BOSTON, Feb 16 – A closely tracked asteroid, about 150-feet (45-meters) wide, whizzed safely past Earth on Friday, the same day a much smaller, previously undetected meteor hit Russia, injuring nearly 1,000 people.
Live images from a telescope at the Gingin Observatory in western Australia showed the asteroid looking like a white streak, moving across against a backdrop of black sky.
Astronomers said the object’s speed and proximity made it a challenge to track, because telescopes had to be aimed precisely or risked missing it.
The asteroid, dubbed 2012 DA 14, passed around 17,200 miles (27,000 kilometers) above the Earth at the time of closest approach, about 2:25 pm EST (1925 GMT), NASA said.
The asteroid isn’t nearly as large as the 10-kilometer (six-mile) wide object that took out the dinosaurs, but astronomers said it was large enough that, had it struck the Earth’s surface, it could wipe out a large urban area.
However, the asteroid’s path kept it well away from Earth and from the ring of communications satellites in Earth’s orbit, and NASA said the object’s orbit would keep it further from the planet in the foreseeable future.
Among other projects, the Goldstone Solar System Radar, located in California’s Mojave Desert, was taking radar images of the asteroid Friday and over the coming days to determine its exact size and shape.
The 2012 DA 14 was discovered by chance by astronomers after passing nearby last February.
NASA estimates a smallish asteroid such as 2012 DA 14 flies close to Earth every 40 years on average, but only hits our planet once every 1,200 years.
Astronomers have detected some 9,500 celestial bodies of various sizes that pass near Earth, but they estimate that’s only one tenth of what’s out there.
Even 2012 DA 14 was almost missed last year because of how quickly it passed through the observable sky, according to Jaime Nomen, one of the astronomers who spotted it from the La Sagra observatory in southern Spain.
Earlier Friday, an unrelated meteor exploded with a blinding flash above central Russia, setting off a shockwave that shattered windows and hurt almost 1,000 people in an event unprecedented in modern times.
The meteor was estimated to be several meters long and to weigh several dozen tonnes.


Support for this story provided by George Family Foundation.
PAULA HUSTON: I was probably in my late thirties at that time, and for the previous 20 years I had been completely away from faith and really felt myself to be an atheist. I don’t think I’d ever even talked to a priest before, much less seen a monk, and here were these monks, and they were dressed in their interesting and strange white robes, and it just struck me so hard that this was really a radically alternative way to live.
KATE OLSON, correspondent: Meeting the monks of New Camaldoli Hermitage for the first time 30 years ago was a life-changing experience for Paula Huston, who taught writing at California State University in San Luis Obispo.
HUSTON: I think I was really struck by the gentleness, the quiet, the kindness. After having gone through a divorce and divorce court, I was used to a much different attitude from people in my life at that point. It was also the first time I had time to look inside of myself—just to confront who was inside. Who was this angry young woman inside? What was I so angry about? What had I been missing for years and years and years? What was I deeply longing for?
OLSON: Perched on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, the hermitage is a popular retreat location. Through their ministry of hospitality, the Camaldolese Benedictines welcome guests to experience their life of contemplation and prayer.
FR CYPRIAN CONSIGLIO, OSB Cam: I think people know intuitively that there’s something missing from their diet.
OLSON: Cyprian Consiglio is the prior at the hermitage.
FR. CYPRIAN: If we’re not rooted in the spiritual, which we believe is actually the deepest part of being human, then we’re not fully alive. And the thing that's really starving is our souls. We keep trying to fill it up on the outside, not realizing that there is this fountain inside.
OLSON: Daily life at the hermitage is guided by a rule for spiritual growth and living in community written 1500 years ago by St. Benedict.
FR CYPRIAN: Benedict really lays the day out for the monk with this beautiful kind of proportion of the day between prayer, work, and study.
OLSON: The monks sustain their way of life through their retreat ministry and contributions from friends. They combine solitude and community, living as hermits in individual cells and gathering for prayer throughout the day.
FR CYPRIAN: We stop at several times a day to renew our prayer, so that now I can go to the kitchen again and still keep praying there, and now I can meet with a retreatant and talk to her or him and still be mindful in prayer there, or I can do my work in my office and still be mindful. It’s not about escaping ordinary life. It’s just not. It’s about coming back to ordinary life and realizing, oh, God was in this place, too, and I just didn’t see it before.
OLSON: The monks practice lectio divina, which means sacred reading—listening for the voice of God speaking through scripture or other texts.
Columba Stewart is a scholar of monasticism and a Benedictine monk at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota.
FR COLUMBA STEWART (St. John’s Abbey): I’m reminded regularly of how easy it is to repress and suppress what I’m actually feeling about something until it bubbles up in my times of silence and prayer. So I think that is part of what Benedict means by listening with the ear of the heart—of paying attention to what’s inside and what’s operating at depths below the level at which we conduct most of our day-to-day lives.
OLSON: Spending time in solitude and silence at the hermitage helped Huston confront the anxiety that had gripped her life since childhood.
HUSTON: I was so busy, so stressed out all the time, always in a rush, never on time, way too many things on my ‘to do’ list. But I found that so many things would get blocked by the fear of something going wrong. I consciously handed that lifetime of anxiety over to God and said I can’t get rid of it on my own, but I’m going to go to bed and not put the wooden spoon in the window. And I slept, and it was like being healed.
OLSON: Longing for a deeper relationship with God, Huston became an oblate of New Camaldoli, adapting the teachings and practice of prayer followed by the monks to her life outside the monastery. Huston prays at home in the morning and evening, and practices lectio divina. And, as St. Benedict recommends, she spends time every day doing physical labor, working on the land. Her writing studio now doubles as a modified cell, where she combines writing and prayer, which has changed how she sees her work.
HUSTON: I used to see what I was doing as my path to the Pulitzer Prize, and that is long gone. Now it’s my way of serving. That’s how it see it.
OLSON: She also discovered that following the Rule, an example of the monks, transformed her relationships with others.
HUSTON: When Mike, my husband, who always struggled with computers, would ask me yet again for help, listening to the tone of my own voice when I would be doing a good deed, but actually sounding impatient, because I was learning from the Rule and from watching the monks that it’s these little ways of behaving with one another, whether we approach someone with genuine warmth and gentleness or whether we stand back in a kind of cool and aloof way—that’s an enormous, it has a huge impact on other people.
FR COLUMBA: The real dynamic of the Rule is to move from the self to the other. What Benedict is doing is providing a charter for making a community that really endures and that can encompass a variety of people. They’re all there for some purpose that’s really beyond themselves, this spiritual quest, and they recognize they can’t do it by themselves.
OLSON: Having found community at New Camaldoli, Huston teams up with one of the monks to give retreats on Benedictine spirituality and its contemplative approach to life.
FR COLUMBA: What I find interesting as a historian is that, in a sense, we’re going back to where it all began, with a variety of models of Christian ascetic life. And by ascetic I just mean disciplined, and that’s what people are recovering, and then they’re figuring out ways that they can live that as individuals, as families, as loose associations of friends who find this particular path to be helpful, sustaining, and nourishing to them.
OLSON: Whatever new forms arise, the shared commitment of monks and oblates to live by an ancient rule may not only ensure the survival of monasticism, but bring its way of life to a wider world.
FR CYPRIAN: This is a little village. We’re actually living a life with our staff and our friends and our retreatants, besides the inner core of the community of monks, and hopefully we are modeling a way of life, modeling a different way to be in the world.
OLSON: For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, this is Kate Olson reporting from Big Sur, California.
Watch Fr. Cyprian singing some of his compositions.


D.C. Council approved a plan Tuesday to close the large and aging D.C. General homeless shelter and open new sites in almost every ward.
The plan would house homeless people in new family shelters built in almost every ward on public-owned land.
Re: tweet about Bowser yelling at Mendo, let's be fair: things sometimes get heated between adversarial branches. Not the end of the world.
Mayor Muriel Bowser had originially proposed closing D.C. General and building shelters on privately owned land. Council changed the plan to build the new shelters on land that was owned by the city; that could save taxpayers more than $100 million, according to D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson.
But the mayor has contended it will delay closure of D.C. General.
The change led to a heated battle that included the mayor cursing at the council chair, a WAMU reporter Martin Austermuhle had reported.
"You're a f---ing liar! You know it can't close in !" the mayor shouted, according to a tweet from Austermuhle.


Sony will handle home entertainment distribution for Lionsgate's TV series outside of North America and the U.K.
Lionsgate has signed a multiyear deal with Sony Pictures Home Entertainment that will see Sony handle the distribution of box sets of Lionsgate's TV series.
The deal covers both current shows, such as Nashville and Orange Is the New Black, and library titles including Mad Men and Nurse Jackie.
The deal, announced Wednesday, will see Sony handle physical packaged media distribution for Lionsgate TV shows worldwide outside of North America and the U.K.
Lionsgate will continue to handle digital distribution of its own titles worldwide.


Ingie Chalhoub, president and managing director of Etoile Group, is integral to the luxury retail sector of the UAE. Spearheading the fashion powerhouse since establishing the operation in 1983, Chalhoub has brought over 200 international ultra-luxury brands to the region. Among those names are Chanel, Valentino, Ralph Lauren, Tod’s, John Galliano and Hogan. She employs 400 people, operates over 60 high-end fashion boutiques across six countries and has even launched her own fashion line, Ingie Paris. In 2005 Chaulhoub opened luxury fashion concept, Etoile La Boutique.
Outside Etoile, Chalhoub picked up L’Officiel magazine’s 2009 Businesswoman Of The Year Award and is also one of the select few who sit on the board of Dubai International Fashion Week.


