New York-based co-working company WeWork is giving entrepreneurial Bostonians an innovative new space to practice its motto - "do what you love."
A New York-based co-working company is giving entrepreneurial Bostonians an innovative new space to practice its motto - "do what you love."
Last week, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh cut the ribbon for the entrepreneurial eco-system known as WeWork, which once completely up and running, will be home to 2,200 desks for 600 local companies, all cashing in on the future-friendly idea of shared office spaces.
The company has locations on Melcher Street in the Innovation District, and Atlantic Avenue, across from South Station.
Strolling through WeWork's Atlantic Avenue office is sure to evoke envy from any cubicle dwelling office worker. The community kitchenette comes equipped with microbrew on tap and fruit infused purified water. Tenants also have access to a game lounge, uniquely designed conference rooms, private phone booths, indoor bike storage and a host of other amenities.
"It seemed natural to open in Boston," said Hunter Perry, city lead of WeWork Boston. "It is a perfect landscape of technology and has amazing support. It's very forward thinking and innovative, and there is room for lots of different entrepreneurs."
In addition to its new Boston locations, WeWork also has 17 spaces in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Seattle. Another location in London is also on the horizon.
The comfortable and styling shared space doesn't only lend itself to collaboration, it promotes it.
Tenants are encouraged to make their space their own with signs, and by writing on the glass walls with dry erase markers.
Having operated its New York branch out of WeWork's SoHo space, YEC co-founder and COO Ryan Paugh said he was eager to move his Boston team of five to the new shared space.
"Last week we had launch parties, and we got together with some cool entrepreneurs and met with a couple of people in the space that we've already figured out ways to collaborate with," said Paugh. "[WeWork] is going to bring a lot to the Boston community."


Rio de Janeiro's Nilton Santos stadium - one of the showpiece venues for next year's Olympic Games - is currently without running water and electricity due to unpaid bills.
The stadium has racked up about 225,000 US dollars in outstanding utility bills in the past two months, according to the Globoesporte news portal.
Images published by the portal show the venue in a state of neglect with the turf overgrown and discolored by a lack of water.
Known locally as the Engenhao, the Nilton Santos stadium is slated to host athletics events at the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The stadium has been closed since March 2013 after it was found the roof could collapse due to structural defects.
The cost of the repair work has been the focus of a bitter legal dispute between Rio's city government, which owns the venue, and Botafogo football club - which administrates it under a long-term lease agreement.
"We have to look at who is responsible (for the unpaid bills) and will have an answer on Monday," Botafogo president Carlos Eduardo Pereira said.
A spokesperson for the government was not immediately available for comment.
Located in Rio's north, the Nilton Santos stadium was built for the 2007 Pan American Games at a cost of 192 million US dollars.
According to Rio 2016 organizers, the stadium's capacity will be increased from 46,000 to 60,000 for the Olympics, which begin on August 5.
Brazil is in the midst of its worst recession in decades, hit by a devastating corruption scandal at state-run oil firm Petrobras.
Soaring inflation and a sharp devaluation of the currency have forced organizers to slash spending to avoid a budget blowout.


LONDON: This weekend’s World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan will address “new platforms of cooperation” for the Arab world, organizers said on Wednesday.
The 17th World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa is set to take place at the Dead Sea on April 6-7, and bring together more than 1,000 leaders of government, business, civil society, faith and academia.
Speakers include King Abdullah of Jordan, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih and Antonio Guterres, secretary-general of the UN.
“The meeting will focus on four transformational imperatives: Shaping a new economic and social model for the region; environmental stewardship in the Arab world; finding common ground in a multiconceptual world; and the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the Arab world,” organizers said.
Mirek Dusek, deputy head of the Center for Geopolitical and Regional Affairs and Member of the Executive Committee at the World Economic Forum, said the meeting comes at an important time for the region.
“At this meeting, we will hold several strategic dialogues, with particular attention on the relationship between the public, private and civic sectors, the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on skills and jobs, and new initiatives to help resolve long-standing conflicts,” he said.
The event’s 100 Arab Startups initiative will bring together entrepreneurs from across the region, including 10 from Saudi Arabia.


WASHINGTON (AP) — Pirates rookie Nick Kingham’s nearly perfect debut has earned him at least one more start in the majors.
Kingham took a perfect game into the seventh inning of his first big league start, retiring the first 20 batters in Pittsburgh’s 5-0 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.
He left after seven innings, allowing one hit on 98 pitches, in the best debut by a major league starter in more than a half-century.
The Pirates weren’t necessarily planning to keep Kingham in the majors after his spot start. Now he’s slated to pitch again on Friday at Milwaukee.
The Pirates moved left-hander Steven Brault to the bullpen to make room for Kingham.


Harley-Davidson is recalling nearly 175,000 motorcycles because the brakes might fail.
DETROIT (AP) - Under pressure from U.S. safety regulators, Harley-Davidson is recalling nearly 175,000 motorcycles because the brakes might fail.
The U.S. recall covers more than 30 models from the 2008 through 2011 model years. Harley says deposits can form on brake parts if the fluid isn't changed every two years as specified in the owner's manual. That can cause a valve in the antilock brake control unit to stick.
The U.S. government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration began investigating problems in July of 2016 after getting 43 complaints including three reports of crashes and two injuries.
Documents show Harley wanted to do a field service campaign instead of a recall, but the government refused. Messages were left Wednesday for company spokesmen.
Dealers will flush and replace brake fluid starting on Feb. 12.


Neil J. Rubenking PC Pandora 7.0 PC Pandora 7.0 monitors tons of specific actions on your child's computer, including keystroke logging and periodic screenshots and webcam shots. It's changed very little since the last version, though, and the remote configuration and log viewing option remains unduly expensive.
Installs in stealth mode, monitors all computer and Internet activity. New ability to schedule computer and Internet access. Can send periodic email reports. Optional remote viewing and configuration. Optional category-based website blocking.
Remote viewing and configuration requires expensive monthly subscription. Access scheduling awkward, non-stealthy, and easily fooled. Remote configuration fails when PC's system time changed. Little progress since previous edition.
PC Pandora 7.0 monitors tons of specific actions on your child's computer, including keystroke logging and periodic screenshots and webcam shots. It's changed very little since the last version, though, and the remote configuration and log viewing option remains unduly expensive.
Giving your child an Internet-capable computer opens up access to a whole world of content and connections, including nasty content and dangerous connections. Parental control utilities typically strike a balance between warding off dangers and giving parents insight into what the kids are doing online. PC Pandora 7.0 ($109.95 direct) focuses strongly on monitoring everything the child does, not so much on controlling specific activities.
Like WebWatcher ($169.95 direct, 4 stars) and Spector Pro 2011 ($99.95 direct, 3.5 stars), PC Pandora tracks absolutely everything that happens on the target computer. Every password typed, every chat conversation, every document created—nothing escapes these comprehensive monitors.
This kind of power could easily be used for illicit spying. When installing Spector Pro you must verify that you own the computer and that you'll notify users they're being watched. PC Pandora requires more than that. Its installer presents a lengthy and detailed privacy agreement. However, most users will click right past it just as they click past license agreements.
As soon as you install it and reboot the system, PC Pandora starts monitoring. By default it snaps a screenshot every 30 seconds; you can change that interval from one to 599 seconds. Spector Pro and WebWatcher both capture screenshots when specific events occur, so as not to miss anything important. PC Pandora's strictly time-based system might miss capturing some important event that would be snapped by the other two.
Naturally, the product monitors every website visited, now including secure (HTTPS) sites. It keeps a separate log of each Web request including requests that didn't result in displaying a webpage. For most parents, the simple list of websites will be more useful than the Web requests list.
In trying to get a handle on that Web requests tab, I found that PC Pandora's user manual and help system are outdated. Neither includes any mention of Web requests, and the "what's new" page in the help lists features that were already present two versions ago.
If the PC has a webcam, PC Pandora can snap a photo of the user every so often. It records search terms uses at popular search portals, notes files created, deleted, modified, or printed, and reports on peer-to-peer file transfers. It even tracks bandwidth use by different processes.
The local log viewer, accessed by pressing a special key combination and entering a password, displays all the saved information in detail. Most of the viewer's tabs include a big pie chart showing the top items in the category. For example, the Websites tab breaks down the top sites visited and the programs tab shows the most-used programs.
The Snapshots tab displays thumbnails for all the saved screen snapshots. Double-clicking a thumbnail opens the image at full size. From this view you can tap the left and right arrow keys to step through the images. That's as close as you'll get to the hands-free slideshow mode found in Spector Pro.
Bottom Line: PC Pandora 7.0 monitors tons of specific actions on your child's computer, including keystroke logging and periodic screenshots and webcam shots. It's changed very little since the last version, though, and the remote configuration and log viewing option remains unduly expensive.


