Zhejiang Geely Holding Group will start producing cars under British sports car brand Lotus in China at a 9 billion yuan ($1.3 billion) factory in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, according to Reuters, citing company job advertisements and government documents.
It will be the Chinese carmaker's first move to shake up Lotus since its purchase of a 51-percent stake in 2017 from Malaysian carmaker Proton as part of a package deal with its parent company DRB-Hicom. Geely vowed then to "bring it into a new phase of development by expanding and accelerating the rolling out of new products and technologies."
Lotus cars are currently built in the United Kingdom. In a statement to China Daily on Thursday, Geely said: "Lotus Cars is undergoing an exciting resurgence with the backing of Geely, and expanding the brand's manufacturing footprint globally is a key part of the company's strategy. Details on additional locations and models will be confirmed in due course."
The Wuhan Development Zone in Hubei province, where the new Geely factory will be based, said on its website last month that production at the plant would include the carmaker's "Lotus project".
Job advertisements on Geely's website show the automaker is looking to fill at least 20 Wuhan-based roles for the Lotus project.
The planning authority of Hubei province approved Geely's plans for the plant in late December. The factory will be able to manufacture 150,000 cars annually, according to a document posted on the authority's website.
The plant is slated to start construction this year and finish in 2021. It will build all-electric battery cars, electric hybrids as well as combustion engine cars like Lotuses.
Lotus registered its strongest sales since 2011 in 2018 with sales reaching 1,630 units. "Lotus is well placed to capitalize on its success in 2019 with planned expansion in markets such as China and the US," said Geely.
"For Geely, going high-end can help it take more market share," said Alan Kang, a Shanghai-based analyst at LMC Automotive. "Geely needs to do that to better compete with global brands."
Geely launched its premium brand Lynk & Co in 2017 to compete with volume international brands like Volkswagen and Ford, and sales exceeded 120,000 units in 2018, accounting for 8 percent of Geely's total sales.
While it is not clear what portion of the new Wuhan plant would be devoted to the British brand, greater production volumes would be consistent with Geely's stated ambition to grow the market for Lotus by broadening its lineup.
Lotus currently produces models such as the Evora and Elise. James Bond famously drove a Lotus Esprit in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, and Lotus once boasted a Formula One team until it was sold to Renault in 2015.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that Lotus may make luxury sport utility vehicles rather than sports cars during the Wuhan plant's initial phase.
One of the sources said Geely wanted to emulate premium carmakers, whose luxury SUV models were selling well in China.
The share of premium SUVs in China's overall passenger car market grew from 4.07 percent in 2014 to 5.01 percent in 2018, according to data from consultancy JD Power.
Geely's sales soared 20 percent to 1.5 million in 2018, despite the Chinese auto market slipping for the first time since 1990. The carmaker expects its sales in 2019 to stay at the same level as last year's.
The company has made waves in the auto world with its $9 billion purchase of a stake in Mercedes-Benz's parent company Daimler AG in 2018 and its $1.8 billion acquisition of Sweden's Volvo from Ford in 2010.


Homeopathy works no better than a placebo, so why is it sold in pharmacies?
Oh, you silly people! Don't you know that homeopathic medicine works better the less you take of it? By taking an 'overdose' you rendered it totally ineffective! If you really wanted to prove it works you should have taken none at all!
Ah well here is where you went wrong. Did you try dissolving the tablets in water, stirring vigorously while sitting naked looking at the full moon?
Human beings are good at self-delusion and it is very hard to shake an entrenched 'belief'.
At best the placebo effect might help with the minor ailments, not so of course for the terminally ill and that is where the real harm lies. You wonder why people make these sorts of choices when very ill, is it reaching out for that last hope when there is a sense of nothing more to lose? Or is it a general distrust of the mainstream, which in other circumstances might not be a bad thing.
The information is out there for everyone, it is just what happens in our heads next that determines choices made.
Did anyone else notice the ironic Google ads at bottom of the forum page offering Homeopathy courses?
I wonder how many people know that homeopathy can be studied in a so-called degree program, approved by a government accreditation body, where students are eligible for government support. This is a travesty of higher education.
Then there's the issue of health insurance companies that package non-evidence based therapies aka "trick therapies" such as homeopathy with evidence-based therapies. Consumer demand demands we all end up funding these useless treatments.


As a recognized channel leader in sales and marketing, I am known for leading with collaboration, enthusiasm, accountability - and a real geek for data! I have more than 20 years' experience of best practices in how to successfully build and leverage channel models for scale, reach and results. I enjoy working with the ever-evolving partner community, to develop strategies that work, by challenging the status quo around partner enablement, customer retention, organic growth and cloud adoption. I am most proud of receiving the "Channel Chief Award" from CRN in 2017. I've been very fortunate to work with amazing channel leaders and influencers throughout my career. I'm extremely passionate about my work, and always eager to connect with other channel enthusiasts and technology leaders. The tech channel is truly my extended family, and it's an honor to be part of an incredible ecosystem of partners, distributors, customers - and especially my many "Women of the Channel" colleagues.
I have advanced my career through ongoing networking, along with challenging myself in new roles with different companies and locations. I make a conscious effort to learn something new every day through ongoing research, mentorships, social networking groups, and thought-leadership conversations. I have learned to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. I ask instead of wait, and realize that having a seat at the table matters. I try to offer ideas and solutions verses drowning in problems. I avoid office chatter and attempt to rise above the naysayers. I surround myself with leaders in and outside of the tech industry - perspective matters! I push to be a better me, and ask the same of my teams. I understand the value in perseverance, especially through set-backs in my professional and personal life (never fun at the time, but rewarding in the end). Lastly, when it comes to career advancement, I realize that being honest and compassionate is just as important as being a top performer. Great things come to great people!
At F5 we are focused on four key channel objectives: 1) Intensify execution on application security solutions - smarter, faster, safer. 2) Recruit cloud enablement partners - both born-in-cloud and transforming-to-cloud partners. 3) Execute in the public cloud with co-sell motions and simple consumption models. 4) Grow core business - deeper with existing customers and acquisition of net new customers.
The first person who always comes to mind is Venona Margaret Bergen. She is a remarkable woman who embodied family, generosity, zest for living, beauty, and intellect far beyond her generation. She is the best part of who I am today as a mother, wife, and business woman. She taught me the life lessons I live by today: to make memories for my family; to embrace my strength and to be confident; to be supportive and offer strength when others need it; and to ultimately be a role model to the best of my ability.
If I could master any new job-related skill, it would be public speaking and storytelling like John DiLullo, EVP Worldwide Sales at F5 Networks. I love listening to inspiring leaders who can make you feel like you're the only one in the room. I often shy away from large audience presentations, so perhaps this year... I will face it head on (with a lot of practice)!


What time BPL JODHPUR EXP depart from भोपाल जं. Railway Station?
BPL JU EXPRESS (14814) departs from भोपाल जं. Railway Station at 17:25.
How much time BPL JODHPUR EXP take to reach जोधपुर जं. Railway Station?
BPL JU EXPRESS reach on day 2 to जोधपुर जं. Railway Station. The arrival time of BPL JU EXPRESS at जोधपुर जं. Railway Station is 19:50.
Distance covered by BPL JU EXPRESS?
BPL JU EXPRESS covers 993 km to reach जोधपुर जं. Railway Station at average speed of 38 km/hr. BPL JU EXPRESS passes through 86 stations.


"They’re not going to put Kurt in the ring on a consistent basis. He can’t do it. I am sure Kurt wants to be in the ring on a consistent basis. His body is breaking down."
"Remember the last six months of Impact and then the couple of indie shows he was doing? It was the same five spots the entire match. He can’t be that Kurt Angle anymore. It’s like Shawn Michaels saying 'I could come back but people need to understand it’s not going to be HBK.' It’s not fair to expect the Kurt Angle of 1999 to be wrestling."


I was in the eighth grade when I got my first cell phone. My eyes had been green with envy since the sixth grade, all because my best friend had her very own flip phone. But my time came, and I was graced with a beautiful, albeit girly pink Razr phone from Verizon. I loved it.
By the time I was a freshman in high school, people already had phones that could connect to the Internet, such as T-Mobile’s Sidekick and a few Verizon phones that had touch screens and could play music. I still had my lovely pink Razr. Very cool, right?
Needless to say, the evolution of phones exploded in a matter of years, and has reached what I might say is the climax of technological innovations in terms of communication and navigation. The iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy are all the rage nowadays, and I can’t blame people for wanting what’s hot.
It’s capitalism. It’s human nature to want the best of the best. It’s provided countless new ways for sharing ideas, funny cat videos and seeing those family members that live halfway around the world.
But is it too much? They say only love will kill you, and aside from my intimate relationships—or lack thereof—I think smart phones may bring just as much bad as good into the 21st century.
To begin with, the amount of text messaging people—especially young adults—engage in is ominous. I’ll be sitting in lecture while the person next to me has their face glued to their iPhone, group messaging their friends about what happened last night. What happened to genuine conversations, hanging out with people in person, rather than asking how they are through a message?
I still have what might be called a “stupid phone,” one that doesn’t connect to the Internet or have cool apps. Trust me, if I had a smart phone, I would be on Tumblr and Reddit more than I already am.
The truth is, I like my stupid phone. It serves a basic function: to call people when I need to. Way back when I was a pre-teen, my parents gave it to me so that they could always reach me, in case anything were to happen. And while my hormonal pubescent self probably put them through hell, I now admire the simplicity of my parents’ reasoning.
Why would I want to text, call or face time someone—who I’m close enough with to have their number—if I can hang out with them? Smart phones give people a way to be “close” to their friends, but have also made people weary of the idea of connecting with someone in person. For lack of a better word, they allow people to be close, but not too close for comfort.
I don’t burn the midnight oil: I do have a Facebook, I use Tumblr and Skype. But I refuse to exchange the authentic experience of hanging out with someone in person, be it over coffee or just watching trash television in their apartment, for a relationship over impersonal texts.
Communication through phones, especially texting, robs every person of the most human thing: relationships.
What really takes away from our human abilities though, is the virtual constant connection to the Internet. If you have a 4G phone or one that gives you wireless Internet wherever you go, be weary. The Internet is a massive virtual world that you can lose yourself in—and having it at your disposal, all day everyday, can be dangerous.
I see people on their iPhones on Facebook all the time, spending hours on Pinterest and tweeting everything they are learning while in a lecture (trust me, I’ve seen this). This access to the web creates, or feeds into the restlessness we humans have: a near addiction to be doing something all the time.
Now try taking all of that freedom and power away. People will become bored, even more restless and maybe a little bit paranoid. Smart phones have become a crutch for people. And when you take that away, people have nothing to aimlessly scroll through while they’re waiting for something.
Don’t tell me you don’t reach for your phone first thing in the morning.
I suppose you could make the argument that each generation has had their own kind of smartphone—the television, walkie-talkies and without a doubt video games. I do not deny or oppose the groundbreaking developments in technology, but we are dangerously close to the edge of losing our human qualities that define us. Henry David Thoreau saw this coming a long time ago when he said “men have become tools of their tools,” in the 19th century.