Jackky Bhagnani is all geared to make his next appearance on the silver screen. The actor has been cast to play the lead role in Anandwaa which is considered to be an ode to Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s cult classic, Anand starring Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan in the film.
Jackky, known for his films Youngistan and F.A.L.T.U, has started shooting for Anandwaa in Mumbai.
On the other hand, he also dabbled with production along with his father Vashu Bhagnani for Sarabjit. He also explored the world of short films with Carbon starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui.


Multiple Copy and Paste system clipboard capture everything you cut or copy from other programs. Default copy, cut, and paste operations works with single fragment only. Often, it is very convenient to have more than one fragment in the clipboard. Thus, you can paste one of the early used fragments back to your document, fill any forms with some predefined data, paste any part of the clipboard contents. Multiple Copy and Paste stores all fragments that once placed into the Windows clipboard, and allows you reuse any of that with a single click.


An increased incidence of brain and heart tumors was seen in rats.
It’s the moment we’ve all been dreading. Initial findings from a massive federal study, released on Thursday, suggest that radio-frequency (RF) radiation, the type emitted by cellphones, can cause cancer.
The findings from a $25 million study, conducted over two and a half years by the National Toxicology Program (NTP), showed that male rats exposed to two types of RF radiation were significantly more likely than unexposed rats to develop a type of brain cancer called a glioma, and also had a higher chance of developing the rare, malignant form of tumor known as a schwannoma of the heart. The effect was not seen in females.
The radiation level the rats received was “not very different” from what humans are exposed to.
The radiation level the rats received was “not very different” from what humans are exposed to when they use cellphones, said Chris Portier, a former associate director of the NTP who commissioned the study.
As the intensity of the radiation increased, so did the incidence of cancer in the rats. (The highest radiation level was five to seven times as strong as what humans typically receive while using a phone.) Although ionizing radiation, which includes gamma rays and X-rays, is widely accepted as a carcinogen, the wireless industry has long noted that there is no known mechanism by which RF radiation causes cancer. The researchers wrote that the results “appear to support” the conclusion that RF radiation may indeed be carcinogenic.
Past animal studies have been inconclusive. Most of those suggesting a connection between cellphone radiation and cancer had first exposed rodents to toxic chemicals to induce tumors, which were then shown to grow in response to radiation exposure. But the new study did nothing in advance to stimulate cancer in the animals.
The NTP first decided to investigate the carcinogenicity of cellphone radiation in 2001, partly in response to epidemiological studies showing a correlation between gliomas and cellphone use. Some of the studies even showed that the cancers were ipsilateral—meaning they tended to appear on the same side of the head where users held their phones. But other epidemiological studies haven’t found links between cancer and cellphones.
The Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with regulating the health aspects of consumer products, says on its website that there is “no evidence linking cell phone use with the risk of brain tumors.” It does acknowledge some risk associated with carrying cellphones too close to the body, but only due to the phones’ heating effect.
The study was expensive in part because it required the construction of special exposure chambers that allowed thousands of mice and rats to receive standardized dozes of radiation. For about nine hours per day, for periods ranging from two months to the lifetime of the animal, the rodents were exposed to the RF radiation frequencies used by second generation (2G) phones—the standard at the time the study was initiated.
Only the test results for rats have been released so far. Female rats didn’t experience significantly higher than normal cancer rates. However, among male rats that received the highest radiation exposures, 2 percent to 3 percent contracted gliomas and 6 percent to 7 percent percent developed schwannoma tumors in their hearts, depending on the type of radiation used. None of the male rats in the control groups developed those cancers.
Potentially confounding the results, the rats exposed to radiation on average lived longer than those that weren’t. Some outside reviewers argued that the study’s authors should have given more weight to that caveat. Reviewers were also puzzled that the unexposed control rats didn’t exhibit the usual number of brain tumors. “I am unable to accept the authors’ conclusions,” wrote Michael Lauer, the deputy director of the National Institute of Health’s office of extramural research.
In the United States, of about 25,000 malignant brain tumors diagnosed each year, 80 percent are gliomas. Malignant brain tumors are the most common cause of cancer deaths in adolescents and adults ages 15 to 39.
This article was updated to reflect criticism of the study’s conclusions by outside researchers.


Chelsea stars Jorginho and Emerson toasted their side's 2-0 win over West Ham on Monday night by having dinner with Real Madrid legend Roberto Carlos.
Eden Hazard scored twice as Maurizio Sarri's side moved into the Champions League places with a victory over their London rivals at Stamford Bridge.
Jorginho and Emerson celebrated moving into the top four by heading out for dinner to Gola in Fulham with the 45-year-old legend.
Carlos, who won seven major honours during his spell with Real Madrid as well as the World Cup with Brazil in 2002, posed for several pictures with Jorginho and Emerson after they ate their Italian meal.
He thanked owner Aaron Rutigliano, writing alongside one picture: 'Thanks @golarestaurant for all the love @aaronrutigliano and of course @emersonpalmieri33 for everything'.
Jorginho also paid tribute to Carlos, posting: 'What a fantastic surprise to find this idol!'.
Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri branded Hazard irreplaceable on Monday night after his sensational solo display at Stamford Bridge.
The Blues attacker produced an unstoppable display, including a mesmeric solo goal, to help the Blues into third in the race for Champions League qualification.
However the Stamford Bridge club look set to lose Hazard this summer as Real Madrid make the Belgium international a top priority ahead of next season.


ALMATY, Aug 14 (Reuters) - The Uzbek sum has gained about 9 percent against the dollar on the Central Asian nation’s black market over the past seven days, as a full-scale exchange rate liberalisation appears imminent.
The former Soviet republic this month abolished mandatory sales by exporters of a quarter of their foreign currency revenue, after earlier allowing a limited number of banks and companies to deviate from the official exchange rate in deals.
The final steps would be allowing full convertibility of the currency, aligning the official and market rates and lifting restrictions that force ordinary Uzbek to buy foreign currency from the black market rather than from banks.
It is not clear when the authorities plan to formalise the reform, but the black market rate has already started adjusting.
According to websites such as dollaruz.net which publish black market quotes, the sum has jumped to 7,400-7,500 per dollar on Monday from 8,100-8,200 a week earlier.
Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous nation and second-biggest economy, has until this month required exporters to sell a quarter of their foreign currency revenue at the official rate, about 4,100 sums per dollar.
Importers, at the same time, can only buy foreign currency on a separate bourse where they pay about 8,000-9,000 per dollar, although the rate is not officially reported.


The French-American Cultural Foundation’s glitzy fundraiser shared a venue with the more serious Intelligence and National Security Alliance gala.
Seasons restaurant set up to serve 14 wines to guests. Photographs by Carol Ross Joynt.
Four Seasons Hotel manager Dirk Burghartz had a big smile on his face Wednesday night, and for good reason: His biggest party rooms were rocking. Upstairs, in Seasons, the French and their American friends partied extravagantly, paying $1,000 a person for a five-course dinner that started with flutes of Louis Roederer Cristal at the opening reception, followed by another 14 stellar vintage wines and a cognac. Downstairs in the packed ballroom, representatives from the defense and intelligence industries honored young achievers and heard warnings about the real world, battling cyber threats in and out of the US. They, too, ate and drank well, beginning with a boisterous two-hour cocktail reception.
The French dinner, which went on ’til close to midnight, was to raise money for the French-American Cultural Foundation, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary. The dinner was hosted both by the foundation’s president, Leonard Silverstein, and the French ambassador, François Delattre, who greeted the hundred or so guests as they arrived and later made welcoming remarks. Its theme was “cultural icons,” and they included the Hotel George V in Paris—which is managed by the Four Seasons and whose executive chef and staffers flew to DC to prepare the dinner—as well as Air France, Baccarat, and the producers of some of France’s greatest wines.
So many wine glasses crowded onto the gold-silk-covered tables that there was just enough room left for the lacquered plates. What was poured into the glasses included Grand Crus from Margaux, Saint-Estèphe, Saint-Julian, Pauillac, and Haut-Médoc. The pairing menu offered chilled oysters with caviar, duck foie gras, steamed Maine lobster, roasted lamb, a cheese course, and a variation on a tarte Tatin for dessert. There was also a silent auction offering items such as a 2001 Royal Imperiale Château Mouton Rothschild, on which someone placed a starting bid of $4,500, jeroboams (double magnums) of other world-class wines, and a collection of French coffee table books.
The flower arrangements, in hues of blue and purple, were created by the George V florist, who also flew from France for the occasion. The swag bag bulged with French toiletries and luxury-brand gifts.
There were no floral arrangements on the tables at the fourth annual Intelligence and National Security Alliance gala, where tickets ran $195 for members and $275 for nonmembers. One guest speculated the reason for the lack of flowers was simple: Intelligence operatives and contractors might suspect the flower arrangements were bugged. The meal, however, was deluxe: a hearty salad of mixed autumn greens with nuts, dried fruit, and goat cheese; an entrée of tenderloin and grilled scallops and shrimp; and a dessert of ice cream, mousse, and chocolate toffee.
The honorees, all young people who have tackled threat issues in their fields, were Dr. Amber Aiken of the US Army National Ground Intelligence Center, Lieutenant Colonel Ian McCulloh of US Army Central Command, Trey Smith of the Central Intelligence Agency (fun detail: in the dinner program instead of his photo there was only the CIA logo), Dr. Anton Pfeiffer of Northrop Grumman, Gunnery Sergeant James Brenneis of the US Marine Corps, and Lindsay Hovis of the Pennsylvania State Police.
Just like the French dinner upstairs, the downstairs dinner also ran late. So much to say, so much good food to eat and fine wine to drink. Bottom line: a good night for the Four Seasons.
On the terrace at the Four Seasons, bottles of sauternes and Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne; both were served by the glass at the opening reception of the French-American Cultural Foundation’s “Cultural Icons” dinner.
Among the items up for auction at the French-American Cultural Foundation dinner: a collection of French-themed coffee table books.
Sidney Drell announces the Academic Award at the fourth annual Intelligence and National Security Alliance dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel on Wednesday night. The award went to Lieutenant Colonel Ian McCulloh, of US Army Central Command, who is also on the stage.