In theory, plug-in hybrid cars are the perfect stepping stone to shifting from internal combustion engines to fully electric cars, getting us all used to the idea of plugging in our rides instead of filling them up. But a recent report from the BBC suggests that a lot of hybrid sales in the UK came from large tax incentives, and then people just never bothered charging them.
Back in 2011, the UK passed a grant meant to incentivize people to buy plug-in hybrid vehicles by knocking £4,500, or roughly $5,740, off the sticker price and steeply undercutting the cost of most comparable diesel cars.
The incentive program worked, and over the years the UK has become the biggest market for plug-in hybrid cars. But the catch, as reported by the BBC this week, is that people and businesses weren’t buying the cars because they were hybrids, but instead because they were getting thousands of dollars off on a new car.
Mileage records from 1,500 models, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes and Volvo vehicles, showed an average real-world mpg of 39.27, against an average manufacturer advertised mpg of 129.68.
Figures for 2,432 hybrids - including non plug-in varieties - showed an average real-world mpg of 49.06, still vastly lower than the potential range.
“There are some examples where employees aren’t even charging these vehicles up,” said Paul Hollick, The Miles Consultancy’s managing director.
Instead of taking full advantage of the electrified aspect of the car, offering large estimated MPGe figures and range that would beat any standard combustion-engined car, many people just weren’t charging the batteries and were driving them like a normal car, anyway.
Most of the vehicles sold in the UK thanks to the government incentive were to fleet companies and businesses, who use the vehicles more for longer-distance motorway driving rather than smaller trips, where plug-in hybrids are most efficient.
So, in the end, the government essentially handed out discounts to companies buying cars in large quantities, which then turned around and apparently achieved worse mileage efficiency than if they had been incentivized to just buy European diesels.
The UK has ended the grant incentives but plug-in owners still benefit form cheaper taxes and free parking in some regions, so there’s more to it than just, uh, accepting a $5,740 gift from the government.


A hotel clerk was caught on video calling a black customer a monkey. He’s been fired.
An employee at a Virginia hotel was fired this week after he was recorded on video using an expletive and a racial slur during a confrontation with a black customer.
The video shows the unnamed hotel clerk angrily walking from behind the reception desk, opening the door leading to the lobby and screaming at the customer to “get off my property” as he points his right arm in one direction.
“Why?” the customer asks, while recording the encounter.
“Because you are rude!” the clerk yells. As he walks back toward the door to the reception desk, he tells the customer again to get his family and leave. There’s more back-and-forth arguing between the guest and the clerk.
The incident happened Friday at the Country Inn & Suites by Radisson in Newport News, a coastal Virginia city 170 miles southeast of Washington. The hotel’s general manager, Lisa Little, said the employee was fired on Monday.
“I want to apologize for the inappropriate behavior and comments of one of our employees … As a result of this incident we will also be re-training every employee this week on our code-of-conduct policies to help ensure something like this never happens again,” Little said in a statement.
The customer, Irby Fogleman, said he and his family went to the hotel Friday evening to hang out with his mother, who was visiting from West Virginia for Fogleman’s son’s second birthday the following day. When they arrived at the hotel room, the family noticed an overwhelming odor of smoke. Fogleman said his mother had never smoked in her life, and he didn’t want his two small children to be exposed to the odor.
Fogleman’s girlfriend, Kelsey Cunningham, went to the lobby to ask for another room. Cunningham said the clerk was immediately confrontational and mumbled something under his breath.
Cunningham said she went back upstairs to the hotel room after she was told that the only other available room had no air conditioner. Fogleman then went to the lobby to see if he could talk to a supervisor. The clerk told him there was no one else he could talk to, Fogleman said. He then took a business card from the reception desk, sat down at a nearby chair and began sending an email.
As Fogleman typed on his phone, another customer came to the front desk to complain that he had no TV in his room. Fogleman said that the other customer, who had heard him talking to the clerk minutes earlier, looked at him as if to share their mutual dissatisfaction. Fogleman shrugged his shoulders and said, “See?” as if to agree with his fellow customer.
That’s when the clerk became angry and began telling Fogleman to get out of the hotel, he said. Moments later, Fogleman began recording.
Toward the end of the 54-second video, Fogleman can be heard confronting the hotel clerk for calling him a monkey.
The clerk replied that he didn’t like Fogleman because he was rude.
Fogleman said the outburst was unwarranted and that he wasn’t yelling or showing disrespect toward the clerk. A spokesman for Radisson Hotels said the company is not releasing the clerk’s name at this time.
Fogleman said he and his family immediately left the hotel.
He said the experience was his first brush with racism. “I could not believe it. I could not believe it. It’s 2018. I have two biracial kids. Race is not a thing to me,” said Fogleman, who has two sons, a 2-year-old and a 4-month-old, with Cunningham, who is white.
The family had moved from Northern Virginia to Newport News in December to be closer to Cunningham’s relatives, the couple said. They had rented an apartment not far from the hotel and had plans to make the city their new home. That has since changed, they said.
“We moved to this area for a future, and I don’t know if I want a future down here,” Fogleman said.
The 36-year-old sales inspector in Newport News said the experience was enlightening, but he doesn’t want it to define his life.
Other businesses have found themselves in hot water recently after being accused of mistreating black customers. In April, two black men who had arrived early at a Philadelphia Starbucks for a business meeting wound up leaving the coffee shop in handcuffs. Days later, two black men were wrongly accused of not paying to use an LA Fitness gym in Secaucus, N.J., The Washington Post’s Rachel Siegel reported.
She lost her job after calling Michelle Obama an ‘Ape in heels.’ Now she’s returning to work.
Starbucks arrests: Who gets to decide whether you’re a patron or a trespasser?


The Nintendo Switch Online will cost $20 a year and include features like cloud saves and access to a library of classic NES games with added online functionality when the service launches in September, Nintendo announced Monday night. The paid service will also be required to play Nintendo Switch games online.
Nintendo didn’t further detail how the service will roll out or the exact release date, though it did break down pricing. Individual membership for the service will cost $3.99 a month, $7.99 for three months or $19.99 for a year. A family membership, which allows up to eight Nintendo Account holders to use the Nintendo Switch Online service, even on different systems, will cost $34.99 a year.
Here’s the rest of what Nintendo detailed Monday night.
Nintendo Entertainment System – Nintendo Switch Online: Subscribers will have access to NES – Nintendo Switch Online, a compilation of classic NES games. The collection will initially include 20 games, with more added on a regular basis. At launch, previously announced games “Balloon Fight,” “Dr. Mario” and “Super Mario Bros. 3” will be joined by “Donkey Kong,” “Ice Climber,” “The Legend of Zelda,” “Mario Bros.,” “Soccer,” “Super Mario Bros.” and “Tennis.” An additional 10 launch games will be announced in the future.
For the first time ever, players will be able to enjoy these classic NES games online. Depending on the game, players can engage in online competitive or co-op multiplayer, or take turns controlling the action. Friends can even watch each other play single-player games online, and “pass the controller” at any time. Every classic NES game will support voice chat via the Nintendo Switch Online smartphone app. It will also be possible to play these games offline.
Save Data Cloud Backup: By using Nintendo Switch Online, a backup of Nintendo Switch save data for most Nintendo Switch games will be stored online for easy access. This is great for people who want to retrieve their data if they lose or break their Nintendo Switch system and have to purchase a new one.
Nintendo Switch Online App: The Nintendo Switch Online smartphone application can be used to enhance the online experience for compatible games through voice chat and other features. The Nintendo Switch Online app is for Nintendo Account holders 13 years old or older.