It has been called a window to the soul, the “brandy of the damned” and, most famously, the food of love.
Now scientists believe music may also be an important form of medicine. And next year, Toronto could be at the forefront of this emerging field with the launch of a new centre on music and health research.
The proposed centre, based at University of Toronto, would bring together experts on the cutting edge of using music to improve such medical conditions as strokes, Alzheimer’s, chronic pain and Parkinson’s. While music has long been recognized as an effective form of therapy, the notion of harnessing song, sound frequencies and rhythm as another tool in treating physical ailments is a much newer domain.
A draft proposal released last week said the new Music and Health Research Collaboratory would connect experts in music, neuroscience, medicine and psychology from universities across southern Ontario and at least half a dozen GTA hospitals.
The prospect of unleashing music as medicine is critical at a time of rising health care costs, an aging population and growing need for palliative care, he notes.
The healing power of music has drawn attention recently, thanks to ABC 20/20’s footage of U.S. congresswoman’s Gabrielle Giffords’ rehabilitation after being shot in the head last January. The incident left her unable to speak or move her right side.
Music therapists used songs as simple as “Yankoo Doodle” to help Giffords retrieve words from the many other areas of the brain that are activated by music. Songs also motivated her to move her right arm.
Researchers at the new Toronto centre would be among those at the forefront of discovering the science that explains how and why these kinds of interventions work. They would also work to uncover the musical potential for treating other diseases and conditions.
It would represent a unique collaboration in Canada, says Lee Bartel, associate dean of research with U of T’s faculty of music and author of the draft proposal.
Similar initiatives exist in Cleveland at the Center for Music and Medicine at the University Hospitals Neurological Institute and at Beth Israel Medical Center’s six-year-old Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine in New York.
However, those are primarily focused on music therapy, while the Toronto centre would have a more medical thrust.
Other focus areas will include: teaching, learning and performing music; music therapy; and music in society and culture.
Bartel, a professor who has studied the way music affects sleep and stress, has dreamed of this type of centre for years. He created a potential framework six years ago. But it wasn’t until McLean became dean last year that it started to become reality. The pair has been putting the pieces in place over the past 10 months.
In November, they hosted two evenings of presentations by researchers across southern Ontario who would be prime candidates for joining the network. The sessions attracted more than 200 people from the medical and music fields as well as potential donors.
Among them was Takako Fujioka, whose research has included how rhythmic sounds affect the brain and can be used to help stroke patients regain movement.
The emergence of a centre is timely and would provide a boost for the basic science required to uncover these new ways of treating diseases and conditions, says Fujioka, scientific associate at the Rotman Research Institute, which is part of Baycrest centre for seniors in Toronto.
Networking and collaboration are not the only important benefits of joining forces. It also lays the groundwork for more funding.
“Once you build a research environment that has this much excitement, people start to invest,” says McLean.
“They are pushing the envelope in getting us together, which is fantastic,” says Amy Clements-Cortes, senior music therapist at Baycrest and assistant professor at the University of Windsor.
Clements-Cortes has conducted studies on the use of music in palliative care and in treating Alzheimer’s and other cognitive impairments.
McLean, who spent 22 years at McGill University in Montreal, came to Toronto with a notion that there was a huge opportunity for music and health.
Some of the partners for the proposed centre have already formed a research cluster on medicine and aging. This week, the group was shortlisted for a $1-million grant from Connaught Global Challenge Fund to help fund the project, which would explore such topics as using rhythm, vibration and low frequency sound to affect brain waves and treat Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, stroke and pain.
McLean and Bartel have started the search for a director of the new Music and Health Research Collaboratory, which will be located in the faculty of music building. The goal is to complete a final proposal and sign partners by the beginning of the 2012 academic year.
• Music therapist Heidi Ahonen of Wilfrid Laurier University studied the impact of low frequency sound on patients with Parkinson’s and found it could reduce symptoms.
• Researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital’s Wasser pain clinic are exploring how music can induce sleep in those with fibromyalgia and help alleviate pain.
• Takako Fujioka and Bernhard Ross of Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute are investigating how music and specifically rhythm, can stimulate the brains of those recovering from strokes to help them regain movement.
• Amy Clements-Cortes, senior music therapist at Baycrest, has studied how music can be used in palliative care, to improve communication in patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia, and how sing-alongs can affect the well-being of seniors.


After streaming giant Netflix came under fire for including footage of a real-life, deadly incident that occurred in Canada in its breakout monster movie Bird Box, the company said Thursday it will not pull that imagery from the film.
Reached for comment about the controversy, a Netflix spokesperson told the Associated Press said that it “will keep the clip in the movie.” The clip in question depicts actual footage from the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster in 2013 that left 47 people dead and which has since been cemented as one of the worst rail incidents in Canadian history. The imagery appears in an early scene in the Susanne Bier-directed horror movie during a news broadcast about a mysterious phenomenon leading to mass deaths (which, as we all by now surely know, occur by suicide).
“We deeply regret that this happened and sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended, especially the victims and their families,” the company said.
Footage of the incident also surfaced in the third season of the sci-fi series Travelers, another Netflix joint from Toronto-based production company Peacock Alley Entertainment, which also sourced the footage from Pond5, according to the Canadian Press. Carrie Mudd, a spokesperson for the company, told the outlet by email that it was “already working to replace the footage in the show” as of earlier this week.
Netflix told the Associated Press on Thursday it would be exploring ways to avoid a repeat of the incident in the future—which seems wise considering this isn’t the first time.
Despite this whole mess, Bird Box—damned divisive as it may be—is presently the company’s golden child. Netflix said in a letter to its shareholders on Thursday that it estimated the film will be viewed by more than 80 million member households in its first four weeks on the platform.


A woman who used a board to beat her niece's dog, named 'Stand Pipe', because the animal defecated too much in the yard, was sentenced to 80 hours of community service yesterday in the Kingston and St. Andrew Parish Court.
The court heard that the beating was so severe, the animal suffered blindness in her left eye and a broken limb.
Charged with cruelty to animal is Marcia Style.
She pleaded guilty to the offence and offered the court an explanation.
Style said, "I know I hit the dog but not to hurt him. The dog d***o every day in the place and I talk to them about it. The dog d***o at my door and dem (other persons) play in it and plaster it all over my door way."
When asked by parish judge Lorain Cole- Montague how she arrived at that conclusion, Style said, "If a dog d***o he will not spread it out like that. Is my slippers I use to beat him not any board. Nobody was there when I went outside to the dog."
The court also heard that the complainant took the injured animal to the vet and incurred costs amounting to $16,200.
The complainant will be compensated as an order of the court.


Like so many star-struck hopefuls before them, they came in search of a tiny piece of the Hollywood dream--Toby, Nick, Lacey, Georgia and Ralph.
They're not ponytailed waiters and spandex-clad beauties waiting for that Big Break, but two tabby cats, an English springer spaniel, a Siberian husky and an amiable macaw.
On Tuesday morning, they showed up with their owners at a studio here for a chance to appear alongside actress Jane Seymour on the CBS television drama "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman."
And in a plot twist that could come only from the wacky world of Tinseltown, the audition itself will end up part of another television program.
"We would like to give somebody's pet the chance to become a star," said Janet Turner, producer of a forthcoming cable documentary chronicling the history of animal actors. Producers staged the audition so that filmmakers could capture the daylong event on tape.
Set to air next spring on TBS, the tentatively titled "Hollywood Animals" will offer "a behind-the-scenes look at the process the animals go through," said network publicist Erik Thompson.
Throughout the cavernous sound stage, camera crews taped pets performing everything from climbing a ladder to barking on cue, searching among the more than 100 applicants for the talented pooch or pussycat that would share the small screen with the frontier doctor.
There were no agents in sight, but a few of the animals were already show biz veterans. Toby, a stoic Topanga Canyon cat, lists an infomercial and music video on his resume, while Ralph, a 13-year-old macaw from Long Beach, made his acting debut last year in an AT&T; ad.
"Cats are not that tolerant," explained Toby's owner, Beverly Weinger. "You have to have a lot of love and patience to train a cat."
As Weinger demonstrated, her cat has plenty of tolerance, dutifully submitting to each of several costume changes, including a blond wig and a rabbit disguise.
"He's great company," she said. "He's my companion, my friend, my baby."
Mark Northam and Lisa Miller, a Hollywood Hills couple who compose music for television and film, said they brought their dog, Lacey, just for fun. They've only spent a month teaching her to sit, stay and jump, Northam said, but he was confident that Lacey's charm would separate her from the pack.
"We think she's the cutest," he said.
"Maybe she'll get by on her looks," Miller added.
Gail Musick, a self-described dog "nanny," said she brought Georgia on a whim, a chance to tell the husky's Studio City owner of her brush with stardom.
"I don't want her to be a show dog," she said. "That's no life for her."
To the West Hollywood resident and cat owner, animals are more rewarding as pets than performers.
"They're the most relaxing, centering thing to be around," Musick said, sounding much like the massage therapist she is. "They diffuse your tensions."
After watching several pets getting put through their paces in front of the camera and a professional trainer, Turner noted that working with animals requires extraordinary patience. Still, she said, it's territory free of the inflated egos that are legend in Hollywood.
"The nice thing is we don't have to worry about hurting their feelings."