Places of Worship in DarabToday we will be heading to the province of Fars in Iran and to the city of Darab to take a look at a couple of its religious monuments.
Bushehr PortsBushehr which is connected to major sea lines through the Persian Gulf is one of the most important commercial ports in Iran.
Qashqayee TribeThis is a brief glimpse into one of Iran’s most famous nomadic tribes, the Qashqaiee tribe.
Natanz MuseumsMost of us have been to different museums in different cities, but there are always exceptional museums that we have to go and see for ourselves.
Parvar Region in SemnanOne of the regions in Iran with a large variety of animals is the protected area of Parvar.
Bandar Abbas HandicraftsThe wonderland of handicrafts is quite dazzling, wouldn’t you agree? Every year hundreds and hundreds of tourists come to Iran and head straight to its southern shores, to the province of Hormozgan that’s on the northern fringe of the Persian Gulf.
Bushehr HandicraftsCome with us to get to know some brilliant local crafts in this southwestern Iranian province located along the pristine Persian Gulf shores.
Persian CeramicsWhen traveling to a new place, one of the first things that might come to mind is what to bring back for family and friends as souvenirs.
Hormozgan’s Lesser-Known AttractionsCome with us to the humid Province of Hormozgan in southern Iran, where we’ll be checking out a couple of manmade attractions near a port city.
Isfahan’s Lesser-Known AttractionsAfushteh is a vast village in the vicinity of Natanz in Isfahan Province. The inhabitants built their homes next to their gardens for easy use and access.
Teimareh PetroglyphsTeimareh Valley, in Iran’s Markazi Province, has sheltered an impressive amount of rock art -- the artistic rendition of the imaginative minds of their ancient creators.
Scenic Rural LandscapesMaryan and Aghvelar are two villages in northwestern Iran where a combination of picturesque nature and ancient history leaves every visitor in awe.
Markazi Historical SitesMuch of the territory across this western Iranian province is dotted with little known historic monuments.
Zaribafi: Brocade WeavingThis silk fabric interwoven with gold or silver threads combines magnificence, uniqueness and glamor.
Dooshab: A Wholesome Sweet DessertTravel with us to Iran’s north to learn about a ceremony for extracting wild persimmon juice, known for its health benefits.
Sightseeing in Bandar AbbasToday we’re going to travel to the hot and humid Province of Hormozgan along the southern shores of Iran.
Natanz City in IsfahanThroughout history, the Silk Road has come to be known as the pathway of trade as well as dialog among cultures. In Ancient Persia, the Silk Road ran through the country’s central cities such as Natanz.
Fishing Industry in Southern IranIran has excellent potential to expand its fishing industry due to its favorable environmental conditions along different sections of its coastline and in inland lakes and reservoirs.
Religious Sites in HormozganSince time immemorial, people have built magnificent monuments to hold religious ceremonies and for worship.
Jashak Salt Domes in Bushehr This extraordinary mountainous area is believed to be the site of the largest salt domes in Iran and across the Middle East.
Roodsar AttractionsJoin us for a visit to the city of Roodsar in Iran’s northern Gilan Province and a tour of historical sites Temijan Bridge & Band-e Bon Castle.
Exploring History in Firoozabad Today, we’re headed to a place in Iran’s Fars Province where the founder of the Persian Sassanian dynasty, Ardeshir Babakan, set the grounds for his empire.
© Iran 2015. All rights reserved.


Britney Spears’ new single, Work B**ch, went to work a full day ahead of its official release date!
The banging club anthem ? that will feature on her next album and was written by Willi.i.am and Swedish DJ Sebastian Ingorsso’s protégé, DJ Otto Jettman, among others ? was leaked online over the weekend.
The 31-year-old pop star was said to be incredibly upset by the low-quality version released prior to her official version which she seemed to be pretty amped about on social media over the past few weeks.
In response to the leaked version of Britney’s new hit from her currently untitled album, her management team quickly released an official track.
The song is Britney’s way of giving her fans the secret to her success. She coos the opening lyrics (in a rather English accent),"You want a hot body? You want a Bugatti? You want a Maserati? You better work, b**ch! You want a Lamborghini? Sip martinis? Look hot in a bikini? You better work, b**ch. You wanna live fancy? Live in a big mansion? Party in France? You better work, b**ch."


LIVERPOOL could be prompted to re-sign former midfielder Xabi Alonso after it emerged that he is unlikely to extend his contract at Real Madrid.
According to Spanish TV show Punto Pelota, the Spaniard has made the decision not to extend his deal at the Bernabeu beyond its current 2014 expiration.
Journalist Josep Pedrerol claims that Alonso will run down his contract at Madrid until next summer, when he would be free to move on a Bosman transfer, potentially paving the way for a return to Liverpool.
"Xabi Alonso has decided not to renew with Real Madrid. [His current deal] ends in June 2014 and his contract will not be renewed."
Real Madrid are reportedly aware of the situation, and while they are willing to offer the 31-year-old fresh terms, they will not stand in his way should he want to leave.
Alonso will be approaching 33 years of age by the time his current deal with Madrid expires, and has previously stated that he would prefer to play regularly elsewhere than be a 'burden' to Los Blancos.
The former Reds midfielder remains a favourite with the club's support despite his £30m move away in 2009, and could make a return to Merseyside without Liverpool needing to pay a transfer fee.


Wong is not in the lineup Sunday against the Cubs.
With lefty Mike Montgomery taking the hill for the regular season finale, Wong will once again retreat to the bench for a day off. He'll likely finish his season with a .249/.332/.388 slash line to go with nine homers and 38 RBI. Yairo Munoz will replace him at the keystone Sunday.


IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn is taken out of a New York police station on May 15, 2011.
Dominque Strauss-Kahn, the Chief of the International Monetary Fund, is jailed in New York City today on charges he sexually assaulted a hotel maid over the weekend. Strauss-Kahn, of France, was removed from an Air France plane on Saturday afternoon just as it was preparing to leave Kennedy International Airport for Paris, according to the New York Times. He'll appear in court today.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has opened nine bays of the Morganza Spillway, according to the New Orleans Times Picayune. This will ease the backed up Mississippi River and prevent heavy flooding downstream in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. But it will inundate the surrounding river plain, and force up to 25,000 people to evacuate, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Israeli security forces remain on high alert a day after protesters surged across the border from Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. It was a response to Israel's birthday, which Palestinians mourn. CBS says at least 15 people were killed in the protests.
Air France says information is readable from two flight data recorders discovered in the wreckage of a jet that went down in the Atlantic Ocean nearly two years ago. The AP says investigators believe it will take several weeks to retrieve the data. They hope to learn why Air France Flight 447 tumbled into the ocean, killing all 228 aboard.
Open for business: after losing his convenience store to the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in March, Takashi Watanabe began again. His 7-Eleven store is operating in a Miyagi prefecture parking lot with the help of family, friends and a refrigerated truck, according to Asahi News. They're open from 10 to 4 PM and are popular with local residents and volunteers. (HT: The Daily What).


Our best India pictures from this week.
(Warning: graphic content) Twenty-five years have passed since the bloodshed in which Hutu militias killed around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi files his nomination papers in Varanasi.
Our top photos of the week.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's roadshow in Varanasi.


The University of California, Davis, has begun the next phase of preparation of a new Long Range Development Plan, inviting public comments on the scope of the environmental impact report that will be prepared for the plan.
In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, the university has released a formal “Notice of Preparation” of the EIR, and that notice is available for review online and on paper. Comments are welcome until Feb. 17, providing more than the 30-day minimum public review period. See below for more information on public review and comment.
In addition, UC Davis has scheduled an open house to address the EIR’s scope and content, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25, in Ballroom A at the UC Davis Conference Center (on Alumni Lane). Campus planners will be available to discuss the EIR process, and the university will accept written comments during the open house.
The updated Long Range Development Plan, or LRDP, will guide the campus through projected growth in the numbers of students, faculty and staff, allowing for expansion of existing programs and launch of new initiatives. To meet these goals, the plan will analyze an additional 2 million gross square feet of academic and administrative building space, in addition to expanding and redeveloping campus housing.
The draft plan identifies capacity to house more than 90 percent of the projected growth in student enrollment on campus. Based on previous experience, 90 percent of students live on campus or in the city of Davis, while others live elsewhere for various reasons. This projection is therefore intended to ensure that the campus has sufficient housing to accommodate all the additional students from enrollment growth who desire to live on campus.
The Davis City Council has formally requested that UC Davis study providing on-campus housing for an even greater percentage of students, in response to the challenge of a very low apartment vacancy rate in the city. While the Notice of Preparation marks the formal beginning of the environmental review process, UC Davis will continue to engage the city as a collaborative partner and will remain committed to continuing to examine opportunities for additional student housing capacity within the draft LRDP’s land-use plan.
UC Davis opened the LRDP planning process with the launch of the “Campus Tomorrow” website (campustomorrow.ucdavis.edu) in the fall of 2015, and since then has received extensive public comment. University planners have held open houses on campus and in the city of Davis, and UC Davis officials have met regularly with city staff, given informational presentations to the City Council and participated in City Council LRDP Subcommittee meetings.
After the scoping period for environmental review, UC Davis will begin working on the draft EIR. UC Davis anticipates releasing it this coming fall for a 45-day review period, for the general public and government agencies. The UC Board of Regents could consider the plan’s adoption in early 2018.
UC Davis is known globally and locally for its commitment to the environment, both through research and sustainable practices on campus. UC Davis recently earned the worldwide No. 1 designation in the University of Indonesia’s annual GreenMetric sustainability ranking, and has repeatedly placed among the top-10 universities in Sierra Magazine’s annual “Cool Schools” report on the nation’s greenest universities.
UC Davis West Village is the largest planned housing development in the nation with a goal of zero-net energy, and an on-campus solar farm is the largest of its kind on a U.S. campus, supplying about 14 percent of electricity needs for the Davis campus. Student-led programs such as the Student Farm and the Solar Decathlon competition are helping to bring forward a new generation of environmental pioneers.