As Socker midfielder Jean Willrich says in the team's "One For The Thumb" video, it was "unbelievable."
On their way to an amazing come-from-behind 8-5 victory against the Tacoma Stars Wednesday night, the Sockers scored four goals within a span of 4 minutes and 59 seconds at the start of the fourth quarter to turn a 5-2 deficit into a 6-5 lead.
Brian Quinn scored two goals and Juli Veee had one to tie the score at 5-5.
Defender Brian Schmetzer, who became a father Tuesday, scored his first goal of the playoffs on a left-footed blast from the left wing to give the Sockers a 6-5 lead.
With the Stars playing with six attackers and no goalkeeper, Fernando Clavijo and Jacques Ladouceur added goals in the final two minutes to make it 8-5. The six goals scored by the Sockers in the final quarter tied a Major Indoor Soccer League playoff record held by five other teams.
With the victory, San Diego wins the best-of-five MISL Western Division final series, 3-1.
The Sockers will host Minnesota in the opening game of the championship series at 7:35 Friday night at the San Diego Sports Arena.
"That was the greatest rally in our club's history," Socker Coach Ron Newman said. "They upset us. There was some kicking, and we were getting feisty and angry.
"Little Quinny (Quinn) got angry and played like he had a big 'S' on his chest. He got everyone inspired."
"We had nothing to lose at the start of the fourth quarter," midfielder Veee said. "They got greedy at 5-2 on the power play. Instead of being patient, they let us turn the game around."
After three quarters, a team record 19,476 fans at the Tacoma Dome saw the Stars race to a 5-2 lead. The score was tied at 2-2 after a quarter, the Stars led 3-2 at halftime, and Steve Sharp and Preki scored to give the Stars a 5-2 lead entering the final quarter.
The Stars had the momentum, and they were 19-0 in games in which they led after the third quarter. A decisive fifth game seemed a near certainty.
"Some players were probably thinking the game is over when it's 5-2," Star forward Steve Zungul said. "Some got casual and we paid the price for it. . . . We paid the price for inexperience."
Just as the third quarter came to a close, Socker midfielder Branko Segota ran into Star goalkeeper Peter Mowlik. Up to that point, Mowlik was brilliant and the Sockers were dead.
Suddenly, the most prolific offense in the history of the MISL exploded. And Mowlik was shell-shocked.
With the Sockers playing shorthanded at the start of the final quarter, Quinn scored from the top of the penalty box to cut the Tacoma lead to 5-3 after 29 seconds.
"When we got to 5-3, I felt we were on our way," Newman said.
Forty-seven seconds after the shorthanded goal, Quinn scored off a give-and-go from Veee to make it 5-4.
"At 5-4 the game was in our hands," Veee said.
The record crowd was getting quieter and quieter.
At 3:55, Kevin Crow threaded the needle to Veee, who lined a 20-foot right-footer past Mowlik to tie the game at 5-all.
San Diego took the lead for good when Schmetzer blasted a 15-footer from the left wing at 4:59.
"I sure got a good shot off," Schmetzer said.
During their rally, the Sockers played without their leading scorer. Segota pulled a calf muscle and barely played in the final quarter.
However, the Sockers outshot the Stars 16-6 in the final quarter and played like a team that was possessed.
"That was a very good comeback that showed character," Willrich said. "Sometimes we are like the Raiders. We have to get more angry in order to play better."
Socker Notes Ron Fowler, one of the Sockers' limited partners, on Bob Bell's presentation at the Tuesday afternoon meeting that resulted in a vote of confidence for the managing general partner: "Bob was almost statesman-like in his presentation. He wasn't a salesman up there. He was honest and candid in terms of assessing the team's strengths and weaknesses. I was most impressed." Fowler, in the past, has been very critical of the Sockers' front office operation. When asked about his presentation, Bell said: "It wasn't magic. The meeting cleared the air. It's the first time we really went over the pieces of the puzzle one at a time." . . . Best barb of the week came during the ongoing war of words between Socker Coach Ron Newman and Star Coach Alan Hinton: "I think Alan is affected by old age and senility at this point. When I get to be his age, I'll probably be just as confused as he is now." Newman is 52 years old and Hinton is 43. . . . Brian Schmetzer's wife, Theresa, gave birth to a daughter, Daniela, on Tuesday.


Jacksonville State begins play in the Ohio Valley Conference today at home against Murray State team that has scored an average of 62 points against FCS opponents this season.
The Gamecocks (4-0, 0-0 OVC) have won two consecutive overtime games, with three victories coming by a total of 11 points.
Murray State (2-2, 0-0) is led by quarterback Maikhail Miller, who has nine touchdown passes, seven of them to Walter Powell.
Even if the Murray State defense isn't clicking, it has plenty of offense to rely on. The Racers have scored an average of 62 points per outing against FCS opponents this season.


German lawmakers voted Friday to send troops and six aging reconnaissance planes to support the campaign against the Islamic State in Syria, approving a measure that avoided any mention of war in a proudly pacifist country still wary of combat more than seven decades after World War II.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's government cast off a long-standing refusal to provide military support for the U.S.-led coalition air war against Islamic State, which has seized large swaths of land in Syria and Iraq. The move was seen as an act of solidarity with France following the Nov. 13 terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 people.
Germany's role in the campaign so far has been limited to northern Iraq, where about 100 of its soldiers are training forces opposed to Islamic State and supplying them with weapons.
Despite her own misgivings about joining the fight against Islamic State, Merkel first had her cabinet approve the deployment Tuesday and watched in silence as deputies from her coalition pushed the measure through parliament Friday. It was approved 445 votes to 146, with seven abstentions.
"We've turned our backs on this region for years and I'd think we'd need to have damn good arguments to continue looking away considering the inhuman brutality that we've seen," Norbert Röttgen, a close ally of Merkel in parliament and head of the foreign affairs committee, said in a speech before the vote. "Now's the time to act -- for the victims that we should be protecting."
Merkel, who needs France's support in finding European Union-wide answers to the flood of refugees to Europe, had promised France last week "any and all support" in the fight against terror.
In a similar vote on Wednesday, the British Parliament backed, by a 397-223 vote, the request by Prime Minister David Cameron's government to allow airstrikes in Syria.
The German parliament gave the government a year-long mandate to send six of the 29 operational Tornado reconnaissance aircraft in the nation's air force – which date from the 1970s and often lack spare parts – and as many as 1,200 soldiers to support the mission against Islamic State. Germany will also send a frigate to support the French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle as well as midair tanking aircraft.
In a small but important concession to antiwar activists in Germany and a general public uneasy about seeing German soldiers fighting abroad, the Luftwaffe planes will not fly combat missions themselves but instead support other planes in the anti-Islamic State coalition.
"The plain truth is that this is war," said Thomas Jäger, a political scientist at Cologne University. "But it's just not popular to call it a 'war' in Germany."
"The government pushed this through parliament as fast as they could before anyone could think too much about the consequences of unlimited support for France like Germany supported the United States after 9/11," he added.
Germany quickly followed the U.S. into Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks – with troops first serving as peacekeepers and then as combatants. A total of 57 German soldiers were killed during the 13-year deployment of about 5,000 troops that wrapped up at the end of 2014.
After World War II, West Germany long declined to take part in foreign military operations, insisting its constitution barred any kind of deployment outside of NATO. The public, traumatized by the war and memories of the destruction, was also strongly opposed to even peacekeeping missions. The country only gradually began to drop that self-imposed taboo after the end of the Cold War and the peaceful reunification in 1990 of East and West Germany.
Germany sent patrol boats to the Mediterranean as a token gesture of support during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the buildup preceding it. The Constitutional Court finally ruled in 1994 that out-of-area operations outside of NATO did not violate the constitution provided parliament backed them.
Germany also sent a small number of Tornado fighter jets to join the U.S.-led NATO attacks against Yugoslavia in 1999.
However, the past still haunted Germany and even in the last decade, as the number of German soldiers killed in Afghanistan kept rising, the government long resisted using the term "fallen" in reference to the dead, fearing associations with World War II.
Thorsten Hasche, a political scientist at the University of Göttingen, said that he thinks German political leaders are underestimating the public's understanding and acceptance of the battle against Islamic State. He noted that with hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees arriving in Germany this year, the effects of the war in their homeland have already been touching German towns and cities for months.
"I think the public has a more mature view on this than the government gives it credit for," said Hasche, pointing to an opinion poll for the leading ARD TV network on Friday that showed 59% of respondents supported Germany's restricted deployment of the Tornado planes to help fight Islamic State.
"The government is avoiding the term 'war' and instead talking about a 'military intervention.' Since World War II, it's a term they can't talk openly about," he said. "But the fact is this is a war. I think most Germans understand that and accept that, especially with all the refugees from Syria in Germany."


The callers offer $500 travel vouchers, Costco cash cards or a reduced travel package if the resident takes a survey that asks for their personal information, prosecutors said.
The Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office issued a scam alert Monday to notify residents of phone calls from callers pretending to be from Costco Wholesale.
The callers offer $500 travel vouchers, Costco cash cards or a reduced travel package if the resident takes a survey that asks for their personal information, prosecutors said. Callers then use that information to commit identity theft.
Costco Wholesale has confirmed that the callers do not work for the company in any capacity. Though the calls may say they are coming from Contra Costa County, authorities warn that the calls are not local, but rather are made using software to hide their real location.
To report this or any telephone scam, people can call the Federal Trade Commission at (877) FTC-HELP or report it to the District Attorney's Office by emailing DA-ReportFraud@contracostada.org or calling (866) 223-7283.