Taliban claims responsibility for suicide bombing near UN offices in the southern Afghanistan city.
A blast has killed a district police chief and six others in Kandahar province near a guest house of the United Nations refugee agency and the office of International Relief and Development, authorities say.
The deaths, which included three Afghan UNHCR workers, occurred on Monday morning when a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a checkpoint in an area of Kandahar city that houses several international NGOs and guest houses.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, with Qari Youssef, the anti-government group's spokesman, saying the UN guest house was the assailants' target.
The provincial governor's office said a gunfight between security forces and attackers erupted after the explosion.
The battle lasted for seven hours before the fighters were shot dead, according to the office of the Kandahar governor.
An Associated Press video showed footage of the UNHCR building, 480 kilometres south of Kabul, after sustaining damage from the explosion. The building, on a street street strewn with rubble following the attack, had large chunks of its outer walls and windows blown out. Two other Afghan workers at the UN's refugee agency were wounded in the attack.
"I saw from the window that a thick smoke with fire was rising from the IRD office. Then police arrived and blocked the area because firing was going on," Abdul Nahim, a local resident describing the scene from his windows, blasted out from the attack, told Reuters news agency.
Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, said the Kandahar district police chief was killed in one of the safest parts of Afghanistan's second largest city.
The Kandahar attack, which came on a day President Hamid Karzai was travelling to a regional security summit in Turkey, was yet another sign of changing Taliban tactics, our correspondent said.
There are now carrying out "more focused attacks on significant sites," he said.
United Nations Secretary-General, Ban-Ki Moon began his New York press conference on Monday by addressing the attack.
Ban said the attack, like others before it, "underscores the risks that UN and international aid workers face in Afghanistan," but that he "would like to emphasize once [again] this work is purely humanitarian, its sole purpose is to improve the daily lives of the country's people. Our thoughts this morning are with the victims and their families."
The Secretary-General's statement came after a similar condemnation and a call for Afghan government to bring those responsible to justice by the Security Council.
Current Security Council President, Nigerian Ambassador Joy Ogwu, said the membership of the UNSC condemned the attack "in the strongest terms" and called on the government of President Hamid Karzai to bring those responsible to justice.


The Baltimore Ravens have agreed to contracts with free agent safety Earl Thomas and running back Mark Ingram.
The New Orleans Saints are expected to sign veteran running back Latavius Murray.
The New Orleans Saints threw some Meek Mill-inspired shade at the Philadelphia Eagles following their divisional round victory in New Orleans.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Mark Ingram."


This past summer I saw a post on the Life in Perpetual Beta site where Aliza Sherman, long time woman in tech, was interviewed. (Visit Aliza Sherman and Why We Should Start From Scratch to get more). It is an amazing interview for any woman who wants to become a part of tech or who has been in the tech community for some time. I highly recommend watching it and reading the commentary. There are several items that stick out to me. First, Aliza describes herself as a woman in tech, however she does not label herself a engineer or programmer. Instead, she calls herself a writer. I want to point this out in reference to another Women In Tech post I wrote, Seeing IT Through A Different Lens: User Experience, where I highlight that being a woman in tech does not mean that you have to be a heads down coder or hardware/software professional. I think that if you are those things, that’s great, however if you aren’t, it shouldn’t limit your ability to join the tech ranks.
Second, Aliza talks about the current terrain for women in tech, and she describes it as “not great”. She mentions that many woman start educations or professions in technology, but often leave because of the pressure of being the only women in their classes or teams. So the problem is obvious, because the current work and education environment for women is not good, we hesitant to join the crowd. Thus, males in technology remain the highest profile people.
This should be evened out. Both men and women should be high profile in our field. What do we do to solve this problem? Aliza makes a great point that I think is interesting to think about. She proposes that instead of building off of this old terrain, that we start from scratch. That means, first and foremost, that we show up and that we are present. From there, only we can define where we go. Obviously, if we are able to do this, to start from scratch and rebuild the terrain to include both men and women, then we’ll see a high benefit in several ways. We’ll be able to even out the numbers that we mention, but we’ll also be able to make our products and services better by having a more diverse mind set in the room (another thing that Aliza mentions). In total, it will be a win win situation. So what do you say women in tech? Are we ready to start from scratch. Further more, what does starting from scratch mean to you and how do you think we go about doing it?


In a bid to stop visitors tarnishing the city’s image, stewards are monitoring so-called uncouth behaviour. But is it a step too far?
A couple of resting tourists look baffled as they are shooed away from the steps of the portico that surrounds St Mark’s Square in Venice. They are the first victims of the so-called “angels of decorum”, a group of stewards who started monitoring the canal city’s most congested areas on Friday morning for signs of uncouth behaviour. It appears to be a somewhat futile task: in a city that brings in about 60,000 tourists a day, unwitting counterparts soon replace them.
Still, as lunchtime nears, the couple fare better than those who settle on the steps and commit a far worse infraction. “Sitting down is forbidden but sitting down and eating is doubly forbidden,” Issa Diop, who is on his fourth summer season as a steward, tells the Observer.
The creation of the team of 15 is part of an overall plan by the Venice authorities to restore dignity to a city whose reputation has been tarnished by misbehaving tourists. Visitors have often been photographed bathing or peeing in a canal, or leaping drunkenly from the Rialto bridge into the pungent waters below.
Dressed in white vests with #Enjoy Respect Venezia emblazoned on the back, the stewards are on the lookout for anybody committing such transgressions – along with those parading around bare-chested or in bathing suits, feeding pigeons, dropping litter or huddling on bridges in groups. They must also ensure that tourists keep to the right when walking along the city’s narrow alleyways so as not to block the flow.
The rules have long been in place and are listed on signposts dotted around the square. In the English version they come under the word “Forbid” (sic). But few people have taken note.
It isn’t all about ticking off tourists, though. The stewards, who are required to speak English, also have a duty to tell visitors where they can eat their picnics while encouraging them to try the local cuisine. They are seen as gentle assistants to the local police, who have the authority to bar people from the city and hit them with fines of up to €300 for flouting one of the more serious rules reinforced by authorities last week.
These include bans against bathing or simply dipping your feet in the canals; the latter misdemeanour is said to have been a favourite pastime of artists and writers, including the American author Henry James, who frequented Venice when it was regarded as La Serenissima, the most serene.
Authorities believe that outwardly drunken behaviour has spoiled the serenity of today’s Venice – so much so it will no longer be tolerated. Hen and stag parties have been banned while the kind of raucous behaviour that might come with, say, celebrating a graduation, will also be frowned upon.
“It’s not about criminalising one particular group – we don’t want to see locals drunk either. The rules against rudeness apply to all,” said Mar.
But in an emotionally-charged city where residents often jar against their leaders, the latest actions are seen as a joke. “There are far bigger problems to deal with than criminalising tourists for sitting down, cooling their feet in the water or eating a sandwich,” said Marco Gasparinetti, who leads the city’s Gruppo Aprile 25 activists.
Residents’ associations such as his have long complained about the authorities’ inability to manage a tourism industry which they argue has eroded their quality of life as well as damaging the environment and, they suggest, driving residents away: Venice’s population has fallen from about 175,000 in the post-second world war years to 54,000 today. The city loses some 1,000 inhabitants a year.
They also lament the behemoth cruise ships that chug through the Grand Canal, emitting fumes and disgorging thousands of people into the crowded streets – on some days as many as 44,000. It was announced in November last year that the largest vessels would be diverted from the city centre, but the plan is yet to be officially approved by the national government.
Gates were installed at the two entry points to the lagoon over the 1 May national holiday weekend in an attempt to ease the throng heading towards St Mark’s Square and the Rialto bridge. They will be used again from now until the end of August.
If numbers get too high, the gates are closed and access is allowed only to those with hotel bookings or holding a Venezia Unica pass, a card that is mainly used by residents but can be bought for €14 by anyone who uses a water bus.
Authorities are also trying to encourage people to visit other, lesser-known areas of the Venetian lagoon or one of its other islands, such as Murano and Burano.
He also pointed to the hotels under construction in the nearby urban sprawl of Mestre, with the idea being to encourage people to visit nearby places, such as the beach of Jesolo.
The divergent opinions between residents and the tourism authority can perhaps be best summed up in their comparisons of the city to Disneyland – the first seeing the Florida theme park as a nightmare, and the latter as a dream.
In a city that survives on tourism, her priority, she added, is to manage the flow while developing a plan that will encourage people to stay longer and experience Venice beyond the main sites. Of complaints from residents, she says: “Italy is a funny place… if you don’t do anything then it’s not good, but if you try and do something, it’s still not good.” .
Back at St Mark’s Square, among those being reprimanded by the stewards is a Belgian family sitting on the portico steps and eating sandwiches from a nearby shop. With no benches on the square, their only other option would have been to go to one of the local cafés where a cappuccino can cost up to €12.
Meanwhile Venice resident Barbara Miccoli, fully aware of the patrolling vigilantes, snaps a photo of her son blatantly breaking two of the rules: eating a sandwich and simultaneously feeding a pigeon.