Congress ordered disability reviews after thousands of service members who were medically separated from service were low-balled on their benefits.
Hardeep Grewal was a 29-year-old Air Force computer operations specialist suffering a mild case of pneumonia when he deployed to Saudi Arabia and a series of other Southwest Asian countries in 2003.
The staff sergeant stayed ill and returned to the United States “looking like a scarecrow,” he said. He was diagnosed with asthma, which would require two medications daily for the rest of his life. By December 2004, Grewal was medically discharged with a 10 percent disability rating and a small severance payment.
The Air Force physical evaluation board “low-balled me,” he recalled in a phone conversation Wednesday from his Northern Virginia home. “They were trying to get rid of people” from a specialty that, after offering an attractive reenlistment bonus, quickly became overmanned.
Grewal promptly applied to the Department of Veterans Affairs for disability compensation and his initial VA rating was set at 30 percent. Full VA payments were delayed until Grewal’s Air Force severance was recouped.
Twelve years later, in August 2016, he got a letter inviting him to have his military disability rating reviewed by a special board Congress created solely to determine whether veterans like him, discharged for conditions rated 20 percent disabling or less from Sept. 11, 2001, to Dec. 31, 2009, were treated fairly.
Grewal had to wait 18 months but he received his decision letter from the Physical Disability Board of Review this month. It recommends to the Air Force Secretary that Grewal’s discharge with severance pay be recharacterized to permanent disability retirement, effective the date of his prior medical separation.
If, as expected, the Air Force approves a revised disability rating to 30 percent back to December 2004, Grewal will receive retroactive disability retirement, become eligible for TRICARE health insurance and begin to enjoy other privileges of “retiree” status including access to discount shopping on base.
Congress ordered that the PDBR be established as part of the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act after a mountain of evidence surfaced that service branches had been low-balling disability ratings given to thousands of service members medically separated over a nine-year period through recent wars.
The PDBR began accepting applications in January 2009. So far only 19,000 veterans have applied from a pool of 71,000 known to be eligible for at least a disability rating review. All of them were medically discharged with disability ratings of 20 percent or less sometime during the qualifying period.
A bump in rating to 30 percent or higher bestows retiree status including a tax-free disability retirement and TRICARE eligibility. And yet only 27 percent of veterans believed eligible for a rating review have applied. Indeed, applications to the PDBR have slowed to a trickle of 40 to 50 per month.
For this column, Greg Johnson, director of the PDRB, provided written responses to two dozen questions on the board’s operations. Overall, he explained, 42 percent of applicants receive a recommendation that their original rating be upgraded. Their service branch has the final say on whether a recommendation is approved but in almost every instance they have been.
To date, 47 percent of Army veterans who applied got a recommendation for upgrade, and 18 percent saw their rating increased to at least 30 percent to qualify for disability retirement.
For the Navy Department, which includes sailors and Marines, 34 percent of applicants received upgrade recommendations and 17 percent gained retiree status. For Air Force applicants the approval rate also has been 34 percent, but 21 percent airmen got a revised rating high enough to qualify for disability retirement.
The top three medical conditions triggering favorable recommendations are mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress, back ailments and arthritis.
As Grewal learned, decisions are not made quickly. The current wait, on average, is eight to 12 months, Johnson said. But that is faster than the 18-to-24-month wait that was routine in earlier years.
Also, veterans need not fear that a new review will result in a rating downgrade. The law establishing the PDBR doesn’t allow for it.
Once received, applications are scanned into the PDBR data base and the board requests from the service branch a copy of their physical evaluation board case file. Also, PDBR retrieves from VA the veteran’s treatment records and all documents associated with a VA disability rating decision.
After paperwork is gathered, a PDBR panel of one medical officer and two non-medical officers, military or civilian, review the original rating decision. All panelists are the rank of colonel or lieutenant colonel (for Navy, captain or commander) or their civilian equivalents. The board has 34 voting members plus support staff, which is more than PDBR had in its early years, Johnson said.
The wait for a decision is long because of the time it takes to retrieve records, the thoroughness of the review and the complexity of the cases, Johnson said.
About 70 percent of applicants have been Army, 20 percent Navy or Marine Corps veterans, 10 percent Air Force and less than one percent Coast Guard.
PDBR notification letters have been sent to eligible veterans at last-known addresses at least twice and include applications and pre-stamped return envelopes. Grewal said he had moved four times since leaving the service which might be why he never heard of the board before the notification letter reach him in 2016.
If an eligible veteran is incapacitated or deceased, a surviving spouse, next of kin or legal representative also can request the PDBR review.
Veterans and survivors can learn more about the PDBR online, including how to apply, at health.mil/pdbr.


The number of people using European airports set a record last year but growth slowed compared with 2017, the Airports Council International Europe (ACI) said Wednesday.
The total number of passengers at European airports reached 2.34 billion according to the group, which represents more than 500 airports in 45 countries.
The number of passengers grew by 6.1 percent, down from an 8.5-percent rise in 2017, a statement said.
Europe's five biggest airports added 16.5 million passengers, but faced "capacity limitations, intensifying hub competition and hub by-pass developments as well as airline strikes," the ACI said.
"Managing such growth has been quite a challenge and the strain on airport facilities and staff is real. Capacity and quality are now major issues for an increasing number of airports," ACI director general Olivier Jankovec said.
London Heathrow was again the top airport in Europe with 80.12 million passengers, followed by Paris-Charles de Gaulle with 72.22 million and Amsterdam-Schiphol with 71.05 million.
Frankfurt, which was number four with 69.51 million passengers, posted the highest growth among the so-called "majors" with a rise of 7.8 percent.
Growth in freight traffic stumbled meanwhile, as it saw a gain of just 1.8 percent following a jump of 8.4 percent in 2017, the data showed.
Looking ahead, Jankovec identified Britain's planned withdrawal from the European Union on March 29 as "the top immediate risk," but said measures announced by the European Commission should "help mitigate the impact."


BLUE BELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Halfpenny Technologies Inc. and Pulse8, Inc. announced today that they have signed a partnership agreement that will enable the delivery of seamless care coordination and clinical data exchange to enable improved quality measures and risk score accuracy.
The combined solution will streamline and automate the collection of clinical data to improve patient outcomes by enabling broader and deeper analysis of patient-level medical data. Patient chart information is typically difficult and expensive to access and retrieve. Halfpenny Technologies applies advanced data acquisition algorithms to securely access and transmit data to Pulse8 for improved risk adjustment and quality analytics, resulting in the transmission of actionable data back to participating providers in order to better document the risk factors of their patient population, demonstrate the quality outcomes of their practice, and ultimately support the delivery of improved patient care.
“We are pleased to announce our partnership with Pulse8 for use of Halfpenny Technologies’ industry-leading Clinical Data Exchange Solutions. We feel our strategic partnership will rapidly accelerate the expansion of Health Plans and Providers into deeper analytics never before possible. This will help to improve patient outcomes by providing near real-time alerts for gap closures for advance patient management programs,” said Tim Kowalski, President and CEO of Halfpenny Technologies.
Pulse8 is driven to improve the efficiency of provider and patient engagement initiatives and eliminating unnecessary and wasteful gap closure efforts by adopting innovative data acquisition methodologies and incorporating non-traditional data sets. Electronic Medical Record (EMR) integration represents a quantum leap forward and Pulse8 is working with Halfpenny Technologies to help Health Plans and Providers share data more efficiently, communicate more effectively, and address the myriad of quality measures and chronic disease gaps more completely.
“Delivering meaningful data within a provider’s workflow ultimately improves quality, risk score accuracy, and patient outcomes while reducing waste. Our partnership with Halfpenny Technologies couples an impressive integration platform technology with our Big Data and Advance Analytics covering over 95% of the EMRs in the market. We are excited to leverage the efficiencies of working with Halfpenny Technologies on behalf of our Health Plan and Provider customers,” said John Criswell, Founder and CEO of Pulse8.
Founded over 15 years ago, Halfpenny Technologies Inc. provides health plans, clinical labs, pharmaceuticals, hospitals, and ACO’s with a cloud-based, secure, scalable, clinical data exchange platform designed to optimize care coordination, supplement HEDIS® reporting, improve STAR ratings and efficiently connect physicians’ EHR systems.
Pulse8 is the only Healthcare Analytics and Technology Company delivering complete visibility into the efficacy of your Risk Adjustment and Quality Management programs. We enable health plans and at-risk providers to achieve the greatest financial impact in the ACA Commercial, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid markets. By combining advanced analytic methodologies with extensive health plan experience, Pulse8 has developed a suite of uniquely pragmatic solutions that are revolutionizing risk adjustment and quality. Pulse8’s flexible business intelligence tools offer real-time visibility into member and provider activities so our clients can apply the most cost-effective and appropriate interventions for closing gaps in documentation, coding, and quality. For more company information, please contact Scott Filiault at (732) 570-9095, visit us at http://www.Pulse8.com, or follow us on Twitter @Pulse8News.