The Chinese solar company reports earnings on Monday.
Next Monday, JA Solar (NASDAQ:JASO) will release its latest quarterly results. The key to making smart investment decisions on stocks reporting earnings is to anticipate how they'll do before they announce results, leaving you fully prepared to respond quickly to whatever inevitable surprises arise. That way, you'll be less likely to make an uninformed knee-jerk reaction to news that turns out to be exactly the wrong move.
The Chinese solar industry has suffered from terrible market conditions for years, and JA Solar has had a lot of trouble in its efforts to make profits from the solar business. Lately, defaults from other companies in the industry have raised concerns about whether a long-awaited shakeout is finally here. Let's take an early look at what's been happening with JA Solar over the past quarter and what we're likely to see in its quarterly report.
Will JA Solar survive a shakedown in Chinese solar?
Analysts have had mixed views on JA Solar's earnings estimates lately, although they all involve plenty of red ink. Consensus estimates for the first quarter have seen loss projections widen by $0.14 per share, and although analysts have narrowed their full-year 2013 loss estimates, 2014 now looks worse by nearly $0.50 per share in earnings. The stock has been volatile in recent months, with the net effect being a small 2% gain since mid-February.
The main problem with JA Solar is that it hasn't been able to earn enough revenue to make a profit even before considering operational costs. With negative gross margins in the fourth quarter, the company has essentially been giving its products away in a manner that's clearly unsustainable in the long run.
But at least so far, the company has avoided the fate that Suntech Power and LDK Solar (NASDAQOTH:LDKYQ) have faced, as Suntech defaulted on its bond obligations earlier this year, while LDK ended up making a partial default that involved having to settle with bondholders. Just today, JA Solar announced that it had repaid $119 million to repay principal and interest on its convertible notes that matured yesterday, noting that it was committed to keep paying off all its obligations in timely fashion.
If JA Solar can only get through this tough period, better times might be around the corner. U.S. giant SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) boosted its guidance yesterday for the remainder of the year, sending both its shares and those of JA Solar and its Chinese rivals higher. First Solar's (NASDAQ:FSLR) positive guidance from last month further excited industry investors, as it's becoming increasingly clear that solar continues to move toward economic viability even with the reduced subsidies that governments have provided lately. Yet SunPower has the advantage of industry-leading module efficiency, while First Solar has done an exemplary job of scoring large-scale projects and the heightened profit potential available from them.
In JA Solar's report, watch for the company to describe how it plans to find a lucrative strategy similar to the specialties where First Solar and SunPower have found success. Unless it can take advantage of struggling competitors to boost its operating results, however, JA Solar might end up joining other struggling players in the space.
Click here to add JA Solar to My Watchlist, which can find all of our Foolish analysis on it and all your other stocks.


In a smoke-filled and cardamom coffee-infused cafe in Gaza City all the talk is of this week's violence.
"Why is Palestinian blood cheaper than Israeli blood?" asks Wael Abu Awema, a 40-year-old father of five.
There have been Israeli attacks on Gaza every day this week. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including at least four civilians, two of them children. More than 30 Palestinians have been injured.
"Of course we are worried. My kids are wetting themselves at night when they hear the Israeli air strikes," says Mr Abu Awema.
His eyes are bloodshot and red, as if he also might be losing sleep.
Every day too, Palestinian militants have fired rockets and mortars into Israel, causing danger, fear and anxiety for communities living in range of the strikes.
There is concern on both sides that there could be a further escalation after Wednesday's bomb attack in Jerusalem in which a British tourist was killed and more than 30 people were injured.
No militant group - including Hamas's military wing the Al Qassam Brigades - has said it carried out the bomb attack.
Mr Abu Awema tells me he is not a supporter of Hamas, the Islamist movement that governs in Gaza.
In fact he actively opposes them. He says he has sympathy for the civilians who were targeted in the Jerusalem bombing.
But he says Gazans are all too familiar with the anxiety caused by violence.
On Wednesday, hours before the Jerusalem bombing, thousands of Palestinians attended the funerals of eight people killed in Israeli attacks.
Militants fired guns in the air as the bodies were carried from the main mosque in Gaza City.
Four of those who died were militants from the Islamic Jihad group. Israel says they had been involved in firing rockets across the border.
The other four were civilians killed by stray Israeli shelling on Tuesday evening.
They included an 11-year-old and a 16-year-old boy who had been playing football outside their home east of Gaza City when they died.
At least 12 others were injured in the attack, including eight children.
As night fell on Tuesday, the sound of ambulances could be heard racing through Gaza City carrying the wounded to Shifa Hospital.
Relatives screamed and wailed as blood-spattered children were brought into the emergency room.
Similar scenes were repeated at Jerusalem's Hadassah hospital after Wednesday's bomb attack.
Israel has said it regrets the death of Palestinian civilians. A spokeswoman for the Israeli Defence Force, Avital Liebervich, told me by telephone that Israeli forces were taking care not to cause civilian casualties.
She said Israel has been targeting militants, Hamas training facilities, smuggling tunnels and weapons factories.
This week, Abu Mohammed Dahlul showed me around what used to be his metal workshop in the Shaijayiah neighbourhood of Gaza City.
It was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Monday night.
Mr Dahlul walked me around the 3m (10ft) deep crater that now dominates his workplace. There was twisted metal everywhere and the remains of what used to be the roof.
He told me it was the third time the street which houses a number of factories had been hit in less than a year.
He said he was finished now and that the 30 people who worked for him would lose their jobs.
Mr Dahlul's workshop housed metal cutting equipment. I suggested to him that this could have been used to make weapons for Palestinian militants.
He denied this and said he has no connection with militant groups.
"If I ever see them come here in their tinted-windowed cars, I send them away," he tells me.
I have no way of knowing if Mr Dahlul is telling the truth. But if he is not, then he is a convincing liar.
Both Hamas and Israel have accused each other of escalating the violence.
On Saturday, Hamas - unusually - said it was responsible for firing a barrage of mortars into Israel.
It was the most significant Hamas attack since operation Cast Lead - Israel's major offensive in Gaza which ended in January 2009. Then, more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed as well as 13 Israelis.
Previously, Hamas officials have said they were trying to rein in rocket fire from Gaza.
Hamas said it was responding to an Israeli air strike that killed two of its members.
But many people here have been asking why Hamas chose this moment to break what many have seen as an unofficial ceasefire.
"This is the big question," says Dr Mokahmer Abu Sada, who teaches politics at Al Azhar University in Gaza.
"I believe it was to distract attention away from the protests that have taken place in Gaza in the past few weeks," he says.
This month thousands of Palestinian demonstrators - inspired by uprisings elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa - have taken to the streets of Gaza calling for political unity between Hamas and its secular rival Fatah.
For more than four years the two factions have been politically and geographically divided, with Hamas in power in Gaza and Fatah running parts of the West Bank.
The split happened when violence erupted a year after Hamas won Palestinian elections in 2006.
The protests in Gaza have been on a relatively small scale compared to elsewhere in the region, but Hamas has used force to break up some of the demonstrations.
"I think Hamas knows that an escalation with Israel will take attention away from these protests," says Dr Abu Sada.
He believes that Hamas is opposed to political reconciliation with Fatah and thinks an escalation in violence is the surest way to stop that happening.
Dr Abu Sada believes Israel too is against Palestinian reconciliation and wants an escalation for the same reason.
"I think it will be a limited escalation for a few weeks," he adds.
"But it is dangerous. It could get out of control. These things can quickly get out of hand."


Nia Vardalos was so creatively inspired by her marriage to non-Greek actor Ian Gomez that she wrote"My Big Fat Greek Wedding." The marriage has ended after nearly 25 years with a divorce filing.
Her 1993 nuptials inspired the hit movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," and the marriage lasted for nearly 25 years.
But on Friday, Nia Vardalos, 55, filed for divorce from husband Ian Gomez, 53, citing irreconcilable differences.
In a joint statement obtained by USA TODAY Tuesday, the couple called the split a joint decision which comes after more than a year of separation.
After the couple's Sept. 1993 wedding, Vardolos wrote the one-woman play "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," partially based on her own experiences. She starred in the 2002 hit movie playing Toula Portokalos, who falls in love with non-Greek Ian Miller (John Corbett). Gomez played Corbett's best man, Mike.
Vardalos and Gomez adopted their daughter Illaria, an experience the actress detailed in her book, "Instant Mom."
Vardalos told USA TODAY in 2016 her daughter's first day of kindergarten inspired her to write 2016's "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2," with her and Gomez reprising the same roles.


(Reuters) — Network gear maker Brocade Communications Systems Inc said on Monday it would buy Ruckus Wireless Inc in a cash and stock deal worth about $1.5 billion to add Ruckus’s Wi-Fi products to its enterprise networking business.
Based on Friday’s closing prices, the deal values Sunnyvale, California-based Ruckus at $14.43 per share, a premium of 44 percent.
Ruckus’s shares jumped to $13.18 in premarket trading on Monday, while Brocade’s stock dropped 12.6 percent to $9.30.
Ruckus stockholders will get $6.45 in cash and 0.75 share of Brocade common stock for each share held.
Net of Ruckus’s cash on hand, the deal value is about $1.2 billion, the companies said.
The cash portion of the deal will be funded with cash on hand and a new loan, they said.
San Jose, California-based Brocade also raised its share buyback program by $800 million, taking the total remaining under the existing program to about $1.7 billion.
The company said it expected the deal to add to its adjusted earnings by its first quarter of fiscal 2017.
Chief Executive Selina Lo will continue to lead the Ruckus business, reporting to Brocade Chief Executive Lloyd Carney.