Bell flew home after competing in this weekend's race at Daytona to learn his home had been burglarized and racing memorabilia had been stolen.
Townsend Bell competed in the Rolex 24 at Daytona over the weekend, then flew home to Los Angeles to receive bad news from his wife: Their home had been burglarized and the bulk of his racing memorabilia had been stolen.
Bell told The Associated Press on Monday the burglars made off with the 10 rings from his Indianapolis 500s, his ring for winning the 2001 Indy Lights championship, his Rolex watch from his 2014 victory in the 24-hour race and the Rolex he received for winning the IMSA title the next season.
Bell’s home was one of five burglarized in his Pacific Palisades neighborhood. To access his home, the thieves had to climb over a 6-foot fence and smash through the glass door in his master bedroom.
The jewelry was in a safe in a drawer, and Bell said the entire safe was ripped out and taken. A locked drawer in his closet was also removed, and most of the home was ransacked.
The burglary happened Friday night, but Bell was not made aware of it until he returned home because he’d left his cellphone in the Uber he took to the Los Angeles airport when he headed to Florida for the race. His only communication with his family was when he was able to check his email on his computer, and he said his wife didn’t want to bother him during the Rolex.
Bell’s team finished fifth in class in the twice-round-the-clock endurance race that ended Sunday.
All his items are engraved with his name, year and achievement. Bell is hoping that makes it easier for the items to be found.


It’s time to support our President. Ever since President Trump defeated Hillary in the 2016 election, the Democrats, media and old school Republicans have done everything they can to discredit the President. He won and will be our President for the next eight years.
The fake media and their willing sycophants drum up fake story after story and come up with nothing. They spend thousands of broadcast hours trying to get the public to think the President actually did something with the Russians to defeat Hillary. These investigations cost millions of our tax dollars and they have come up with no factual evidence. I did notice that the fake media never mentions our former President inserting himself into the Israeli elections and his efforts to defeat our friend, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Now we have the Obamacare Health Care fiasco, a bill that will implode on its own in due time. The problem is, that when it does implode millions will lose their insurance. When that happens we can start from square one and build a program that does not pay premiums for some and charge the others astronomical premiums, the Democratic Plan.
Some rogue Republicans, Senator Portman among them, presently refuse to support our President. We finally elected a non-politician for President. We gave him both houses of Congress, but we did not count on the four or five Senate prima-donnas, who listen to fake news and misleading TV advertisements, taking donations from far left groups for their votes in the Senate. Those against a new health care bill are either not informed or are part of highly paid organizations that stand to make millions as long as the current health care law remains.
Our President has an agenda. It includes building “The Wall,” income tax reform, a new health care law and upgrading our nation’s infrastructure. It’s time to get on board. It’s time for the Democrats to stop stonewalling every appointee, coming up with dream-land excuses to hold panels to investigate every fake allegation. It’s time for the media to get on board for the good of the country. He is the President of all America. Our President has only been in office seven months. It will take him many more months, even years to undo what has taken place over the past eight years.


It wasn't long ago that it seemed as though John Daly's golf was no longer sufficient to prop him up as the PGA Tour's resident novelty act.
Apparently determined to remain relevant, Daly had lap-band surgery to help him lose weight and began working on his game with instructor Rick Smith.
The dividends have begun to pay off. Daly, playing on the European PGA Tour until his PGA Tour suspension is lifted, shot a final-round 66 on Sunday and finished in a tie for second at the Italian Open. Even more remarkable for a man whose life and career have been marked by wild swings, was his consistency: He shot 69 in each of the first three rounds.
It was his first top-10 finish in either a PGA Tour or European PGA Tour event since he lost to Tiger Woods in a playoff at the WGC-American Express Championship in 2005.


ADDISON, Texas - April 22, 2013 - As part of a continuing effort to bring new data options to insurance carriers, Digital Matrix Systems Inc. is announcing a strategic alliance with Drivers History, a driver violation reporting service that can be used to pinpoint ratable activity for insurance policy applicants. This alliance brings even more data source choices to DMS insurance carrier clients, allowing them to make better informed risk-based decisions and reduce costs.
DMS insurance partners will now have access to Drivers History databases, which offer a comprehensive record of specific drivers’ moving violation histories, including the original ticketed charges and final adjudicated outcomes. Additionally DMS partners will have access to customary operator and undisclosed household reports, unique marketing files and driver profile summaries.
“As a prescreening tool, our databases permit insurance companies to avoid pulling formal driving reports on the approximately 70 percent of the drivers in a normal driving sample who have no ratable activity,” said Brian Wolfson, senior vice president of sales and business development.
Access to Drivers History is available through Data Access Point™ by DMS, a cutting-edge connectivity hub that offers insurance carriers flexibility when using alternative data sources. Data Access Point also allows data to be stored within a single, secured environment for easy future access, analytics and modeling.
About Digital Matrix Systems, Inc.
DMS is a risk management solution provider that helps clients make better informed business decisions. Backed by more than 30 years of experience, DMS offers integrated products and comprehensive consulting services, tailoring solutions based on each client’s business goals. For more information, visit www.dms.net.
Drivers History pioneered the collection of traffic related public records in 2002. Today, Drivers History maintains a comprehensive database of driver violations in ten states with plans to continue their national expansion. This information is made available to the automobile insurance industry to help reduce MVR expenses while allowing for more informed decisions throughout the entire underwriting process. Drivers History was recently recognized by INC. Magazine as one of America’s fastest growing private companies (2012 Inc. 500). Drivers History is located in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.


The other day while checking my e-mails one pops up from Carol Cormaci, managing editor of the Valley Sun. Carol is responsible for the content of the paper. She's a bright lady and a good friend. It's rare when a writer and an editor are friends. The only time she's ever wrong is when she disagrees with something I've written. Hmm!
So I'm opening her e-mail and thinking, "She's probably going to ding me for using profanity in my column." Instead, Carol says, "I expect a follow-up to your column on bullying. Give some solid suggestions of what parents can do."
Damn! I wasn't ready for this. She's pushing me to think and delve deep into the labyrinth of this psychosocial malady. But that's what a good editor does. She entices you to go beyond your comfort level.
I'm not an expert on the subject of bullying, but I'm going to give you my unabridged opinion straight from the gut. Google is full of do's and don't regarding this subject. However, I will follow my natural inclination and look within.
My mother taught me a valuable lesson: to always respect the dignity of others, and accept nothing less from another. I learned the importance of standing up for myself regardless of circumstance and that there are times when one must never back down.
She did this by empowering me to believe in the sanctity of others and of myself. She showed me reflections of myself as important and valuable, but insisted that my power meld with others. There is nothing more empowering that to feel rooted in your home and significant in your community!
It is my natural inclination to break the face of a bully but my thoughts today ask you to look at yourself. Pay close attention to what you're teaching your children. Children learn to be bullies!
Do you value rational thought but feel uncomfortable with emotions? Are you aware that children often tease others for their emotional expression, and that common put-downs seem of little consequence but hurt deeply? They are words that promote an order of dominance enforcing behavioral norms and should not be tolerated.
Do you value only excellence and success? Are you aware that when children have no room to fail they become impatient and critical of others?
Do you foster a culture that values the diverse nature of individuals? Do you allow and encourage a diversity of opinion and thought?
Do you help your children use their talents for the good of all or just encourage them to dominate and excel in the world in which they feel most comfortable? Are you an adult who is complicit in bullying by either turning the other way, or tacitly approving the victimization?
La Cañada seeps with a pervasive undertone of entitlement. Some parents obsess with their rights with little thought of their responsibilities. They bully teachers, administrators and policy. Don't you think there's a causal relationship?
Join me. Become a vocal advocate for the rights of children who exist on the periphery, who are different, and don't fit in. Empower them; help them find their voice.
Teach your children to respect difference, to befriend a child who has no friends, and to stand up to those who would bully another. Be willing to defend and fight for these children. Last week I described this advocacy as though one were a knight.
I want teachers, librarians, administrators, volunteers, parents, kids and everybody to be resolute and committed to stop bullying. Be a knight; stand up to those who would steal the soul of a child. If everybody has the courage of conviction to do the right thing then it's done.
Yeah, I still believe in taking on a bully face-to-face. But it's complicated. I'm not going to solve the problem. You are!


NEW YORK, Sept. 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Aircall, the SaaS platform poised to reinvent the business phone, today debuted a new CTI solution for Sales and Service professionals using the Enterprise edition of HubSpot. Aircall is the only launch partner for HubSpot's release of the Calling API, a new feature encouraging telephony providers to develop sleek solutions for the HubSpot community.
Through this Calling API, the Aircall CTI is directly embedded into the HubSpot interface. This seamless connection makes it easier to have more informed calls without ever switching between screens.
"Using the new Calling API, HubSpot users will be able to discover Aircall's advanced telephony capabilities and empower their outbound teams with an all-in-one solution into HubSpot," said Olivier Pailhes, CEO of Aircall. "This integration will further our shared goal of helping Sales and Support teams have more meaningful customer conversations."
Through this integration, outbound Sales teams in particular will enjoy the ability to start and track conversations throughout the deal cycle in a single space. Additionally, all notes written in the HubSpot interface will automatically sync alongside the call event logged by Aircall in the HubSpot timeline.
"Bringing voice to our clients' favorite SaaS products and building innovative partnerships with their developers is one of our main pillars," noted Pailhes. "We're excited to play a part in what promises to be a very exciting time for the HubSpot community."
The new product will be available only to new or existing Aircall customers who sign up for the Enterprise edition of HubSpot Sales Hub or Service Hub.
Aircall empowers teams with a phone system specifically built for modern businesses. With zero hardware to manage, dozens of integration options to explore, and the ability to add local numbers in more than 40 countries. Aircall is a powerful communication tool that can be fully set up in minutes. For more information please visit: https://aircall.io/.
HubSpot is a leading growth platform. Since 2006, HubSpot has been on a mission to make the world more inbound. Today, over 48,000 total customers in more than 100 countries use HubSpot's award-winning software, services, and support to transform the way they attract, engage, and delight customers. Comprised of Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, the soon to be released Service Hub, and a powerful free CRM, HubSpot gives companies the tools they need to manage the customer experience from awareness to advocacy.
HubSpot has been named a top place to work by Glassdoor, Fortune, The Boston Globe, and The Boston Business Journal. The company is headquartered in Cambridge, MA with offices in Dublin, Ireland (EMEA HQ); Singapore; Sydney, Australia; Tokyo, Japan; Berlin, Germany; and Portsmouth, NH.