Japan's SoftBank Group has provided nearly half the cash for the new $400 million fund by Abu Dhabi's state-owned Mubadala Investment Co that aims to back European start-ups, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
Mubadala, which is a big investor in SoftBank's Vision Fund, will use the fund to invest between $5 million and $30 million in European start-ups, FT reported, citing people with direct knowledge of the matter.
A company executive said last week Mubadala Ventures was planning to launch a technology-focused, $400 million European fund this year.
SoftBank did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment, while Mubadala was not immediately reachable for comment.


What's going on with the GBP vs USD?
GBP/USD: The Pound has fallen below 1.29190 support following the release of December manufacturing data plus the poor GDP results. The Pound could continue further down to 1.28725 and 1.28428 support if it fails to hold at its 500 EMA in the four hours price chart at1.28980.
We explain market movements and its potential next move to help and guide you to possibly make the right decision on when to enter, apply stop losses to protect your capital, take profit and exit your position.
Chart 1: The short-term view of the GBP/USD price action in the 60 minutes price chart highlights the direction of the trend and the support and resistance price points.


Expressing grief over the loss of party veteran Vidya Charan Shukla, Congress MP Raj Babbar on Tuesday condoled the former's demise, and said his death is not only a loss to Chhattisgarh Congress but to the entire country.
"He breathed his last today after being critically injured in the 25th May Maoists attack. I am personally grieved and I pray to God that his soul rests in peace and also give enough strength to his family to face this sad news," he said.
"They don't want to understand democratic values and avenge everything with the barrel of a gun, they want to reply with bullets. In the all party meet, the Prime Minister and the government have clearly stated that if any faction would resort to the use of arms, then stern action will be taken against them," he added.
Shukla, 84, breathed his last at the Medanta Medicity Hospital in Gurgaon this afternoon after battling the bullet injuries that he sustained in the Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh last month.
Shukla, who was critically injured in the Maoist attack on May 25, was airlifted to the Medanta Medicity Hospital from Raipur a day after the attack.
Heavily-armed Maoists had on May 25 ambushed a convoy of Congress leaders in the state's Bastar district, killing 28 people including PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel, his son Dinesh, Congress leader Mahendra Karma and ex-MLA Uday Mudliyar and injuring 37 others.
The Chhattisgarh Government has announced a three-day official mourning. His body will be flown to Raipur and the last rites will take place with full state honors tomorrow.
For the general elections in 1957, the Congress Party chose him as their Lok Sabha candidate from Mahasamund constituency. He won with a thumping majority and entered the Parliament of India as one of the youngest Parliamentarians.
He returned elected to Lok Sabha nine times in subsequent elections. When Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister in 1966, she chose him as a Minister in her Cabinet.
In a long span of political career, he has held many portfolios including Communications, Home, Defence, Finance, Planning, Information and Broadcasting, Civil Supplies, External Affairs, Parliamentary Affairs and Water Resources.


Google has given its Chromecast streaming dongle yet another accessibility boost by optimising Google Play Movies and Play Music for casting from the web.
A huge Chromecast update earlier this week brought support for 10 apps and services, enabling users to cast content to their television like action sports, news and music videos. Now, after, its latest upgrade, you can visit play.google.com and cast (also known as stream) your Google Play music, movies and shows to your television directly from the web.
Before this new functionality, you could cast Google Play Movies and Music through Chromecast, but the option and process was much more complex. Google has recently reworked the set-up, placing a button along the bottom side of your Google Play web player. Just click on the Chromecast icon in the web player, then choose where you want to cast, and your movie or song will quickly start to play.
You'll need to have the Google Cast extension installed on your Chrome web browser, naturally. Once you have, you can access new movie releases, next-day TV shows, and more than 20 million songs straight from Google Play's website but casted through Chromecast. This capability is especially useful if you don't have a smartphone or tablet handy.


Secretary of State George Shultz told openly skeptical Africans Saturday that the U.S. policy of constructive engagement toward South Africa calls for contacts with black nationalist groups as well as that country's white-led minority government.
At a press conference after his talks with Kenya's President Daniel arap Moi, Shultz was challenged to say if "constructive engagement is still your policy."
Shultz did not flinch, although most U.S. officials try to avoid the term, coined to describe the Reagan administration's attempt to influence the South African government through diplomacy instead of confrontation.
"The way to implement policies is, you are there. You don't just throw up your hands, you stay there," he said. "You are, if I may use the term, engaged. We try to be engaged with everybody."
Shultz, who plans to meet later this month in Washington with Oliver Tambo, leader of the African National Congress, said the United States hopes to be engaged with black nationalist groups such as the ANC, mixed-race Coloreds and Indians. Almost as an afterthought, he concluded his list with "the whites there who, after all, are African."
Senior administration officials have conceded that the South African government stopped paying much attention to U.S. diplomacy after Congress enacted tough economic sanctions over President Reagan's veto. Analysts say the sanctions marked the end of the "constructive engagement" policy which had been all but abandoned earlier.
Shultz said, however, that the United States is determined to make clear its opposition to apartheid and to try to encourage creation of "a different kind of system that allows all the human beings there to take part in governing the country."
Shultz is halfway through his six-nation African tour. He included only countries with a pro-Western foreign policy for his trip, which began with stops in Senegal and Cameroon before arriving in Kenya. He plans to go to Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Liberia.


Passion. Commitment. Dedication. Focus. All words to describe the state of mind one achieves when they are doing something they truly love to do, and don’t work just for the money, status or because someone else told them it would be good.
Sadly, over 60% of those working never come close to doing what they love – they just “do”, trudge on, are unproductive and of course, not happy and that impacts all parts of their live from on-the-job to at home and with their relationship. They are on a treadmill – not going anywhere.
Imagine what would happen to productivity in our country it was the opposite and 60% were charged and motivated – it would soar!
On the treadmill? Jump off. Take control of your true life happiness and do what you love – and you will never work another day in your life as you will be fueled with passion. Declare your change – ask others to help you find your way – get help if you need it.


You won’t be surprised that the Pew Research Center, in a survey released today, found that atheism is still the biggest political liability a candidate could have.
What may be surprising is that the candidate deemed as the least religious is the Republican frontrunner.
So while Bernie Sanders explicitly says he’s “not actively involved with organized religion,” it’s Trump with his blatant attempts to convince people he’s Christian who is thought of as the least religious. So much for authenticity.
60% of voters surveyed said they didn’t think of Trump as religious while only 35% said the same thing of Sanders.
The only upside to that is that the 51% who despise atheists that much is the lowest such percentage we’ve ever seen.
With younger people becoming increasingly non-religious, this trend is bound to continue in the right direction.
Also, in the least surprising news of all, a majority of Americans without any religion affiliation think Sanders would make an excellent president. Only 15% of the Nones — presumably not the atheists — think the same way about Ted Cruz (who had the highest approval from the Nones among any of the Republican candidates).
None of this is eye-opening news. It’s just a reminder that openly atheist Presidential candidates have an uphill climb. The best thing you can do in that situation, if you don’t want to lie, is play down your faith and focus on preserving everyone’s religious rights.
Bernie Sanders: "I Am Not Actively Involved with Organized Religion"


With approximately 94 people moving to Nashville a day, the city’s real estate is very much a sellers’ market.
That bodes well for Jason Aldean and Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley as they sell their respective Middle Tennessee cribs.
Built in 1981, Kelley’s two-story home sits on 10.66 acres of wooded land, has one bedroom, two baths, a beautiful kitchen and decks for entertaining. Plus, it has the treehouse where Kelley mixed and produced music for Florida Georgia Line’s Dig Your Roots album.
The price of this lovely spread is $2,346,200.
Then there’s Aldean’s sprawling estate in nearby Columbia, Tenn. This 120-acre spread has picturesque views of Flat Creek with a mix of woodlands and pasture, a detached bowling alley, a beautiful outdoor entertainment area with a pool, a 10,000-square-foot horse facility and more. It has six bedrooms, eight full baths and is listed at $7,875,000.


At our last annual general meeting, one of the candidates for the board withdrew his nomination and transferred all of his votes to another candidate who was then elected. Was this legal?
No. If proxy forms completed by owners instructed their proxies to vote for a candidate, that candidate could not instruct the proxies to cast their votes for someone else. Owners attending the meeting can vote for any candidate. But the candidate for whom they voted could not instruct the scrutineers that votes for him are to be treated as votes for anyone else.
The property manager is asking me to provide a copy of my lease agreement with my tenant. I think this is a private matter. Is there any legal reason that I have to comply?
Section 83 of the Condominium Act provides that within 30 days of leasing the owner’s unit, the owner must notify the corporation that it is leased. The owner must also provide the corporation with the lessee’s name, the owner’s address and a copy of the lease or the prescribed summary form of lease. The lessee must, in turn, be provided with copies of the declaration, bylaws and rules of the corporation.
I am on the board of our condominium and the directors would like to replace our property manager. Can the board vote for removal of the management company or must there be a vote of the owners?
You must first examine the management agreement and if it provides that the corporation may terminate the employment of the manager without cause by giving certain notice of termination, the board may vote to give the required notice and a vote of the owners would not be required.
If the agreement states that the management services will be provided for a certain term and there is no provision permitting the corporation to terminate before the end of that term, termination may be impossible — short of a fundamental breach of the management agreement.
The board in my condominium recently passed a rule stipulating that a unit could not be leased for a term shorter than one year. There was no minimum before, and I have been leasing it for a number of years for terms of not less than four months. Can my rentals be grandfathered?
The rule could provide for grandfathering, i.e., state that the rule does not apply, for example, to any lease of a unit owned by a person prior to a certain date. There is no obligation for a board to include a grandfathering provision and the failure to do so would not appear to render the rule unreasonable and thus unenforceable.