Two groups seeking state contracts to run struggling North Carolina schools have professional ties to the man who may ultimately steer the decision to hire them, N.C. Policy Watch has learned.
According to documents obtained by Policy Watch, AMIKids Inc. and Communities in Schools (CIS) of Robeson County are two of eight organizations that have filed notices of intent to apply for contracts in the Innovative School District (ISD), a controversial reform program that could allow for-profit school operators to assume control of operations and staffing in lagging public schools for at least five years.
Until he accepted the role of ISD superintendent this year, Hall was the president and CEO of Communities in Schools of N.C., the state affiliate for CIS of Robeson County, an organization that specializes in dropout prevention with struggling kids. Before that, Hall also worked for more than seven years as national director for AMIKids, a Florida-based nonprofit that works with at-risk youth and non-traditional schools in a number of southern states.
Hall, who could not be reached for comment Thursday, is expected to make recommendations to the State Board of Education in the coming months on which organizations should receive contracts for the takeover district.
Yevonne Brannon, board chair for Public Schools First N.C., a public school advocacy group that’s been critical of the proposal, said she believes members of the public may question Hall’s ability to provide a fair evaluation of the two organizations. Credible assessment will be needed of any group that takes the reins in an ISD school, she added, given the controversy surrounding the proposal and the middling results of a similar charter takeover program in Tennessee.
“When there’s an appearance of a conflict of interest, it might jeopardize the integrity of the program,” said Brannon.
Representatives for AMIKids Inc. and CIS of Robeson County did not immediately return phone calls Thursday.
Bill Cobey, chairman of the State Board of Education, said he did not know organizations with prior ties to Hall were in the running for the contracts, but he expressed confidence in Hall’s ability to be objective.
Hall is expected to recommend one or two schools to join the ISD as soon as Friday, with the State Board of Education slated to hold a vote in December.
Meanwhile, Hall’s office will accept groups’ applications for state contracts until Nov. 15. He’s expected to make a recommendation to the state board weeks later, with the board likely to award the contract or contracts in early 2018.
Interest from at least one organization with connections to the state legislature and an influential school choice booster from Oregon has already spurred some scrutiny this week.
Prospective ISD schools have performance scores in the bottom 5 percent statewide, and did not meet growth goals in at least one of the prior three years.
As of Thursday, Hall was down to a shortlist of four that included schools in Robeson, Durham, Nash and Northampton counties. In Durham and Nash, local leaders have been vocal opponents, although the reception has been somewhat warmer in Robeson.


Exclusive Allegations of bizarre and potentially illegal conduct within the World Intellectual Property Organisation have raised serious questions, after The Register obtained access to an internal report indicating reasonable grounds to suspect serious misconduct within the UN agency.
The report, published exclusively by The Register today, outlines serious allegations against WIPO chief Francis Gurry. The organisation's staff council has also demanded a prompt and independent investigation.
Gurry was re-elected director-general of WIPO last month despite questions over the alleged illegal DNA testing of staff, the shipping of computer equipment deemed useful for military purposes to Iran and North Korea and the award of a large IT contract to a company run by an acquaintance of the WIPO chief.
It is alleged that Gurry ordered the illegal collection of staff DNA in order to find out who sent anonymous letters of complaint to him and other directors.
The US State Department and South Korean officials have both asked for an independent investigation into the allegations, but instead WIPO appointed its own committee to decide if further action was required. This committee was allegedly implicated in the original, secret DNA testing of senior staff.
In May this year WIPO's "Independent Advisory and Oversight Committee" (IAOC) considered whether there was a conflict of interest in handing the investigation to the organisation's own Internal Audit and Oversight Division (IAOD).
But by the end of May, the IAOD, and its director Thierry Rajaobelina, apparently decided it was quite capable of carrying out a preliminary investigation without any fear of a conflict of interest.
“The Staff Council strongly supports the call for an external, independent and professional investigation into the taking of staff DNA and the suppression of the facts.
"The Council's primary concern is the welfare of WIPO staff. The theft of DNA from staff is a violation of their human rights. The evidence available, in the form of a report from the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève, shows conclusively that DNA was taken from staff without their knowledge or consent.
The DNA testing was begun in 2008 after Gurry received several anonymous, typed letters, seen by the Register. The letters, signed by the "Watchdog for International Civil Servants" and "Watchdog for International Civil Service" accused Gurry of financial impropriety and sexual harassment. Gurry took the letters to Swiss police, who found fingerprints and DNA from a man and a woman on the notes.
After the complaint was made, WIPO security staff secretly took cigarettes, lipstick, dental floss and sweet packets from staff offices in order to obtain DNA samples. These items were handed to Swiss police which gave them to the forensics department of the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève (HUG) for DNA analysis.
The complaint questions the legal basis of this testing because the staff, who were later fingerprinted and DNA tested by Swiss police, were never asked for their DNA and at the time were immune from prosecution because they were diplomats. Their immunity was not lifted until two months after the items were taken.
Eventually none of the staff were found to have DNA matching that found on the envelopes.
Gurry is also accused of improperly influencing the award of a WIPO contract to consultancy Argo Pacific, run by Dr Paul Twomey, a long-time acquaintance of Mr Gurry and former CEO of ICANN.
Despite claims that nothing links them except being born in Australia, a letter from Twomey to Gurry dating back to 2004 is available online [PDF] – and show Twomey inserting a handwritten "Francis" in front of "Mr Gurry" in the salutation.
Gurry has said his next six-year term will focus on adapting WIPO's mission to better provide for the digital age. WIPO's procurement process for the new IT contract began in summer of 2013. A bid package and terms of reference were written and sent out.
The report alleges that Gurry had subsequently complained that the bid package had not been sent to Argo Pacific, so it was recalled. An amended package was sent out in or around September 2013 to various companies including Argo Pacific.
The procurement committee followed WIPO rules by creating a formula for judging the various bids, allocating points to different aspects such as cost and technical competence.
The report alleges that Argo Pacific's bid was 40 to 50 per cent higher than the next highest bid. When Gurry heard this, he allegedly told the committee to reduce the weighting or importance of price. It is alleged in the report that when this proved impossible under WIPO rules, he simply cancelled the procurement process and awarded the contract directly to Argo Pacific – a procedure only allowed in an emergency situation.
The report does not suggest that Argo or those running it acted improperly.
"The Director General has already stated publicly that the allegations are without foundation and that he has no further comment."


CHICO — The Butte County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness will sponsor a course for families dealing with loved ones with mental illness.
The free, 12-week course starts today and will continue Wednesdays through Nov. 9 at Enloe Conference Center, 1528 The Esplanade. Classes will go 6:30-9 p.m.
The course, the Family-to-Family Education Program, is provided by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and lead by trained volunteers within the local chapter.
Information will include facts on schizophrenia, mood disorders (bipolar disorder and major depression), panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, coping skills such as handling crisis and relapse; and basic information about medications, listening and communication techniques. It also helps family members with information on problem-solving skills, recovery and rehabilitation and self-care around worry and stress.
The course is designed specifically for parents, siblings, spouses, teenage and adult sons and daughters, partners, and significant others who are caregivers of people with severe and persistent mental illness.
Registration must be done before the class by calling instructors Cathy Gurney 228-7100 or Linda Nelson 343-8012.


CBS and the Recording Academy expanded the lineup for the 60th Annual Grammy Awards, adding the legendary rock band U2 along with Kendrick Lamar and Sam Smith.
U2 has claimed a whopping 22 Grammys. Lamar is a seven-time Grammy winner, and Smith has four Grammys. Lamar also has seven nominations this year: Record of the Year, Best Rap Performance, Best Rap Song, Best Music Video (“Humble.”), Album of the Year and Best Rap Album (Damn.), and Best Rap/Sung Performance (“Loyalty,” featuring Rihanna).
The broadcast will be hosted by James Corden and will air live from Madison Square Garden in New York on Sunday, Jan. 28 (7:30-11:00 PM, live ET/4:30-8:00 PM, live PT) on CBS.
“In addition, in what is sure to become a memorable Grammy moment, previous Grammy nominee Miley Cyrus will take the stage with five-time Grammy winner Elton John to perform one of John’s classic hits just two days ahead of ‘Elton John: I’m Still Standing — A Grammy Salute,’ a tribute concert where John and his longtime writing partner, Bernie Taupin, will receive the Recording Academy President’s Merit Award,” the announcement notes.
Previously announced performers include Alessia Cara, Cardi B, Childish Gambino, Daddy Yankee, Luis Fonsi, Kesha, Khalid, Lady Gaga, Little Big Town, Logic, Patti LuPone, Bruno Mars, P!nk, Ben Platt and SZA.
The program is produced by AEG Ehrlich Ventures for the Recording Academy. Ken Ehrlich is executive producer, Louis J. Horvitz is director, Ben Winston is a producer, Chantel Sausedo is the talent producer and David Wild and Ehrlich are the writers.