“Today the situation is much more serious than before August 2008….[A] possible recurrence of war will not be limited to the Caucasus.
the Alliance. If it happens, the world would face a more serious threat than the crises of the Cold War.
He failed, for what passes for diplomatic reasons no doubt, to identify who “the enemy” is, but a series of recent developments, or rather an intensification of ongoing ones, indicate which nation it is.
Chilton “said he could not rule out the possibility of a military salvo against a nation like China, even though Beijing has nuclear arms,”  though the likely first target of alleged retaliation against equally alleged cyber attacks would be another nation already identified by US military officials as such: Russia.
In late April and early May of 2007 the government of Estonia, which was inducted into NATO in 2004 and whose president was and remains Toomas Hendrik Ilves, born in Sweden and raised in the United States (where he worked for Radio Free Europe), reported attacks on websites in the country which were blamed on Russia.
Over two years later no evidence has been presented to substantiate the claim that Russian hackers, much less the government itself, were behind the attacks, though it remains an article of faith among US and other Western officials and media that they were.
The response from American authorities in the first place was so sudden and severe, even before investigations were conducted, as to strongly suggest that if the attacks hadn’t been staged they would need to be invented.
NATO’s Article 5 is a collective military defense provision, in fact a war clause, one which first and to date for the only time has been used to support the protracted and escalating war in Afghanistan.
References to it, then, are not to be taken lightly.
That the repeated mention of NATO’s Article 5 continued a year and a half after the alleged cyber attacks when none had occurred in the interim is revealing.
At the beginning of this month the Pentagon announced that it was launching what it called a “digital warfare force for the future,” at Fort Meade in Maryland under the control of the U.S. Strategic Command, whose chief, Gen. Kevin Chilton, was quoted earlier as threatening the use of force up to and including nuclear weapons.
The Pentagon is a synecdoche for the Department of Defense and everything related to its activities is cloaked in the same euphemism, so when pressed the US will insist its new cyber warfare project is intended for defensive purposes only. Any nation which and people who have been on the receiving end of US Defense Department actions know better. The new US cyber warfare command, its rationale based on a supposed Russian threat emanating from a non-military incident in the Baltics over two years ago, will be used to cripple the computer systems of any nation targeted for direct military assault, thus rendering them defenseless, and will be particularly effective for space-based and Star Wars (missile shield, interceptor missiles) first strike plans.
It was a Space Tracking and Surveillance System Advanced Technology Risk Reduction (STSS-ATRR) satellite, which “is part of a space-based system for the Missile Defense Agency.
Military satellites used for neutralizing the potential of a rival nation not so much to launch a first strike but to respond to one blur the distinction between so-called Son of Star Wars missile shield projects and full-fledged militarization of space.
“Withdrawal from the 1972 ABM Treaty signified a switch to the testing and deployment of a global missile defense system, with a view to fully removing the deterrent potential of China, and partially that of Russia.
Added to which is another “quasi-classified” subterfuge related to a prospective resumption of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) talks between the US And Russia.
So in addition to US plans to deploy ground-, sea-, air- and space-based anti-missile systems primarily around and against Russia (Poland, the Czech Republic, Norway, Britain, Japan and Alaska to date), the Pentagon will hold in reserve nuclear warheads for activation without a monitoring mechanism provided to Russian inspectors and arms reduction negotiators.
To add to the concerns of Russia and other nations, On April 30 the US established a Navy Air and Missile Defense Command (NAMDC) at the Naval Support Facility at Dahlgren, Virginia.
In terms of US training for warfare against the Russian Air Force, the Ukrainian development is only the latest in a number of such activities.
Immediately following the nation becoming a full member of NATO, the US 81st Fighter Squadron flew to Constanta, Romania (in which nation the Pentagon has acquired four new bases since) to engage in combat training against Russian MiG-21s.
In July of the next year the US 492nd Fighter Squadron was deployed to the Graf Ignatievo Air Base in neighoring Bulgaria to insure the opportunity for “Air Forces from multiple nations to learn about each other’s aircraft tactics and capabilities.
To prepare the US for air combat against the full range of Russian military aircraft, India was invited to the annual Red Flag air combat exercises in Alaska in 2007, war games “meant to train pilots from the US, NATO and other allied countries for real combat situations.
From June 8-16 Sweden will host a NATO drill, Loyal Arrow, described as “biggest air force drill ever in the Finnish-Swedish Bothnian Bay,” , also not far from St. Petersburg, with a British aircraft carrier and more than 50 fighter jets participating.
That exercise will begin exactly a week after the US-led NATO Cooperative Lancer 09 war games end in Georgia on Russia’s southern flank.
“Today the situation is much more serious than before August 2008. The then threat endangered only South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but after Russia’s recognition of these states’ independence and the conclusion of agreements envisaging the presence of Russian armed forces on their territories, a possible recurrence of war will not be limited to the Caucasus.
“The new President of the United States did not bring about any crucial changes in relation to Georgia, but having a dominant role in NATO he still insists on Georgia’s soonest joining of the Alliance. If it happens, the world would face a more serious threat than the crises of the Cold War.


A caterer has been suspended after an outbreak of gastroenteritis across several PCF Sparkletots outlets, which led to at least 109 people falling ill, with 15 taken to hospital.
This is the third case of gastroenteritis in pre-schools in recent months. A Feb 1 lunch at PCF's Toa Payoh outlet left 14 children vomiting and having diarrhoea. And, on Feb 26, the authorities announced that 31 people developed gastroenteritis at Tanglin MindChamps pre-school.
On Wednesday morning (March 27), the Ministry of Health (MOH), National Environment Agency (NEA) and Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) told The Straits Times that they are investigating the incident.
The outbreak of gastroenteritis, which as of Wednesday had developed across four Sparkletots pre-schools, was traced to the consumption of food prepared by caterer Kate’s Catering.
When contacted by ST, the caterer declined to comment on the incident.
It is not yet clear which specific outlets were affected. Six of the 15 who were hospitalised have been discharged.
The authorities were notified of the first cluster of cases last Friday, and conducted an inspection of the caterer's premises on the same day.
On Monday, however, additional clusters of cases were reported, prompting the NEA to instruct Kate's Catering to suspend its operations with effect from Tuesday, pending investigations by the various agencies.
ST has approached PCF for further comments on the issue.
Last year, 131 cases of gastroenteritis were reported after people consumed food prepared by FoodTalks Caterer & Manufacturer for a learning camp. None of the victims were hospitalised.


Council members, choose your numbers! Two studies have been issued today on the effect of a proposal now in City Council that would require employers to give their worker paid sick leavewould have on the economy — and they will almost certainly do nothing to resolve the issue.
Meanwhile a survey by the Partnership for New York City, a business group, also released today, said any mandatory paid sick leave law would “devastate the city’s construction, restaurant and non-profit sector.” The partnership study was based on responses to a survey of employers on how their businesses might be affected by any such law.
To add to the storm of numbers, paid sick leave advocates later this morning released new numbers which said paid sick leave costs about 39 cents per employee hour worked, The advocates also questioned the methodology of the partnership study and charged the group misstated the requirements of the bill, particularly with regard to workers who already get paid sick leave.
It reiterated what it sees as the need for the requirement, saying than many low paid and service industry workers do not get sick leave.
The paid sick leave measure, sponsored by Councilmember Gale Brewer, was introduced last year. But Council Speaker Christine Quinn never let it come to the floor. Brewer and other members, along with the Working Families Party, then put forth a revised version this year. A majority of members have signed on to the bill — the general thinking is,if it, comes to a vote, it will pass. Whether that will happen is up to Quinn.


One of the U.K.’s most interesting filmmakers is coming to our shores. Ben Wheatley is getting a cast together for Free Fire, a ’70s-inspired action shootout that will be his first-ever film set in the U.S.
So far, he’s off to a great start. Olivia Wilde, Luke Evans, Cillian Murphy, and Armie Hammer are all on board, along with Wheatley regular Michael Smiley. Hit the jump for Ben Wheatley Free Fire plot details and more.
Set in Boston 1978, Free Fire stars Wilde as Justine, who’s arranged a meeting in a deserted warehouse between a group of gangsters (led by Hammer and Evans) with guns to sell and two Irishmen (Smiley and Murphy) who want to buy them. But things go horribly awry when shots are fired during the handoff, leading to an intense game of survival.
Wheatley revealed his inspirations in a statement.
The idea for Free Fire came from my love of hard-boiled crime movies; from The Asphalt Jungle, The Big Sleep, The Killing and The Big Combo through The Driver, Le Samourai and The French Connection, to the modern cycle of Goodfellas, Casino, Hard Boiled and Reservoir Dogs.
Free Fire will take you and stick you in the middle of the action. I want the film to have the stylish, no-nonsense feel that you get in Peckinpah’s The Getaway. It’s a modern ‘70s movie. Muscular, tough and spare.
Shooting on Free Fire is set to begin spring 2015, with a budget of around $10 million.
The Free Fire news comes just as Wheatley puts the finishing touches on his latest movie, the J.G. Ballard adaptation High-Rise. That one also stars Evans, along with Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, and Sienna Miller. It’s expected out sometime next year.
Wheatley burst onto the scene in 2009 with Down Terrace, and has been on the rise ever since with Kill List, Sightseers, and A Field in England. He’s also done TV work, including the first two episodes of the latest season of Doctor Who.