Not everyone can afford the latest smartphones from the likes of Apple and Samsung, but luckily on the Android platform at least, more affordable handsets are readily available, and now the BLU Life Series of handsets have been announced that have great specs at an affordable price.
Only last month the US based company revealed a number of handsets that are powered by the Tegra 3 processor, and now the company has revealed three new models that make up the Life Series of handsets.
All three of the handsets have the quad core MediaTek MT6589 processor clocked at 1.2GHz under the hood, with a PowerVR Series5XT GPU and 1GB of RAM, and another nice feature is that all three models will come running the Android 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system with dual SIM support.
The BLU Life View has a 5.7-inch IPS 720p touchscreen display with 257ppi pixel density, and also features a 12-megapixel camera on the back and a 5-megaipxiel on the front. There is 16GB of onboard storage that is expandable via a microSD card, and there is a 2600 mAh battery. With the handset priced at $299 unlocked.
Moving onto the BLU Life One that is going to be offered at the same price and features a 5-inch 720p IPS display offering 293ppi, and this handset has a 13-megapixel camera on the back and a 5-megapixel front facing shooter, with this also having 16GB of expandable memory with a 2000 mAh battery unit.
Last but by no means least is the BLU Life Play that also has a 720p display but at 4.7-inches with 312ppi, and this features an 8-megapixel rear facing camera with a 2-megapixel unit around the front. There is only 4GB of internal storage but this is again expandable and uses an 1800 mAh battery in a form factor only 7.9mm thick. This will cost $229 and the range is expected to reach various websites such as Amazon sometime next month.
Are you impressed with these latest handsets from BLU?
Impressed? Not yet. Very intrigued, however. I want to see some hands on reviews, but this new line is definitely on my radar. Pair one of these with a cheap phone/data plan from wal-mart, and you’re getting major bang for your buck.
I think this is great, but have a hard time thinking many people are going to by a mid level spec phone for $229 even if it is off contract. I am assuming most people would rather buy older hardware for the $1 carrier deals (galaxy s 2, 3, iphone 4s, etc….) That being said I give two thumbs up and will be following this company closely.
As someone who is impressed with the design of the new HTC One, I am seriously interested in the BLU Life One with its similar unibody aluminum case. ( HTC can design beautiful electronics but, ever since they dropped their support for my Jetstream tablet -locking me out of the Play Store – leaving me with an $850.00 paperweight, I would never purchase another of their products.) I’m looking forward to reading some hands-on reviews with special attention to call quality, battery life and the camera. Also, these BLU phones would be great for international travelers because they each hold two SIM cards.


Actors Christopher Ravenscroft and Christopher Villiers made it a double triumph for Bolton's Octagon.
Ravenscroft, who appeared in The Winslow Boy, at the theatre, won Best Actor while Villiers won best supporting actor for his role in the same play.
Both were the headline winners at the Manchester Theatre Awards which are the largest of their kind outside London.
The glittery ceremony was staged at the Opera House and the nominees were a mixture of the region's big theatres and Greater Manchester's smaller venues.
The awards are chosen by a panel of nine independent regional theatre critics.
You can see the nominees, with the winners underlined, below.


Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian Prime Minister, renewed his invitation to former President Jimmy Carter to visit Gaza to see for himself the magnitude of the tragedy experienced by its people, expressing hope that Egypt would secure his arrival in the Gaza Strip after Israel refused to allow him to visit it.
Carter is expected to meet with a Hamas delegation from the Gaza Strip in Cairo.
Before leaving Gaza on his way to Cairo, Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahar, a prominent Hamas leader, praised the initiative taken by Carter to meet with Hamas leaders and said that this should serve as a message to those who choose to ignore the legislative elections results and raise doubts about the legitimacy of Hamas.
The former American president had supervised the legislative elections in 2006 and expressed respect for the results after Hamas won a landslide victory.
Dr. Zahar said that he and Said Seyam, the head of the Hamas parliamentary bloc, would meet during their presence in Cairo a number of Egyptian officials to discuss with them all outstanding issues especially the opening of the Rafah border crossing.
Meanwhile, Ismail Haniya expressed hope that the Hamas delegation's visit to Cairo would succeed in removing the tension which developed lately with Egypt and that its meeting with the former US president and Egyptian officials would result in reopening of the Rafah border crossing.
The premier highlighted his movements readiness to resume the inter-Palestinian dialog under Egyptian auspices to solve the issue of the Rafah border crossing as a start and then continue the process of reconciliation.
Gaza – Ma'an – Senior Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahhar and Sa'id Siyam headed to Egypt on Wednesday to meet former US President Jimmy Carter, Hamas officials said.
The Palestinian Prime Minister in the Hamas-run de facto government, Isma'il Haniyeh, was also invited to the meeting, but could not make it to Egypt for what he called "private reasons."
Senior Hamas leader Ayman Taha told Ma'an that the meeting will be held in Cairo on Wednesday evening, and will address the siege of the Gaza Strip and a potential ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian military forces.
Taha said Hamas would not change its position, demanding that any ceasefire include both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, an end of the siege of Gaza and halting Israeli offensives.
"I came here to listen to the Palestinian point of view, and we are interested to convey the image to the whole world," Carter said before the meeting with Hamas leaders.
Zahhar and Siyam are scheduled to meet also with Egyptian intelligence chief Umar Sulaiman and other officials. They are scheduled to return to Gaza on Thursday.
Two leaders of the ruling Hamas party in Gaza, Mahmoud Al-Zahar and Said Seyam, headed for Egypt on Wednesday morning to meet with former U.S President Jimmy Carter, upon an invitation by Carter, who is currently visiting the region.
Palestinian sources in Gaza said that the meeting, which will be held in Cairo, will deal with underway issues such as the Israeli blockade of Gaza as well as the ceasefire with Israel.
Alongside the meeting, both Hamas officials will be meeting with Egyptian intelligence security chief, Omar Sulaiman and a number of Egyptian officials.
In 1979, Carter patronized the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, which laid the foundations for the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. More recently, he participated in the monitoring of the 2006 Palestinian elections, which brought Hamas to power.
Informed Palestinian sources revealed Tuesday that former US president Jimmy Carter tabled a formal request with the Egyptian government to allow him to meet with premier Ismail Haniya and a number of Hamas leaders on the Egyptian lands.
The sources told the PIC reporter that the Egyptian government approved the request and also sent it to premier Haniya to study it along with Hamas leaders, pointing out that there could be a meeting between Egyptian delegation and Hamas leaders before or after a meeting with Carter in case Hamas did approve.
Carter had met Tuesday in Ramallah in the West Bank with former deputy premier of the tenth Palestinian government and education minister Dr. Nasser Al-Sha'er, and he is scheduled to meet with Khaled Mesha'al, the head of the Hamas political bureau, at the end of this week in Damascus.
In his statements in Ramallah, Carter said that he wanted to visit the Gaza Strip, but the Israeli occupation government refused to consent to the visit, but he pointed that he might visit Gaza in some other way.
Despite the pressures of the American administration, the 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate and former US president is still insistent on meeting Hamas leaders especially Mesha'al.
Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent ccun.org.


MILWAUKEE — A 30-year-old man was transported to the hospital with serious injuries following a crash early Thursday morning, March 7 in Milwaukee.It happened around 12:30 a.m. near 76th and Silver Spring.
According to police, the man was driving east on Silver Spring when he lost control of his vehicle near 76th Street. The vehicle careened out of control and struck a light pole.
The driver and sole occupant in the vehicle was seriously injured. He was taken to a nearby hospital by the Milwaukee Fire Department and is expected to survive.
Investigators believe that the vehicle was the only car involved in the accident. Events leading to the accident remain under investigation.


“I think we’ll be able to do short flights, up and down flights, some time in the first half of next year,” Musk has said. He made these comments during a talk at the South by South West festival in Austin, Texas over the weekend.
However, he was quick to acknowledge that “Sometimes my timelines are a little… y’know,” hinting that missing the ambitious deadline is well within the realm of possibility.
Musk also talked about setting up a city on Mars, a topic that he has discussed many times before as well, saying that it’s imperative for humans to reach Mars before the next “probable” world war breaks out.
He’s of the view that a colony on Mars would reduce the chance of an extended new Dark Ages on Earth if all life was wiped out by a major nuclear conflict. While I’m all for exploring interplanetary space travel, here’s to hoping it does not.
Filed in General. Read more about Elon Musk, Mars and Spacex.


The proposal to Aspen City Council at Tuesday’s work session to park 25 buses at Rubey Park is totally obscene! And the proposal to park five buses along Wagner Park obliterating the view of Ajax is even more obscene!
Buses should be parked out of town — at Buttermilk. Furthermore, locals hate it when you remove seven more private vehicle parking (near McDonald’s).
This proposal totally trashes Durant Avenue and Wager Mark and ruins the charm of the center of town. This is rubbish!


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Posted on April 22, 2016. Brought to you by macraesbluebook.
Alternative Services Inc. is located at 32625 7 Mile Rd Ste 10 in Livonia and has been in the business of Mentally Handicapped Home since 1978.