A Russian Orthodox bishop has lowered a "holy memorial capsule" into the sea at the North Pole in an attempt to "consecrate" the Arctic and reassert Moscow's claims to the territory.
The service was held by Bishop Iakov on the ice alongside the nuclear icebreaker Rossiya during a polar expedition titled "Arctic-2012", organised by the country's Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute.
The metal capsule carried the blessings of the church's leader, bearing the inscription: "With the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, the consecration of the North Pole marks 1150 years of Russian Statehood."
The Kremlin is keen to claim the hydrocarbon riches off its northern coast despite territorial claims from other governments, and is gradually re-militarising the area.
A conservative Moscow think-tank suggested in July that the Arctic Ocean should be renamed the "Russian Ocean" and this week it was announced that MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft will be based in the region by the end of the year.
Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, is a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, who says exploiting oil and gas reserves in the North is a "strategic priority".
At the North Pole, the bishop's service was attended by a small group of scientists and the Rossiya's captain Oleg Shchapin.
It was held during an expedition to find a floe suitable for Russia's 40th drifting polar research station and to deliver a 17-strong team to man the outpost for the next year.
The consecration earlier this month highlights Russia's urge to claim international waters beyond its continental shelf because of underwater ridges it says are attached to the mainland.
Bishop Iakov, who is thought to be the first Russian priest to visit the pole, emphasised that the consecration symbolised efforts "to restore Russia's position and confirm its achievements in the Arctic".
In 2007, in another political move, Russia planted its flag on the seabed below the polar ice cap using a remotely operated mini-submarine, symbolically laying claim to the surrounding area.
The Rossiya carried on its voyage an icon and holy relics of St. Nicholas the Miracle Worker, the patron saint of sailors, normally kept in the diocese's main church on dry land.
Bishop Iakov was appointed last year as bishop of the newly created, most northerly diocese of Naryan-Mar and Mezen, which lies inside the Arctic Circle on the White and Barents Seas.
The diocese includes the islands of Novaya Zemlya and Franz Josef Land, where airfields have recently been upgraded by the Russian Air Force as operational strategic bomber stations.
One airbase on Graham Bell Island boasts a 7,000-foot year-round compacted ice runway.
Bishop Iakov has taken part in other polar missions, sailing the length of the contested Northern Sea Route between Scandinavia and Alaska along Russia's Arctic coast, which Russia claims and seeks to charge ships for using like the Panama Canal, but is regarded by most other countries as international waters.
In 2004 the bishop consecrated an Orthodox church in Antarctica at Russia's Bellingshausen research base.


When coming to Moscow to work, top business executives, administrative and HR directors of large companies, as well as assistants, run into the problem of finding a place of residence in the capital.
surrounding infrastructure (such as kindergartens, schools, athletic centers, stores, recreational centers, etc.).
An HR director has different requirements: for him the image and experience of the commercial real estate company is important (whether it is a real estate agency or a private realtor), as well as transparency of contractual obligations (duration, conditions for termination, included services in the price), legal and accounting services provided, among other preferences, and simple intuition.
By the preferences of the expat and HR director, a list of potential housing arrangements are made. The choice is usually made between three options — an apartment, a hotel, and an "apart-hotel."
Apartment living, the first option, has many virtues. Among these are the ability to meet a set budget and the variety of different places to choose from. Amount of rent for an apartment is determined by area, not by how many people live in it. Also, one can choose practically any neighborhood to live in, along with the desired level of infrastructure. It is helpful that this segment of real estate in Moscow is very well developed.
But there are some drawbacks that come with apartments, such as the extra costs of utilities, absence of engineering support and security of the building; there is also the human factor, in the form of the private owner. There is also an absence of additional services (such as cleaning, changing bed linens and towels, dry cleaning services, etc.).
Let's take a look at the second option, which it seems should be more comfortable for the expat — this is living in a hotel suite in the center of Moscow.
There are many advantages to this option. First of all, there is security in the building, which is very important for a foreign executive who has moved here with his family. Another advantage is registering foreigners with the Federal Migration Service according to the place where they permanently reside.
There are also a number of drawbacks with this option: These include the high costs of hotel rooms in the center of the city, the absence of adjacent land surrounding the building and the relatively small area of the suite. Due to a high demand for these types of rooms, these are exactly the rooms that are occupied when you need them most.
The third option, which has lately been growing in popularity, is the apart-hotel, which is a hotel with suites that are more akin to regular apartments than hotel numbers. This is the best option for HR directors and expats.
Apart-hotels are intended for people who are in the city for a long period of time, so they are strikingly cheaper than hotel suites, but at the same time are not much more expensive than renting a regular apartment. At the same time they are more comfortable than regular apartments, because they possess additional services and a higher level of safety.
wide spectrum of services for kids (sports teams and individual lessons with instructors, children's club and kids' rooms, playgrounds).
limited choice, because in Russia this segment is only in the beginning stages of development.
Experts consider an important advantage of apart-hotels to be the long period of contracts, a high level of service, and the presence of adjacent territory that belongs to the building.
Lately, it has been very popular among foreigners to live within Moscow city limits. For them this type of living is long familiar, because in the majority of developed countries of Europe and the United States, people only work in the city center but live in townhouses or separate houses in comfortable suburbs.
One of the leading players on the market for apart-hotels is the Podmoskovnaya Sloboda holiday hotel, located right outside the Moscow city limits on the Novorizhskoye Shosse in a forested area. It is in an advantageous area, has developed infrastructure, a high level of safety, as well as a variety of additional services adapted specially for foreign guests. In addition to the above-mentioned advantages, a service exists called personal touch — this means that hotel staff know every guest's face and name and take into account their habits and preferences.
The market for apart-hotels is not yet very developed in Russia. Although apart-hotels are grouped in the segment of real estate, which is in the early stages of development, no one will deny the prospective possibilities of organizing housing in this way for guests and citizens of the capital and the areas surrounding it. Especially for foreign citizens who are in search of an appropriate option for comfortable and price-accessible housing in or near the capital, the most respectable choice is to use the comfortable services of apart-hotels.


President Joachim Gauck on Tuesday warned Germans against drawing a line under the Holocaust as the Bundestag (parliament) opened a day of commemorations on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
"There is no German identity without Auschwitz," Gauck said before the packed chamber, where survivors of the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland sat watching MPs, government ministers and Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"The memory of the Holocaust remains a matter for every citizen who lives in Germany. It belongs to the history of this country."
He said the "moral duty" for Germany was not only to remember the past but also what he termed the "mission" to protect and preserve humanity and every individual's rights.
"We say that precisely in times when, we in Germany, again have to agree on cooperation between different cultures and religions.
"The community in which we all want to live will only thrive where the dignity of the individual is respected and where solidarity is alive," Gauck added.
President (Speaker) of the Bundestag Norbert Lammert said that Auschwitz had become a synonym for humankind's potential for cruelty.
Remembering the Holocaust also meant that similar crimes could never be permitted anywhere in the world, he said.
"Later generations aren't responsible for the horrific past of our country," Lammert concluded.
"But they do answer for how we deal with it."
Gauck was due to join other world leaders and 300 survivors for a commemorative ceremony at the site of the Auschwitz death camp later on Tuesday.


While most schools have moved away from segregating special education students, Pasadena relies on a separate campus for some students with disabilities.
The lawsuit argues that California's public school funding system should be driven by how much college readiness costs.
United Teachers Los Angeles could use millions of dollars from a new member-dues increase to challenge pro-charter school school board members.
Is LAUSD unfairly rejecting charter school applications?
Charter school supporters said LAUSD's school board approved 89 percent of the charter petitions it received in 2013 while that approval rate fell by half this year.
The group Parent Revolution has helped parents at six LAUSD schools use California's parent trigger law to make changes at their schools.
State legislators unveiled three proposals on Tuesday aimed at better recruiting and supporting new teachers to help address a shortage.
California officials now match social welfare data with student data to automatically enroll students in free lunch programs.
Mentorship, advocates say, is the biggest challenge to success for California's American Indian youth. A new media project tries to help.
People who've studied dance or theater in college must earn credentials in PE or English to teach their preferred subject in California public schools.
Some Cal State trustees say an automatic student tuition increase would help students plan their budgets during their college careers.
New L.A. Unified Superintendent Michelle King visited 12 campuses during her first two weeks on the job. She heard substantive issues during some visits.
In an interview with KPCC, the new L.A. schools leader pledged to work toward 100 percent graduation, balance the budget and combat a "waning of the public trust."
Myrna Castrejón will lead Great Public Schools Now, which launched in November by the backers of a plan to rapidly promote the growth of charter schools in L.A.
New L.A. Unified superintendent Michelle King will earn a $350,000 salary. Her 29-month contract renews automatically if the board doesn't terminate it.
King, 54, has served as the district's chief deputy superintendent since October 2014. She has worked in the district since 1984.