A young person commits suicide in the United States at the rate of one per hour and four minutes. It’s the second leading cause of death for people age 15 to 24.
Four out of five teenagers who attempt suicide exhibit clear warning signs, according to the Justin Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to suicide prevention.
Those are just statistics to many people — but not to those who have known a teenager who has taken his or her own life.
Yet nothing in Iowa law requires that teachers and other educators be capable of recognizing these danger signals and getting appropriate help. That may change this year, as a result of legislation currently seeing bipartisan cooperation at the Iowa Statehouse.
Originally, Senate File 2004 called for Iowa teachers to take an hour of suicide awareness and prevention training annually as part of their license renewal. That idea has faced opposition in the past, because it adds training requirements without any money to pay for it, said Sen. Amy Sinclair, R-Allerton.
“But if we just roll it in as part of their five-year, mandatory reporter training, it garners much less resistance,” she said. It also should keep the cost down for school districts, she said.
Joanne Tubbs of the Iowa Board of Educational Examiners said eliminating the calendar-year requirement and including training at least once per licensure renewal period would take care of the board’s concerns about the bill.
Sinclair said the bill and a proposed committee amendment could be ready for consideration by the Senate Education Committee, which she chairs, as early as this week. Sen. Brad Zaun, R-Urbandale, is the bill’s sponsor.
Sen. Herman Quirmbach, an Ames Democrat who served on a subcommittee that considered the bill, said he thinks remaining concerns, such as about the timing of the training requirement, will be ironed out.
“I think this is a really important thing for teachers to be aware of,” Quirmbach said. Teachers won’t become psychological professionals, he said, but they could at least be able to spot warning signs and refer a student for help.
Quirmbach said two of his former high school classmates killed themselves.
“Teenagers, their view of time is very short. They don’t see that the problems that they’re facing can be overcome with longer effort,” he said.
The lack of any coordinated mental health system for children in Iowa puts more pressure on schools than we should expect them to bear. That needs to change. At the same time, anyone in regular contact with a depressed or struggling child could be the person who saves that young life.
I’m sad to say I know a lot more families who have lost children to suicide than I did at this time last year. Most of them did not need a teacher or coach to point out warning signs. The cracks some of these lost teenagers fell through in Iowa’s mental health system are more complicated and expensive and will take more than an 11-line bill to fix.
Gov. Kim Reynolds delighted some mental health advocates this month when she included the issue in her Condition of the State address, elevating the sense of priority for closing critical gaps in accessible services.
It remains unclear, however, what lawmakers intend to do. Key Republican lawmakers who deal with human services issues outlined some needs they recognize in the system but offered no specific plans in interviews last week.
They did, however, say they detect more public interest and support for change.
“It’s way more on the radar than it used to be,” said Sen. Mark Segebart, R-Vail, chairman of the Senate Human Resources Committee.
“I think people are very concerned about providing adequate access to mental health,” particularly in light of the closings of two state mental health institutions, said Rep. Dave Heaton, R-Mount Pleasant. He chairs the budget subcommittee for human services programs.
Obradovich: These Iowans are on the front lines of mental illness. They need help.
Mental health advocates tell me they’re waiting for the Department of Human Services’ draft of legislation based on task force recommendations submitted in December.
Legislators have a lot of work ahead of them on mental health. But the cooperation and willingness to compromise that we’re seeing so far on the suicide prevention legislation offers hope and a model for a banner year on mental health.
Disclaimer: My husband, Jim, is a lobbyist at the Statehouse and some of his clients support Senate File 2004. My interest in the issue of mental health is entirely separate from his work and my opinions are my own.
March 18, 2019, 1:44 p.m.
March 14, 2019, 8:57 a.m.


NEW DELHI: Resentment against the CPI (Maoist) leadership is growing among its lower and middle level cadres, the CRPF has concluded after carrying out an assessment of the Naxalite outfit based on interrogation of several arrested members and literature recovered from their hideouts.
The cadres believe the senior Maoist leadership has become money-minded and don't care much about the cause, the Central Reserve Police Force said. Seniors remained in command in different states and there were hardly any young leaders, the force added.
"The young leaders are not keen to work in difficult areas. The senior leadership doesn't listen to them even as they enjoy a good life. Due to this, many middle level and even senior cadres are surrendering as they are unhappy with the leadership," the CRPF assessment report said.
Over 359 Maoists have surrendered this year, with 217 doing so in worst-affected Chhattisgarh alone.
The tribals, the CRPF found, refused to join the Naxals as they saw better opportunities in government jobs and education. The Maoists' strength was depleting every week due to coordinated operations and refusal of youngsters to join them, a CRPF officer said.
There is also massive "shortage of ammunition" for People's Liberation Guerilla Army (PLGA), the armed wing of the party, but "the senior leadership is not doing anything about it", the CRPF's analysis said.
For many Maoist leaders leaving the organisation, "development is the only route for welfare of tribals, farmers and unemployed youth in these areas".
In fact, top Maoist leaders like Jampanna and Pahad Singh, who were associated with the movement for over two decades before their recent surrender out of "disappointment", have claimed that "there is a generation gap in the thinking of those leading the CPI (Maoist) - the central committee members - and the middle level cadres".
Pahad Singh, whose interrogation details were accessed by TOI, claimed that he didn't trust the movement any more and Maoists were not doing anything for tribals. "Maoists ki kathni aur karni ko ujagar karna chahiye (there is a need to expose what Maoists preach and practise)," Singh said.
Singh told investigation agencies that "police should work towards the pride of tribals and educate them through 'nukkad nataks'.
"To bring them to the mainstream, employ tribals in the forest department and other government jobs so that they don't get lured by Maoists," Singh, who was secretary of Special Zonal Maharashtra-Madhya Pradesh-Chhattisgarh Committee (SZMMC) of the Maoists for several years, said.
Singh also said the Maoists were trying to train cadres in air defence, hiding from surveillance UAVs in the jungle and repairing arms.


Microsoft delivered a beta release of its Cognitive Toolkit 2.0, featuring improved performance of its deep learning tool and additional support for Python.
Microsoft has delivered a beta release of the new version of its Cognitive Toolkit (CNTK), CNTK 2.0, which offers improved performance and flexibility.
Previously known as the Computational Network Toolkit (CNTK), the Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit is a system for applying deep learning into applications. Deep learning is a form of machine learning that is used to enhance innovations in speech and image recognition as well as search relevance on CPUs and GPUs.
Microsoft said the new release of the toolkit is being released at a time when companies of all sizes are looking to add deep learning to things such as speech understanding and image recognition.
"Broadly speaking, deep learning is an artificial intelligence (AI) technique in which developers and researchers use large amounts of data—called training sets—to teach computer systems to recognize patterns from inputs such as images or sounds," said a Microsoft blog post on CNTK 2.0.
"For example, a deep learning system can be given a training set showing all sorts of pictures of fruits and vegetables, after which it learns to recognize images of fruits and vegetables on its own," the post said. "It gets better as it gets more data, so each time it encounters a new, weird-looking eggplant or odd-shaped apple, it can refine the algorithm to become even more accurate."
Xuedong Huang, distinguished engineer and chief scientist of speech R&D at Microsoft, told eWEEK that deep learning is changing almost every day. He said Microsoft started its efforts to digitally recognize conversation speech in 1993 and gradually improved its error rate over the years.
"When Microsoft introduced the speech API in 1995 for Windows 95, the error rate to recognize a switchboard conversation would be around 60 percent," Huang said. "Today, it's 5.8 percent—the lowest in the industry," he said of Microsoft's speech recognition capability.
Huang said Microsoft set a goal a year ago to deliver the record lowest speech recognition error rate in the industry. "Before us, IBM Watson had the lowest error rate," he said. "So IBM Watson had been leading the pack. A month ago we delivered a lower result. And a week ago we reported we not only had the lowest result, we also approached parity with humans. So essentially, computers without having a real-time constraint can recognize the words or transcribe the words of an open conversation as good as humans. That's a truly historical milestone."
He noted that Microsoft is having similar success with image recognition and with its conversational chatbot.
"Because of deep learning, our ability to engage with machines in a more natural way is having absolutely fantastic breakthroughs," he said. "Microsoft combined a number of APIs to enable developers to really access AI. That's part of the effort to democratize AI. The Cognitive Toolkit is a toolkit that has created all these intelligence models."
Chris Basoglu, a partner engineering manager at Microsoft who played a key role in developing the toolkit, said one key reason to use the Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit is its ability to scale efficiently across multiple GPUs and multiple machines on massive data sets.
When Microsoft researchers initially developed the toolkit, he said, they figured many developers couldn't, or wouldn't, want to write a lot of code, the Microsoft CNTK 2.0 post said. "So, they created a custom system that made it easy for developers to configure their systems for deep learning without any extra coding."
However, as the system grew more popular, Microsoft heard from developers who wanted to combine their own Python or C++ code with the toolkit's deep learning capabilities, the post said.
"They also heard from researchers who wanted to use the toolkit to enable reinforcement learning research," the Microsoft post said. "That's a research area in which an agent learns the right way to do something—like find their way around a room or form a sentence—through lots of trial and error. That's the kind of research that could eventually lead to true artificial intelligence, in which systems can make complex decisions on their own. The new version gives developers that ability as well."
CNTK 2.0 is open-sourced through GitHub. It has some unique advantages and "is super-fast and it scales," Huang said. Microsoft benchmarked four open-source machine learning frameworks: TensorFlow by Google, Caffe, CNTK and Torch and CNTK performed at or near the top in a series of tests, he said.
"CNTK can handle big, commercial-grade work," Huang said. "We have been using CNTK internally for massive AI workloads. CNTK has been used broadly internally on speech recognition, image recognition, Cortana, web search and the conversational chatbot. It can handle massive AI workloads."
The Microsoft blog post said Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit can easily handle anything from relatively small datasets to very, very large ones, using just one laptop or a series of computers in a data center. It also can run on computers that use traditional CPUs or GPUs, which were once mainly associated with graphics-heavy gaming but have proven to be very effective for running the algorithms needed for deep learning, the post said.
"Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit represents tight collaboration between Microsoft and NVIDIA to bring advances to the deep learning community," said Ian Buck, general manager of the Accelerated Computing Group at NVIDIA, in a statement in Microsoft's blog. "Compared to the previous version, it delivers almost two times performance boost in scaling to eight Pascal GPUs in an NVIDIA DGX-1."