OTSEGO COUNTY - The Otsego County Road Commissioners approved their $6.9 million, 2005 operating budget, with the understanding that it may increase by another $1.2 million pending approval of a project on Old 27, according to Managing Director Mike Roper.
"I have to include all money spent on roads, whether that comes from the federal, state or local governments," Roper explained, noting the budget is $300,000 higher than last year. "If we get approval for the Old 27 project, then I will have to amend the budget to reflect that $1.2 million to this years budget. Our budgets change all the time in proportion to the money received for funding."
That project, if approved by the Community Development Block Grant Administration, represents a partnership with that organization and Corwith Township, the village of Vanderbilt, and the road commission to conduct a crush and shape repaving project on a 4.24 mile stretch of Old 27, north of Winters Road to Thumb Lake Road.
Roper also confirmed work to be done on a three-quarter-of-a-mile stretch of West Otsego Lake Drive, south of Manuka Lake Road. "This will also be a crush and shape project with guard rail replacement," stated Roper. The project is expected to cost $200,000 which will be paid for by an 80-20 matching grant with safety improvement money administered by the state of Michigan and the road commission. The work is not connected to 2004 improvements to West Otsego Lake Drive.
"We are awaiting approval of state funds for a road improvement to upgrade South Town Line Road from M-32 to Milbocker Road to Category A status," said Roper. "This is a joint effort with Hayes and Bagley Townships, and the City of Gaylord who each have committed to contributing $70,000, and the county road commission will be contributing $160,000 while the state of Michigan would make up the $490,000 difference of the $860,000 project." Roper was careful to point out the funding is still pending state approval.
A proposed improvement to Mancelona Road from Hayes Tower Road to the Antrim County line has been postponed until 2006, reported Roper.


PARIS (Reuters) - Chinese e-commerce company JD.com is folding its high-end Toplife venture into fashion retailer Farfetch’s business in China, hoping to expand in the luxury goods market where it is vying with Alibaba to attract shoppers.
The companies, already partners in areas such as logistics, said on Thursday that Toplife - which has brands like Kering’s Saint Laurent and Balenciaga on its platform - would merge into Farfetch China.
The deal raises the stakes in a battle to corner China’s burgeoning online luxury goods world, where Alibaba has already teamed up with Cartier-owner Richemont and its Yoox Net-A-Porter online retailer to create new applications.
Chinese consumers make up a third of luxury goods purchases worldwide, and more of that spending is shifting away from European shopping capitals to mainland China, and onto the Internet.
Foreign brands have struggled to crack China’s fast-moving online world alone, which has pushed them to try out partnerships with local players.
Chinese e-commerce firms, meanwhile, lack the luxury expertise of the likes of Farfetch, which was launched over 10 years ago, and are experimenting with different formats to reach shoppers.
JD.com, China’s second biggest e-commerce company, set up Toplife in mid-2017, touting it as a standalone platform separate from its mass-market site, and where luxury brands had control over their own online stores.
Alibaba has a similar venture called Luxury Pavilion, aimed at giving labels like Italy’s Valentino a more exclusive space than on its mainstream TMall platform.
JD.com did not say what would happen to luxury brands’ “shop-in-shops” that currently appear on Toplife, which will no longer exist as such.
Farfetch is London-based but listed its shares in New York last year. The company, already present in China, counts JD.com as one of its biggest shareholders.
It will now be accessible via JD.com’s mobile application, potentially giving it access to the Chinese platform’s 300 million customers.
Rather than hold inventory like some online fashion retailers, Farfetch connects buyers with high-end boutiques around the world.
JD.com shares were up 3.5 percent on Thursday after its quarterly sales beat forecasts.


League Two Cambridge United have signed Fleetwood midfielder Matty Blair on loan until January.
The 25-year-old has played 10 times for the League One side this season, but has not started a game since September.
He played three games during a loan spell at Northampton last term.
"With recent injuries, it was really important that we strengthened the squad with the deadline for the loan window soon approaching," said U's director of football Jez George.
"Matty is a player that we've known about for a long time. We first tried to sign him in 2011 and we've monitored his progress ever since.
"He has all the attributes that we look for in a wide player, as well as the character and attitude we demand in our players, and we look forward to him joining the club."


THE corruption crisis surrounding Germany’s 2006 World Cup has intensified after tax authorities launched raids on the country’s football federation (DFB) and private residences.
Documents and hard drives were seized from the DFB’s headquarters in Frankfurt and the homes of DFB president Wolfgang Niersbach, a UEFA and FIFA executive committee member, and his predecessor Theo Zwanziger, were searched.
It follows the disclosure that the DFB made a secret payment of 6.7 million euro (£4.6 million) to FIFA in 2005.
An internal audit has failed to find any trace of the 6.7 million euros in the DFB’s tax documents.
Frankfurt’s senior public prosecutor Nadja Niesen said in a statement: “Fifty officials from the Frankfurt tax investigators as well as the prosecuting authorities carried out searches of the offices of the DFB as well as the homes of suspects.


I recently had a fresh cultural shock here in China: seven to 10-year-old kids, at the primary school I sometimes teach at, who have a fondness for running up and touching my backside. Including in class. I tried to understand the reason why. I think it’s because Westerners, by and large (forgive the pun), actually have butts. There is a certain saucy roundness to most of our behinds that is sorely lacking in the average Han Chinese posterior.
To wit, the sad sight of Chinese lasses in tight leather pants. The legs are pleasantly chiseled in the smooth leather, but there is a disappointing sag in the area of the bottom. That’s because where there should be a proud female posterior, there just ain’t. It must be a tad painful to sit for long periods on those boney butts because of the lack of cushioning. It is just so nice to plump down and spread out a bit to cushion the weight of the rest of our bodies.
So. That’s my explanation for the fascination of Che Fang Primary schoolchildren’s fascination with my bottom. It has character. It’s actually there. This is not to say I was not getting rather indignant. I would thunder at the kids in Mandarin, “Don’t touch my backside!” They would giggle, scamper off, and when my back was turned, run back and play their favourite version of “tag” or “touchers” again. Incidentally, the Mandarin word for backside is pigu, pronounced pee-goo. It has, to my ear, a wicked onomatopoeia. So does the Mandarin word for nose, bizi, pronounced bee-zih, sounding so deliciously like a sneeze.
I was getting desperate to end the attention. What to do? I am the only “foreigner” at the school (indeed I have never seen another foreigner in Che Fang). So in Chinese I told my class coordinator what was going on, pointing to the nether region of my body for absolute clarity about my predicament. She said the school would sort it out. The kids, that is.
Firstly, some of the main culprits were trooped into the office which I share with eight teachers, and made to apologise to me for daring to touch teacher’s pigu. Then the bottom-touching vanished overnight. I don’t quite know how the information got out so fast to the whole school. But it had to have been announced at a school assembly (which I am not required to attend) or something like that. But this is what goes through my mind: did everybody, from headmaster to the smallest grade one titch, whilst the new instruction about the “foreign teacher” was being rolled out, manage to keep straight faces?


Almost half of all medical personnel have fled the country since the start of the civil war.
Syria's civil war has decimated the country's healthcare system, leaving millions of children lacking much needed medical attention.
Government forces have been accused of targeting hospitals in rebel held areas, and the UN says Syria’s government is using the denial of medical care as a weapon of war.


Hartland's Brenden Tulpa has four game-winning goals vs. Brighton.
When a big goal needed to be scored in a hockey game between Hartland and Brighton, of course it was Brenden Tulpa who found a way to make it happen.
Tulpa’s goal just 13 seconds into the second period broke a scoreless deadlock and propelled Hartland to its seventh straight victory in the rivalry, 4-0, Wednesday night at Hartland Sports Center.
With Brett Tome posting the shutout, the first goal held up as Tulpa’s fourth game-winner in five career games against Brighton.
The first time Tulpa faced the Bulldogs as a sophomore, he scored a late game-tying goal, then popped in the overtime winner. He broke a 1-1 tie with 4:33 left in a 2-1 victory in the teams’ first meeting last season, then broke a 2-2 tie in the second period of a 4-2 victory in the rematch between two teams that would ultimately win state championships in their respective divisions.
Tulpa has plenty to look forward to in the final month of his high school career, but he will certainly miss playing Brighton.
“It’s always a fun, energetic game,” Tulpa said. “We all bring out a lot of students. It’s the best game of the year every year.
On Tulpa’s goal, defenseman John Druskinis skated the puck in from the right point and passed it in front. Tulpa’s redirection of the pass was stopped by goalie Harrison Fleming, but Tulpa knocked in the rebound.
If Tulpa’s goal didn’t alter the momentum of the game, Chet L’Esperance’s goal just 31 seconds later certainly did. A shot from the point by Sam Kastamo deflected in off L’Esperance, who was skating in front of the net.
The Bulldogs were not without chances against Tome.
They had two five-on-three power plays, one that lasted 41 seconds in the first period, another that lasted two minutes early in the third.
Brighton’s best scoring chance of the night came with 5:50 left in the second when Logan Mitchell carried the puck into the zone on a two-on-none breakaway. Mitchell got off two shots, both of which were stopped by Tome.
Tome has fashioned quite a resume against the Bulldogs, as well. He is 4-0 against Brighton with a 1.20 goals-against average and .951 save percentage.
"It's a pretty exciting game," Tome said. "They're always one of the teams we have marked on our schedule. We just want to beat them every time."
About two minutes after Tome stopped the breakaway, Hartland (18-3) extended its lead to three goals when defenseman Grant Briggs took a drop pass from Adam Pietila in the slot and buried his shot with 3:31 left in the second period.
Owen Pietila ended the scoring with 3:38 left in the game.
Brighton (8-12) now hopes history repeats itself. The Bulldogs bounced back from late-season losses to Hartland the past two seasons to win the Division 1 state championship.


The Gore Guineas is now part of the Summer Festival.
First race around noon (TBC).
Interislander Summer Festival Gore Races is a great day out, with thrilling thoroughbred racing action and all day, free, kids' entertainment.
All day kids' entertainment, including a facepainter, an exciting scavenger hunt, and pony rides. There will also be on-track kids races including sack races, ferry races and colouring in competitions.
Spot prizes given out throughout the day.
This great family friendly package includes a punnet of strawberries and a bottle of bubbly (either Brancott Estate or non-alcoholic if required).
Early bird special! Get 10% off now!
Entry on the day is $10. Includes free bottle of Springfresh water.