The World Health Organization said it was important to establish speedy regulatory pathways, although all the vaccines remained in early-stage development and licensed products would take “a few years” to reach the market.
“The agency is encouraging medicines developers to contact EMA if they have any promising projects in this area. EMA will also proactively reach out to companies already planning to work on investigational vaccines and offer scientific and regulatory advice,” it said in a statement.
President Barack Obama will also ask the U.S. Congress for more than $1.8 billion in emergency funding to fight the virus, the White House said.
Several biotech and pharmaceutical companies are racing to develop a Zika vaccine, including France’s Sanofi, which already has vaccine for dengue.
The WHO said diagnostics were “a top urgency”. It issued a call to interested companies on Feb. 5 to submit potential products for emergency quality assessment, so that successful tests could be put to use quickly.


Today's FOX43 Music Monday guest is Olivia Farabaugh from Palmyra.
Great voice and nice bluesy work. I hope midtown bookstore, etc are aware of you. Check out the songdoor songwriting competition.


Actually a very sunny day and warm (almost 70) but this one looked better in b/w. Took this on a 100 mile bike ride from Gatlinburg to the cove with a few side roads thrown in.
Thanks! I love combining the riding with some photography. Just using a small Lumix on the rides. The weather was inspiring.
Nice photos Peter. Your endurance on a bike is impressive.


Madison, Wis. -- The grandfather of a northwestern Wisconsin girl who authorities say was abducted during a home invasion that left her parents dead said Saturday that the family has no connection to the suspect and doesn't understand why he targeted her, deepening a mystery that has captivated the state for months.
Someone blasted open the door of James and Denise Closs' home near Barron with a shotgun in October, gunned the couple down and made off with their 13-year-old daughter, Jayme Closs.
Jayme had been missing for nearly three months Thursday when she approached a stranger near the small, isolated north woods town of Gordon and pleaded for help. Officers arrested 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson minutes later based on Jayme's description of his vehicle. He was jailed on suspicion of kidnapping and homicide.
Investigators have said Patterson's goal was to kidnap Jayme, but he appears to have no connection to the family. Jayme's grandfather Robert Naiberg said in a telephone interview Saturday that the only thing the family knows for sure is that no one knew Patterson. He said Jayme told FBI agents she didn't know him at all.
Attorneys for Patterson called the affair "a very tragic situation" and said they were relying on the court system to treat him fairly. Charles Glynn and Richard Jones said in a statement that they await Patterson's initial court appearance and the filing of charges against him on Monday.
Jayme's aunt, Jennifer Smith, posted on Facebook Saturday that Jayme was doing well.
"Jayme had a pretty good night sleep it was great to know she was next to me all night what a great feeling to have her home. As a family we will get through all of the healing process Jayme has. It will be a long road but we are family strong and we love this little girl so much!!"
Another aunt, Sue Naiberg Allard, posted that Jayme got "the most awaited hug ever" when she returned home.
The sheriff said he didn't know whether Jayme had been physically abused.
Naiberg, Jayme's grandfather, said he spent a few hours with her on Friday. No one pressed her to talk, he said, adding that FBI agents and doctors advised them to let her speak when she's ready. He said she was largely silent and did not talk about how Patterson had kept her confined.
He has no criminal record, the sheriff said. He worked for one day in 2016 at the same Jennie-O turkey plant in Barron as Jayme's parents. But the sheriff said it did not appear Patterson interacted with the couple during his brief time there.


How Abiy handles his relationship with Abdi Iley, the powerful leader of Ethiopia's Somali Region, has implications for the country's fragile system of ethnic federalism.
Somali Regional State (SRS), Ethiopia’s second-largest region and home to its third most populous ethnic group, is at a crossroads. The secessionist Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) had been almost entirely defeated, but SRS is still, in the eyes of many Ethiopians, a byword for violence and lawlessness. “From the centre, Somali Region is seen as a wilderness,” says Fekadu Adugna, an academic at Addis Ababa University (AAU).
Last year, SRS’s long-standing tensions with the neighbouring region of Oromia, home to Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo, erupted on an unprecedented scale. Amidst fighting between regional security forces, hundreds lost their lives and approximately one million civilians fled their homes. In the SRS capital of Jijiga, thousands of Oromos were herded into trucks by police and removed from the city. Many have not returned. Somalis, meanwhile, flooded back the other way.
Dealing with the legacy of the violence will be one of the most sensitive – and urgent – tasks for Ethiopia’s new prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who was sworn in on 2 April and is the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF)’s first Oromo leader in its 30-year history. At the heart of this task is his relationship with SRS president Abdi Mohamed Omar – known as Abdi Iley, ‘the one-eyed’. Abdi is one of the most powerful Somali leaders in the Horn of Africa. Over the past decade, he has acquired an authority unprecedented in the region’s recent history.
Both men hail from traditionally marginalised regions with secessionist histories, and both represent constituencies eyeing greater power at the centre. But last year’s violence fuelled mutual mistrust, especially a suspicion among Oromos that Abdi is too close to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which dominated Ethiopian politics, as well as the security apparatus, for much of the past three decades. Some in Oromia and elsewhere hope that the decline of the TPLF heralded by Abiy’s appointment might spell the end of Abdi, too.
Prime Minister Abiy’s decision to visit the SRS capital, Jijiga, on 7 April, as his first official trip, was thus symbolic. It was a bid to calm nerves in a region anxious once again about its fate in the hands of distant authorities in Addis Ababa, and fearful of what an Oromo prime minister might mean for Somalis. On a stage in Jijiga, Abiy and Abdi, who is said to have been deeply unhappy about the latter’s appointment, shook hands and promised peace between the two regions.
Bringing change to SRS will be Abiy’s “litmus test”, says Abdifatah Mohamud Hassan, former vice-president of the region, now in exile in Addis Ababa. “It is the epicentre of all the problems in the country”. The region is unique but in some respects it is Ethiopia in miniature: a Gordian knot of poverty, authoritarianism, corruption, and ethnic and clan rivalries.
Understanding SRS’s future means taking a look at its past. For this, the central statue in Jijiga offers some clues. Unveiled in 2013 by Abdi, it depicts Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, a turn-of-the-century warlord, poet and cleric known to the British as the ‘Mad Mullah’ and to Somalis as the father of Somali nationalism. Hassan resisted not only the invading British and Italians but also the then Ethiopian empire. The monument is a reminder that, more than a century later, SRS remains a land of conflicting loyalties.
Successive regimes in Addis Ababa have sought to incorporate SRS, or ‘the Ogaden’ as it is still widely known, into the Ethiopian state, with mixed fortunes. Before the neighbouring country of Somalia’s government collapsed in 1991, Mogadishu had claimed the region as part of ‘Greater Somalia’, and a bloody war was fought between the two neighbours between 1977 and 1978. The separatist ONLF insurgency emerged from the ashes of Somalia’s defeat. By the late 1990s, it was waging all-out-war against the EPRDF, a multiethnic coalition that seized power in Addis Ababa in 1991.
Today locals also point to belated signs of economic development. Between 1994 and 2007, SRS had the country’s lowest economic outcomes and experienced the fewest improvements. Even today, its school enrolment rates are the lowest in the country. But now members of the Somali diaspora, such as Hafsa Mohamed, a US-Canadian who runs a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), are beginning to return home. There are now three airports, better hospitals and paved roads. A better-educated, younger generation is increasingly taking up posts in regional offices.
Until relatively recently, the region had almost no government. Clan rivalries and endless meddling by the authorities in Addis Ababa ensured the region churned through nine presidents from three different political parties in the two decades after its creation. Such was the political paralysis that, in the early 2000s, a chain was drawn across the entrance to the administration compound in Jijiga to keep vagrants from squatting in the buildings.
But it is an uneasy sort of peace. The counterinsurgency campaign of the late 2000s was effective but also brutal. A June 2008 report by the NGO Human Rights Watch found that the Ethiopian National Defence Force and the ONLF committed war crimes in the Somali Region between mid-2007 and early 2008.
The Ethiopian government’s approach has been likened, by government officials and outside observers alike, to Vladimir Putin’s counterinsurgency strategy in Chechnya: handing a local strongman resources, state power and unprecedented autonomy in exchange for stability.
The price of stability is extreme authoritarianism. When, in 2015, anti-government protests erupted across Oromia and Amhara, SRS was quiet. Locals in Jijiga laugh at the idea of protests against Abdi’s rule – though there have been sporadic demonstrations in parts of the region dominated by non-Ogadeni clans since April. Abdi’s critics refer to the region as a ‘fiefdom’ in which all power is concentrated in the hands of the president and his family.
Many of these dynamics coalesced in last year’s conflict with Oromia. The border between the two regions has been contested– often bloodily – since the introduction of ethnic federalism in 1995. Members of both regions have a history of seizing land and resources from each other, often with the backing of local politicians. Last year, violence took on a worrying new dimension, as regional security forces engaged in open warfare. Each side blamed the other for the dramatic upsurge in bloodshed.
Oromos pinned the blame squarely on Abdi and the Liyu. Many pointed to the SRS president’s close links with generals in the federal military, and argued that the failure of the federal authorities to intervene was evidence of political involvement at the upper-echelons of government.
Even outside Oromia, many argue the conflict was deliberately engineered to weaken the region’s new leaders, notably Abiy and Oromia president Lemma Megersa, who were then clamouring for more power. As for Abdi, his economic clout is underpinned by the flows of contraband commerce that run through his region. Some people say he acted in order to halt efforts by Oromo authorities to disrupt the smuggling routes he and his allies rely on. When violence escalated and Addis Ababa stayed mostly silent, it seemed a blind eye had been turned once again to Abdi’s excesses.
Abiy’s subsequent election and the rise of his Oromo faction to pre-eminence within the multiethnic EPRDF sparked fears of a backlash against Somalis. “People worried he would punish us,” says Abdo, the Jijiga University lecturer, though he adds that such anxieties have been largely quelled since the prime minister’s visit to the region. But how long will the truce last?
Abiy’s room for manoeuvre is limited. Any attempt to tame Abdi’s autonomy will likely be met with stiff resistance. His power to remove elected regional officials is limited. Efforts to reform or even disband the Liyu security force would face similar constitutional hurdles, and in any case would be politically difficult without tackling the special police that operate in other regions at the same time. Moreover, reforming the federal security apparatus in SRS will depend largely on the extent to which the new prime minister manages to assert his control over the entire military hierarchy.
Even more vexing, though, is the age-old challenge of turning SRS into a fully paid-up member of the Ethiopian federal state. On one level, this may mean doing away with the second-tier status of the Somali People’s Democratic Party within the EPRDF. Unlike the coalition’s four main constituent parties, the Somali faction is merely an ‘affiliated’ grouping, a legacy of deep-seated prejudices against Ethiopia’s nomadic populations. One consequence of this is that Somalis remain woefully underrepresented in the federal government: Abiy’s cabinet has only two Somali ministers.