AUGUSTA – A voice as welcoming and familiar as the azaleas that brighten Magnolia Lane will grace the Masters television broadcast this week when CBS golf analyst David Feherty returns to work for this year’s first and most anticipated major championship.
Feherty working the Masters appeared a long shot only three weeks ago when, while riding his bicycle near his Dallas home, he was hit by a truck and seriously injured.
Feherty, who said he was “six inches from having my head crushed like an egg,” suffered a punctured lung, three broken ribs and a ruptured bursa sac in his left elbow.
As he lay on that road gasping to breathe and, later in the hospital, Feherty had little idea what laid ahead as he’s recovered, he’s been craving his return to the airwaves. The Masters at Augusta National beckoned.
The 49-year-old native of Northern Ireland said he’s been “overwhelmed” by the outpouring of support that has come his way, including some moving sentiments from his counterparts at NBC. While Feherty was recovering, he received calls from Johnny Miller and Roger Maltbie, both of whom offered their well wishes on the air during last month’s CA Championship at Doral.
That’s saying a lot considering the fact that Feherty also has gone through much rehab for depression and alcohol addiction in recent years.
Feherty’s return to Augusta is particularly significant because of what the Masters means to him.
“For me, the Masters is the most absorbing golf tournament, not just from work standpoint, but from a voyeuristic point of view,” he said. “I get to watch it close up and personal and on a scale of dramas you see it all there.


In 36 years of work at the Mayo Clinic, he treated patients, mentored students and led research that made him an authority in his field.
In 1990, a researcher speaking to a group of neurologists told a patient story that was so unusual, a write-up of the case study was published in newspapers across the country.
The researcher described a Baltimore man who suddenly began speaking with a Scandinavian accent after suffering a stroke. The man had no experience with foreign languages, the researcher explained, yet he sounded Nordic and unfamiliar with English.
The patient suffered from a rare condition known as foreign-accent syndrome, and the reporter writing the story reached out to Mayo Clinic researcher Arnold Aronson for help understanding the problem.
Aronson, of Minneapolis, died Nov. 1 after suffering a recent stroke and congestive heart failure. He was 90. In 36 years of work at the Mayo Clinic, he treated patients, mentored students and led research that made him an authority in the diagnosis of motor speech disorders and the treatment of voice disorders, said Joseph Duffy, an emeritus consultant and speech pathology professor at the Mayo Clinic.
Aronson was born in Milwaukee and earned degrees in speech pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps before becoming a professor at the Mayo Clinic.
Aronson started working at the clinic in 1962 and served as head of speech pathology in the neurology department from 1979 until 1992. He wrote influential books in the field and co-authored key research papers that established how the profession approaches classification of motor speech disorders, according to Duffy.
Foreign-accent syndrome was one of several rare voice disorders that Aronson specialized in throughout his career, said daughter Ann Aronson of Minneapolis. The unusual cases came with the territory at Mayo, she said, since patients came to Rochester when they couldn’t find answers from clinicians close to home.
Outside of work, Aronson was an amateur pilot who loved reading nonfiction, particularly books about World War II. He started playing violin at age 5, and picked it up periodically throughout his life. In his 60s, Aronson took up tap dancing.