Meet our Chef and learn how to make pizza in the heart of Florence in a 15th century historic palace which is located in Via Tornabuoni, “Il Salotto di Firenze”, a luxurious street of the historic center, among the most elegant of Florence.
Pizza and Gelato lesson with a famous local Chef; All ingredients for pizza and gelato making; Dinner with wine (soft drinks for children); Graduation Certificate; Languages available: English, Spanish, Italian, Swiss* Japanese*.
Transporation to departure location; Gratuity.
Available: Daily; Departing at 5:30pm, departs at 5:00pm (March).
Meeting Point: MY TOUR COOKING CLASS-FLORENCE, Piazza Santa Trinita, 1/2.
This tour requires a minimum of 2 people to operate. *Swiss, *Japanese requires a minimum of 4 people. Maximum 12 people.


Everyone agrees that financial inclusion offers a way out of poverty for those at the bottom of society. So why is it proving so difficult to achieve?
Latin America is the continent with the most inequality in the world, according to the UN’s development programme. But could having access to financial services, such as a bank account, credit and budgeting advice, help empower those at the bottom of the pyramid?
Sixty million people have gained access to such services in Latin America in the past four years, according to the World Bank’s recent Findex paper, but 200 million people remain unbanked, making the bank’s target of universal access to financial services by 2020 rather ambitious.
Cecilia Toscana Rodriguez, corporate sustainability coordinator from Cemaco, a chain of department stores, said the retail sector’s interest in financial inclusion is growing as shops look to offer 21st century services. But potential customers are left behind as they can’t pay online unless they have a debit or credit card. She said that Guatemalan workers in the US are often concerned about what happens to the remittance money they send home. For her, US company Xoom’s remittance model, which allows workers to use their money to pay for their families’ bills back home, is ideal. The money goes where it’s meant to go – not on alcohol.
Another area of concern that has a huge bearing on people’s ability to gain access to financial services is the lack of people with proper ID. Fernando Alguera, director of Mexico’s social development ministry, pointed out that undocumented people are unable to register at banks, leaving them financially reliant on family or loan sharks.
Julio Estrada, executive director, Anadie, said there are economic incentives for policymakers in Guatemala to take an interest in financial inclusion, as its large informal economy encourages corruption and makes it hard for the government to collect taxes. He said the country should follow the example of Mexico, which put a tax on cash in 2007 to dissuade people from depositing amounts of money greater than $15,000 pesos. “Digitising money should interest all governments because it gives them more control, helps taxation, and reduces the informal economy,” he said.
Carla Prieto, strategic planning and finance director for Grupo GH7, which manages the mobile banking platform tPago in the Dominican Republic, said a problem for banks is how to get people to use their accounts for more than just receiving money, which offers no business value for financial service providers. “We need to give people a solution to more problems,” she said.
Tax deductions for digital payments have proved successful in getting people to make the switch away from cash, said Bernardo Guillamon, the Inter-American Development Bank’s office of outreach and partnerships manager, citing Peru and Uruguay as both good examples.
María Luisa Martínez Dibarboure, assistant to the CEO at mobile bank $ero, said that Uruguay’s success in this area was down to the government bringing in a financial inclusion law last August, which meant that everyone had to have a full bank account or mobile account.
Peñate said SAB Miller’s move into microcredit for mom and pop shops had been led by their customers’ feedback. But when it approached the banks to partner it in what was, for the company, uncharted territory, not one bank would take on the risk associated with its customers. The company was later able to pair up with a financial NGO because of data proving its customers paid – meaning it could front 100% of the risk in the first few years until the NGO agreed to take it all. Only then were the banks interested.
BT had a better experience working with banks, according to Bas Burger, president of the Americas for BT, helping Bank Caixa reach 17,000 locations in Brazil – from boats on the Amazon, to trucks in the forest – bringing the bank closer to rural communities.
Implementation was identified as a key issue. Martínez Dibarboure said that those on the edges of the financial system are distrustful of banks, which was holding back usage in Uruguay. Luz Ramírez Chávez, country manager for Visa Mexico, also found its work as a large multinational was much better received when local partners Grupo Bimbo and Mexico’s Chamber of Commerce did the implementation. “It’s important to have someone who can follow up on the different stores’ progress,” she said.
But Elaine Smith, founder of #ProgressoSocial Brasil Network, stressed that building trust is not enough. Any new affordable financial service offered to low-income families must come with the right financial education, and the product or programme’s consequences anticipated. “It’s been almost two decades since the Brazilian government tried to implement a government subsidies scheme,” she said.


JACK WILSHERE insists he is fit to face Aston Villa in Arsenal's FA Cup final tomorrow at Wembley (5:30pm).
Wilshere has missed much of the season through a serious ankle injury, but is now close to full fitness after playing a part in the past five matches.
The England international also boosted his hopes for a place in the starting line-up by scoring a superb volley in Sunday's 4-1 defeat of West Brom.
And now the 23-year-old has urged Gunners boss Arsene Wenger to hand him his third successive start against Villa.
"I really want to play," the midfielder said. "It's probably the biggest game of the season.
"I've been injured for a lot of the season so it's been frustrating and I've worked really hard to come back."
Wilshere added: "I feel really good. Of course it's down to the manager but hopefully I will play."


People have been working on video and explorable environments for the Oculus Rift, but Condition One, the immersive videography group, is upping the ante with a complete 20-30 minute movie all in 3D.
The film will be a sort of documentary about what's going on in the virtual reality field right now. Condition One founder Danfung Dennis writes that it will include footage of combat training simulations at the Department of Defence, academic research labs, game developers and hackers. Virtual reality in virtual reality. See what they're doin there?


After a working lunch at a workshop, a senior IT manager at a global telecommunications company approached me with a problem. Over the course of several mergers, acquisitions and reorgs, his firm now had three work-order processing systems. His boss had told him to get it down to one over the next six months. He wanted advice.
So I asked, which system did the users seem to like best and why? He said he didn't know. I suggested he organize a meeting between the three user groups to thrash out which one made the most sense for the most people. Make them pick. He hadn't thought of that. Unfortunately, his firm's IT culture had IT, not users, "owning" systems consolidation after reorgs. Baby-sitting interdepartmental user meetings was frowned on, he asserted.
I couldn't help myself: I told him he was setting himself up to fail. If he unilaterally imposed a system, he would tick off the two groups whose systems lost out. Even if he were able to sell his choice internally, he'd have to understand the ins, outs and usage of each system. What's more, while he might know the IT budget for each system, he probably didn't know what the real business costs were for the business units. This was neither his decision nor IT's to make, I argued. The users knew more about what they needed than he did. They should own the choice. Substituting his technical assessment of systems for their business judgement about work-order processes guaranteed infighting.
As we talked, I was shocked to discover this wasn't some rinky-dink consolidation of a few backwater apps; these systems managed and tracked billions of dollars in equipment and servicing orders. While the need for enterprise standardization was completely understandable, the notion that IT should set those standards was not. I pleaded with him to go to his boss's boss — the CIO — and request that he call the users together. "Have the CIO position you as business partner," I begged. "If you're seen as the systems dictator, these users have a real incentive to help you fail. Please . . . CYA." He said he would.


Recent news coverage of the war in Afghanistan has zeroed in on the fact that as U.S. force draw down there and shift to advising roles, Afghan forces have been engaged in heavy combat with the Taliban.
U.S. commanders have acknowledged several times that Afghan forces have taken heavy losses as a result, but rarely have provided numbers that clarify how serious the situation is. There’s no doubt after Wednesday, however: they’re losing dozens of troops each week, including 104 in one week recently, said Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top U.S. commander, to reporters in Belgium on Wednesday.
Dunford said the casualties have been “an issue,” but that Afghan forces will still assume full control of security in Afghanistan in June, with the coalition purely in a supporting role afterward.
“I would tell you this, in terms of how they’re doing, the Taliban came out and they’re doing exactly what they said they would do, high-profile attacks, attempting insider attacks against the Afghans, and then fear, murder and intimidation,” Dunford said.
U.S. casualties have plummeted to near zero as the transition downrange has occurred. One has to wonder, though: If Afghan forces are taking this many casualties with U.S. air support and medical evacuations still frequently available, how will they do when they’re gone?


Brexit: What next for UK?
Once Article 50 has been triggered the UK has just two years to negotiate its exit from the EU. No country has ever tried this before. It’s a very complicated process: first the European Council, which is made up of the EU’s 27 leaders, agrees guidelines for the negotiations. Then the European Commission then negotiates with the UK on behalf of the EU. Together they will need to unpick 43 years of treaties and agreements.
Given what's unfolding in Syria - you might be surprised to hear the country still has a national football team, competing for a place in next year's World Cup. For obvious reasons - they can't play on home soil, but they're still giving many Syrians a reason to come together. Last week they were in Malaysia, preparing for a World Cup qualifier against Uzbekistan, and they’ve just been in Seoul for their match against South Korea.
Here is the new pound coin, and it does have some special security features, apart from being twelve-sided and two-coloured, it's got very small writing on it, and it has a sort of hologram with the pound sign at the bottom, and a special feature inside which means that coin machines can recognise whether it's genuine or not – and that's important, because there are so many fakes of the old pound coin.
1. The melting of the glacier was ______ by the climate warming more than fifty years ago.
2. The rock singer, who died a few years ago, will become the first star to return to the stage via ______ at a new concert show launching this year.
3. John witnessed the scenes ______ from his office window and immediately called the police.
4. Now that the organisation has closed we've got to ______ all the agreements we had made with our clients.
1. The melting of the glacier was triggered by the climate warming more than fifty years ago.
2. The rock singer, who died a few years ago, will become the first star to return to the stage via hologram at a new concert show launching this year.
3. John witnessed the scenes unfolding from his office window and immediately called the police.
4. Now that the organisation has closed we've got to unpick all the agreements we had made with our clients.