Aleppo in recent days. Citing a military source, Syrian state TV said the army and its allies had seized the entire Sakhour area and were working to clear it of mines. Backed by allied militiamen, the army has been advancing into eastern Aleppo from the northeast since last week, making steady gains over the weekend. A fighter on the government side in Aleppo said the army and its allies had now driven a wedge through eastern Aleppo, leaving a corridor for rebels to quit the northern part for the south. "In the coming hours, the rest of the northern sector will be taken," the fighter told Reuters, declining to be identified because he is not an official spokesman. Capturing rebel-held eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011. Aleppo is the most important urban stronghold of the uprising. Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said government forces were now in effective control of a swathe of eastern Aleppo stretching north from the al-Sakhour neighbourhood, having seized a third of eastern Aleppo in recent days. "It is the biggest defeat for the opposition in Aleppo since 2012," he told Reuters. Abdulrahman said the army and its allies were now in control of an entire swathe of eastern Aleppo stretching north from al-Sakhour. Part of the northern area was seized by the Kurdish YPG militia, which is hostile to the rebel groups in eastern Aleppo and advanced into the rebel-held territory from the Kurdish-controlled Sheikh Maqsoud district, Abdulrahman said. Backed by the Russian air force, the Syrian army and its allies have been gradually closing in on rebel-held eastern Aleppo this year, besieging it before launching a fierce assault in September.

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Syrian army seizes key Aleppo area

An advance by the Syrian army into part of rebel-held eastern Aleppo has prompted hundreds of residents to flee the shifting frontlines.

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Photographs by George Frey for The New York Times Mr. Singleton discussing its future in an interview a few days ago at Sundance, Utah. SUNDANCE, Utah — William Dean Singleton, the maverick chief executive of the MediaNews Group, had a special announcement for the editors of his 55 daily newspapers when they met in this rustic mountain resort early in May. "We're buying Gannett," he deadpanned. In the seconds before he acknowledged the joke, the editors fell silent. Mr. Singleton is just brash enough, and has been on just enough of a newspaper-buying spree, that making a move on the biggest newspaper company in the country was not entirely implausible. After all, he had been in the hunt for Knight Ridder's 32 dailies and wound up plunking down $1 billion for four of them. And he has bid for two more big ones, The Inquirer and The Daily News in Philadelphia. "It wasn't that far-fetched," said Becky Bennett, editor of Public Opinion in Chambersburg, Pa. "He's pulled rabbits out of hats before." Mr. Singleton, 54, a bantam figure with flinty blue eyes, is indeed thought of as something of a magician in the newspaper world — having transformed himself from the son of a ranch hand in a tiny town in Texas to a media baron who now controls a newspaper empire that sprawls from coast to coast. He has, in a manner of speaking, sawed many of his competitors in half, only to have them hop off the table and become his partners. His company, the privately held MediaNews based in Denver, owns 55 dailies including The Denver Post, The Detroit News, The Daily News of Los Angeles and The Berkshire Eagle, plus more than 100 nondailies. With the addition of the Knight Ridder papers — The San Jose Mercury News, The Contra Costa Times and The Monterey County Herald, all in California, and The St. Paul Pioneer Press — MediaNews has become the nation's fourth-biggest newspaper company, up from seventh. For his next trick, Mr. Singleton hopes to lead the industry into a prosperous future as it seeks its footing in an increasingly Web-based world. This may be his most daring act yet. The newspaper business is in the midst of transformation, and no one, including Mr. Singleton, really knows what it is transforming into or how long it may take. The big challenge, he says, is figuring out how to make money from the Web, where most news is free and ads are cheap. "If we don't start getting paid for news, we can't continue to afford to produce it," he said. Mr. Singleton wants to help steer the industry collectively toward a solution; no one paper, he says, can do it alone. He may seem an unlikely captain for this effort. He earned a reputation as a merciless cost-cutter early in his career and is still known for "clustering" properties — buying contiguous papers so he can combine back-office and even editorial operations. The performance of his papers is uneven — some are profitable, others less so; some are adding pages, others are shrinking news space; some, like The Detroit News, have become bright and Web-like (he calls Detroit "the paper of the future") while others are burdened by old presses and poor color reproduction. John McManus, the director of GradetheNews.org, at the journalism school of San Jose State University in California, said many of Mr. Singleton's papers were low-wage and mediocre, and allowed advertisements to bleed all too easily into news content. But he does not underestimate Mr. Singleton's ambition. "He aspires to be a mogul in the ranks of Pulitzer and the Hearst of old, and I think he's going to achieve it," Mr. McManus said. Partly as a result of added expenses, MediaNews posted a loss of $3.6 million for the first three months of the year, in contrast to net income of $2.3 million in the quarter last year. The losses came on revenue of $208.4 million, compared with $184.7 million a year earlier. Mr. Singleton began buying newspapers in the 1970's, and his first major effort, reviving The Fort Worth Press, backfired. He closed it three months later. As he bought more papers, he stripped them down, laid people off and used the cash to buy more papers, almost all of them failing dailies that no one else wanted. Sometimes he saved them and sometimes, notably in Houston and Dallas, he let them die. He and Richard Scudder, now 93, a newsprint manufacturer in New Jersey, founded MediaNews in 1983; each of their families owns 45 percent of the company, with the remaining 10 percent owned by outside investors. He said he would never dream of taking the company public because having Wall Street dictate to him "would drive me nuts." These days, Mr. Singleton no longer looks at distressed properties. Instead, he is pouring $500 million into new printing presses around the country and building airy newsrooms for his employees.

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Question: Who Is MediaNews's Dean Singleton?

MediaNews Group's executive sees a prosperous future for newspapers in a Web-based world, and he is making The San Jose Mercury News a testing ground.