Incredible video shows the moment a RAF Hercules plane lands on a Devon beach.
This incredible video shows the moment dogwalkers and surfers did a double take after a Hercules plane landed – on a British BEACH.
Rachel Hoult, 25, was enjoying a surf when she spotted several RAF officers on the shore.
She asked them what was happening and was told a Lockheed C-130 Hercules was due to land shortly after 3pm on Wednesday, January 9.
She then got into position and readied her camera, and captured this incredible footage of the plane landing and taking off at Saunton Sands, Devon.
Rachel, a personal trainer from Braunton, Devon, said: “It was my day off so I went for a surf, it was small and fun – a good day for socialising in the sea.
“I saw a few fire engines on the beach and some RAF guys so I went to go ask what was going on.
Rachel said she saw the plane land before taking off again and flying in a loop and landing again.
She said the plane would only rest for a minute before taking off again.
She continued: “It was pretty spectacular, it was really loud. It’s not the sort of thing you would see every day.
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Today is the day. It's Monday, April 15, and taxes are due. You should already have your W-2, your 1099-DIV, your 1099-INT and all of the other forms. Unless you're filing for an extension, it's time to sit down and get to work.
This year is going to be more challenging than ever. The US passed a mammoth tax-reform bill in 2017, called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (let's call it TCJA from here on out). And the changes mean all kinds of modifications of the rules as well as 400 or more new or revised forms to complete.
Picking the right tax preparation software can be almost as complicated as estimating what you owe the government. There are a plethora of features, with nuances, and much of what they offer is either not spelled out by vendors or buried in fine print. The following guide will ease the process, with descriptions of the more prominent offerings, their features and prices, and a guide to how to use them. We'll start with the top services available, and then go into greater depth about the new laws, and how the services differ.
Disclosure: CNET may earn commission from the products featured on this page.
Turbo Tax by Intuit: CD, online, mobile. Listed prices range from a free tier for basic returns to $40 for the downloadable Basic edition to $90 for Self-employed. All packages tack on extra charges of $50 to $70 to add the Live CPA feature, and $50 for Max. State filings are $20 each for the online versions, and free with the Deluxe, Premium or Home & Business download editions. It generally offers the most comprehensive set of tools. A nice feature is charitable donations tracking, whereby you can use the software year-round to keep track of donations and have the program compute your deductions at tax time.
TaxAct Online: CD, online, mobile. Listed prices range from $10 for the Basic online version to $97 for the Self-employed download/CD package. State filings are $20 to $37 depending on the package. It promises $100,000 of coverage if you find a higher refund somewhere else, and $100,000 to cover audit costs if its software causes an audit. One useful extra is a log of all the times your online paperwork has been accessed, including the IP address of the computer that gained access, in case you want to make sure no one but you has been into your account.
Right now, TaxAct is offering $20 off, too.
Credit Karma Tax : Online or mobile. The only vendor that offers no paid versions -- even state filings are free and included is a free audit defense. The tax product is part of the larger Credit Karma collection of services, including credit cards, loans and auto loans, off of which the company makes a fee for referrals. It has the thinnest offering of guarantees: no penalties insurance. However, if you get a higher refund from another vendor, they will offer a $100 gift certificate.
H&R Block: CD, online, mobile. There's a free tier for individuals with simple returns. Listed prices range from $19 for the Basic download to $80 for the online Self-employed package. State filings are $30 to $40 depending on the package. Smartphone app offered. Tax Pro Review promises extra hand-holding from the company's network of CPAs.
Tax Slayer: Online or mobile. Listed prices range from $24 for Classic to $47 for Self-employed. State filings are $29 extra each. Support offerings include Ask a Tax pro, via phone or email. Premium and Self-employed packages offer to put you at the front of the support queue, at least relative to the Classic version. You can get started with the program right now.
Free Tax USA: Online only. One of the cheapest offerings, with the only pay version being Deluxe, at $7 (no downloads offered). State filings are $13 extra. Support includes online chat between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday, but only for the Deluxe version, not for the free offering. Similar to Tax Slayer, a priority feature puts you ahead in the support queue relative to users of the free version. A bonus is the ability to file "unlimited amended returns" at "no extra cost." You can get started with the program right now.
Liberty Tax/eSmart Tax: Online only. Listed prices range from $20 for EZ to $75 for Premium (no downloads offered). eTax pricing is slightly cheaper, while functionality appears to be comparable. It has a limited-function smartphone app, which is just a directory of Liberty Tax offices around the country. Support includes online text chat from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET, and a network of CPA offices throughout the country. Promises "360-degree support" and "multichannel support."
Jackson Hewitt: Online only. There's a free tier for individuals with simple returns, but most will need the $30 package, which adds $37 per each state filing. It has a nationwide network of CPAs, though "separate charges apply" for such visits. It promises to pay any penalties and interest incurred with filings, a money-back guarantee if you find a better refund, and a refund of any fees incurred if you end up not filing with the program.
Free1040TaxReturn: Online only. Listed prices include $30 for each federal or state e-filing, $7 for print-only preparations. Support includes a 24/7 help desk by phone or email. It offers federal and state "audit insurance" for an additional $30 and $20, respectively.
Happy Tax Service: Online or mobile. The most expensive of the bunch, with prices from $100 for a Starter package on up to $500 for Premium. All versions include one free state filing. It has a franchise network of CPAs and EAs billed as a "concierge service." You get an initial meeting in person to complete forms, then a CPA prepares your paperwork and delivers the finished product in 2 hours, on average. It has an extensive selection of packages for cryptocurrency tax filings.
Assuming you decide to go through the online process to ease most of the pain, you should be aware of some of the basics of the TCJA that may affect you. The IRS has provided a handy document (PDF) explaining these items, and you'll also want to check your individual state tax website.
The most obvious changes are new tax rates and new amounts for the standard deduction.
The new rates are 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37 percent.
The new deductions are $12,000 for single filers or those who are married but filing separately, up from $6,350 last year; $24,000 for those filing jointly, up from $12,700; and $18,000 for a head of household, up from $9,350.
If you're itemizing taxes, rather than taking the standard deduction, those change as well. The good news is you may be able to deduct more than in past years, if you're in a higher income bracket. The bar has been set lower for deducting some unreimbursed medical expenses as well. Rules for deductions of mortgages and home equity interest also change. The credit for a qualifying child in a household goes up this year, and there's a new credit that can be claimed for other dependents.
The new tax forms won't appear until the end of December or early January. Believe it or not, some changes to the forms are supposed to actually make things easier. For example, the IRS has been working on a new version of the core 1040 form that is half the size of the old form, and also replaces forms 1040A and 1040EZ.
If you want a sneak peek, a draft version was posted over the summer on the IRS website (PDF). A plethora of other draft releases are available on the site.
One matter you may want to get started on right away is withholding. Rules for employer withholding have changed and the IRS advises that you review how much is being withheld from your paycheck, to avoid a large bill at tax time if the amount is too low. There's an online calculator at the IRS website, as part of a "Paycheck Checkup" that breaks down the TCJA changes for you.
There are a few basic distinguishing factors for all the services: pricing, level of "live" or human assistance, and insurance or guarantees.
The programs are evolving from an era of software on CD-ROM (for those of you who remember what that is) to the web and smartphone apps. Three providers -- Intuit's TurboTax, TaxAct Online and H&R Block -- still offer software that can be either downloaded and installed locally on your Mac or PC, or even sent to you on CD.
Want to file taxes on your iPhone ($1,000 at Amazon)? Six providers offer fully functioning mobile apps for Apple's iOS or for Android-based smartphones that will let you file taxes from the palm of your hand: Intuit, TaxAct, H&R, Tax Slayer, Credit Karma and Happy Tax Service.
The new trend is hands-on support. Intuit's TurboTax is for the first time including a free conversation with a certified public accountant, or CPA, when you're in the process of filling out forms on the TurboTax website, as opposed to the download, known as TurboTax Live. When you create your account on the Turbo Tax site, and begin to fill in information about your finances, a button appears in the upper right-hand corner saying Live Tax Advice. Clicking on that brings up a one-way video window -- you see the tax expert, they don't see you. Screen-sharing technology lets the CPA look at the statements with you in real time.
H&R Block, which has a network of offices throughout the US, offers to have your "work checked" for you, called the Tax Pro Review. It has offered that service, albeit under different branding, since 2004.
Tax Slayer offers to connect you via either chat or telephone to "on-staff IRS-enrolled agents."
And Free Tax USA offers online chat with a "tax specialist" between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET.
Liberty Tax and Jackson Hewitt are two other firms that, like H&R, have actual physical offices around the country, though it's not immediately clear what that will get you. Liberty promises "360-degree, multichannel" support, without specifying what that means in practice. Jackson Hewitt notes that "separate charges may apply" for visiting its walk-in offices, without specifying any amounts.
Live help is of course, for the most part, a feature of paid offerings, and there are a variety of other features that the vendors use to move you from the free offering. Which kind of filer you are -- single, head of household, married but filing separately and so on -- obviously starts to move you into packages that can handle more complicated returns.
Other benefits of using a paid version include the ability to go back and amend filings after you've filed them.
The other big lures for paying are the so-called guarantees. This can be where the fine print becomes especially tricky.
Every one of the 11 providers listed here offers some kind of assurance of accuracy. The most common form is to guarantee that if another tax software is able to produce a higher refund, then the vendor will refund you what you paid them. TaxAct Online offers to also pay the difference between what it found for you and what another program found for you, up to the amount of $100,000. Obviously, this implies that you'll be using more than one of these programs to file, which is probably not the case for most people, which is why such a promise seems a low-risk proposition for the vendors.
Another guarantee is to reimburse you for any penalties incurred by filing with the vendor. TurboTax states flatly it will "pay you the penalty and interest" incurred. Another is audit support, but what that means varies. TurboTax says if a return filed with it is audited, it'll refund the software fees, but it won't be involved with your audit. TaxAct will refund audit costs up to $100,000.
TurboTax also offers a separate package, called Max Defend & Restore, which is provided through a partnership with a firm called TaxAudit.com. The Max plan, which is a $45 add-on, promises to have a tax expert defend you should you be "randomly audited," and promises a $250,000 insurance policy against identity theft.
Free Tax USA will provide you help from an "audit specialist" if you use its Deluxe edition, rather than free, but won't pay for any of your costs. If it's something you're really worried about, the one vendor that explicitly offers a product to cover things is Free1040, which sells federal and state audit insurance, for $30 and $20, respectively. These are billed as "insurance to cover the cost of defending yourself," and the service promises its CPAs and EAs, meaning "enrolled agents," people who've passed a test from the IRS or served at the IRS, will "handle the entire process" so you "won't have to see the IRS."
The prices for all these packages range from completely free, with Credit Karma, which doesn't charge for any offering, on up to several hundred dollars for Happy Tax, a firm that is really a network of CPAs and EAs. In all cases, you don't pay anything for the service up-front, you pay when you file. And most of the vendors let you pay for the service by having the fee deducted from a refund, if you're due one. Prices for the download or CD-based versions are generally a little higher than for online. The smartphone apps are free to download to your mobile, and the ultimate price is in line with the online price of whatever package you choose.
The question of pricing is more complex than it initially appears, however, because the prices for many of the offerings are not fixed at this point in time. What's listed on the websites of the vendors are often prices based on last year's software. Intuit, makers of TurboTax, for example, told me that prices for TurboTax you'll pay to file in April of next year are "subject to change," and that what is listed on the website is the cost of last year's return. "Prices are based on when you actually file," says Intuit.
Similarly, H&R Block said that "prices have at times changed in late March/early April."
The direction of pricing will likely be up, not down. Liberty Tax, for example, lets you start the online process, and then midway through, tells you to click a button to proceed to the next step and "lock in your rate." But once you do so, you're presented with a menu of prices that are actually higher than what's listed on the home page. For example, the EZ version, listed for $12 on the home page, is listed in the wizard as $20. Liberty says it hasn't yet updated its home page for the new prices.
All these services will let you get started with a free version. Even Liberty Tax, which doesn't specifically offer a free version, allows you to get started entering information before deciding on a product.
If you do start with a free version, you'll find there are frequent inducements to upgrade to the paid versions, or, if you started by choosing a paid version, to upgrade to higher packages. For example, if you recently changed your work status from self-employed to freelance, you may be prompted to upgrade to a package that will help you itemize all the new expenses you pay for as your own boss, such as your monthly internet bill or supplies costs.
Given the shifting nature of prices at this point in time, you have an intriguing opportunity: start your return with multiple vendors, try them out and dump the ones you don't like before you file.
Bear in mind that almost all the services require an extra fee to file state returns, and an additional fee for each extra federal filing on top of the initial one. There's a whole other set of fees if you wish to go back and do your federal or state taxes from prior years.
One emerging feature of the services, supported so far only by a couple, is special treatment of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. TurboTax offers to "accurately account for gains and losses from cryptocurrency transactions" as a unique feature of its $140 Deluxe package. And Happy Tax has a whole slate of offerings that vary in price by the number of transactions you're accounting for. The Happy Tax packages are quite expensive, however, ranging from $600 on up to $3,500, billed on a yearly basis.
Regardless of the features of each service, some people find it easier to come back to a vendor they've used before. If you're a prior-year customer of TurboTax, for example, as soon as you choose a package this time around, the software tells you it's going to import last year's return automatically, which can save you some time having to bring together the prior-year filing. That's important for a variety of reasons. As just one example, if you received any refunds for the prior year, it has to be determined whether they're taxable or not.
Remember that if you're making a more modest income, the IRS offers help for electronic filing. One option is a team of volunteer tax preparers who will help people making $54,000 or less, called VITA and TCE. More about that on the IRS site here.
The other is Free File, an initiative begun in 2003 for those making $66,000 or less annually. Free File offers you a menu of software from several of the vendors on this list, including Intuit TurboTax, H&R Block and TaxAct.
Though many people will delay filing until the very last minute, some of the services will allow you to get started today, for no money up-front, even before the new forms are available, and before you receive many of the documents you need, such as a W2. A benefit of this approach is that it's possible to try the initial stages of all the online versions before you commit to a purchase, and get a feel for how well the user interface suits your needs.
The system will usually send a confirmation code via text message to a mobile phone that you enter. (In the case of Liberty Tax, email is used instead.) You'll want to keep your phone handy so you can enter the code to continue.
You can walk away from the return, and come back at a later time, log in with the ID and password you created, and pick it up again, and the work you've done will be saved. In some cases, when you return to the site, after you log in, you'll again be sent a one-time code, via email or SMS, that you'll have to enter into the site to resume working.
You'll be asked in all cases to choose and answer three security questions, for which you'll also want to keep notes.
In the case of Credit Karma, you'll also be asked to enter the last four digits of your social security number, and to then confirm some background data on yourself, such as whether you had a mortgage loan outstanding. These are presented to verify your identity, the company says.
If you're filing with the provider for the first time, expect to enter information about filing status, and whether you have any dependents or can be claimed by anyone as a dependent.
If you're starting fresh with one of the services, you'll be prompted early on to import your prior-year filing, usually in the form of a PDF file, by uploading it through the browser. Of course, W-2 forms aren't required to be delivered to employees until the end of January, and additional tax documents (for stocks, 401Ks and so forth) often don't arrive until the middle of February. But whether you're ready to start or not, it's good to begin gathering the documents you need, to try out the look and feel of the offerings, and to start to reflect on just how complex your return may be this year.
Originally published Dec. 13, 2018.