ISLAMABAD: Following the orders of Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP), Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, the federal government on Wednesday notified Lahore High Court (LHC) Chief Justice Muhammad Yawar Ali as president and Justice Nazar Akbar as judge of the Special Court, that would try former military dictator Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf in high treason case.
Justice Nazar Akbar will replace Peshawar High Court (PHC) Chief Justice Yahya Afridi, who had recused himself from the bench on March 29, 2018. On the last hearing of the case, the counsel for Musharraf had alleged that Justice Afridi had been representing former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in a case against the November 3, 2007, emergency, promulgated by former dictator. Yahya Afridi became head of Special Court when Peshawar High Court’s Chief Justice Mazhar Alam Khan Miankhel, was elevated to Supreme Court on December 30, 2016. Before his elevation to the apex court, Justice Miankhel on July 20, 2016, had directed the State Bank of Pakistan to freeze General (r) Pervez Musharraf’s bank accounts, besides confiscation of properties owned by him.
Justice Faisal Arab was the first head of the Special Court and Justice Yawar Ali and Justice Tahira Safdar its members. When Justice Faisal Arab became the Supreme Court judge on December 14, 2015, Justice Miankhel replaced him. The federal government on December 12, 2013 had filed a private complaint against former president and chief of army staff (COAS) General (r) Pervez Musharraf for subverting, abrogating, suspending, and holding in abeyance the Constitution. It sought Musharraf’s trial, conviction and punishment as envisaged in Article 6 of the constitution.


Computer hackers have exploited weaknesses in the security technology of a Puerto Rican bank to siphon hundreds of thousands of dollars out of two U.S. Virgin Islands government accounts, a finance official said Thursday.
Hackers accessed the U.S. Caribbean territory's accounts with banking giant Banco Popular, making numerous small withdrawals for up to two months until government officers discovered the thefts totaling $500,000 in August, Finance Commissioner Bernice Turnbull said.
The San Juan-based bank has credited the U.S. Virgin Islands accounts with $300,000 and is planning to replace the rest of the missing money in coming days, Turnbull said. It's not clear why the Virgin Islands government did not disclose the theft earlier.
One of the accounts contained money earmarked for the Human Services' Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, she said. The other account was a general fund.
Turnbull said federal officials had a suspect in the case but would not elaborate.
The FBI could neither confirm nor deny an investigation. Local police said they had not been notified about the theft.


Update (11:25 EDT): The Stevens opinion in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, along with the Scalia concurrence and the dissents by Justices Souter and Breyer can be found here.
This morning the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling upholding Indiana's voter ID law. That law requires voters to present photo identification prior to voting in order to curb voter fraud.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can require voters to produce photo identification without violating their constitutional rights, validating Republican-inspired voter ID laws.
In a splintered 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Indiana's strict photo ID requirement, which Democrats and civil rights groups said would deter poor, older and minority voters from casting ballots. Its backers said it was needed to deter fraud.
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court cleared the way today for executions to resume across the nation, ruling that lethal injections, if properly carried out, are a "humane" means of ending a condemned individual's life.
The court upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injections by a surprisingly large 7-2 vote.
NYT Court Reporter: Will Justice Roberts' Seizure Make Him More Compassionate?
When liberals aren't taunting conservatives with death wishes, they will often, under a guise of concern, talk of how hopefully this brush with fate will give the conservative a more humane, compassionate, less restrictive outlook on life (i.e., become a Democrat).
Leftists talk constantly of their own "compassion" but you can always count on them to express glee whenever a prominent conservative or religious person dies or is injured. It's almost like clockwork.
Chief Justice John Roberts has died in his summer home in Maine. No, not really, but we know you have your fingers crossed.
To get an idea of just how full of hate and ill humor Wonkette has become, realize this: the moonbats at Democratic Underground have actually been more civil about Roberts's medical condition as you can see in this thread here.


Past research has relied on two theoretical models---importation and prisonization---to explain staff member's attitudes, behaviors, and social distance from offenders in the correctional work environment. Tests of these models have shown partial support for both models. However, missing in the literature has been a clear understanding and examination of how these attitudes and behaviors vary across custody levels within a given correctional facility. The purpose of this study is: (1) to include a more comprehensive test of the prisonization and importation models by including more of the variables utilized in past research; (2) to develop and test a causal model that separates exogenous from intervening prisonization variables; (3) to test this causal model using custody levels within a correctional facility; (4) to measure social distance from offenders separately from staff members' correctional orientations; (5) to include other correctional workers in addition to the correctional and treatment staff members that have been the subjects in past studies; (6) to examine the effects of correctional staff members' attitudes on disciplinary behavior through the use of critical incident scenarios. Using data collected from two correctional facilities in the Midwest, a path analysis reveals the influence of importation and prisonization variables on correctional staff members' correctional orientations, social distance from offenders, and punitive behaviors.
Hartley, William J., "Importation and Prisonization Of Corrections Worker’s Attitudes And Behaviors: An Empirical Examination of Social Distance, Correctional Orientation, and Punitive Behavior within the Correctional Setting" (2005). Dissertations. 1035.


GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump seems to subscribe to the theory that the more often you assert something, the more true it becomes. In various speeches and interviews, he has claimed that two years before the 9/11 attacks, he warned that Osama bin Laden was a threat — going to “do damage” to the United States — and even predicted the rise of terrorism.
This claim rests on a few sentences in Trump’s 2000 book, “The America We Deserve.” Just about every word uttered by Trump needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Did Trump really suggest that bin Laden was going to attack the United States — and did he predict terrorism?
Trump’s book was issued in January 2000, when he was considering a presidential run. The book does include a chapter on terrorism (more on that below), but there is only a single, offhand reference to bin Laden.
Bin Laden was not at the training camp in Afghanistan attacked by the United States, so he escaped injury — a point that Trump raises in his solitary reference to bin Laden.
Even if they were true, Trump would have been echoing predictions of experts, news organizations and even bin Laden himself, who in media interviews indicated that he planned to attack the United States.
Perhaps Trump deserves some credit for devoting a chapter to terrorism in a 2000 political book. But his prediction has not come true.
Trump has repeatedly and falsely claimed that he predicted in his 2000 book that bin Laden was going to attack the United States and that America needed to “take him out.” Moreover, his claims of predicting terrorism in the United States are similarly overblown. He earns Four Pinocchios.
“I predicted Osama bin Laden … was coming in to do damage. … In my book, I predicted terrorism."
in a speech in Knoxville, Tenn.
“I said we better be careful with Osama bin Laden. There’s a guy named Osama bin Laden. Nobody really knew who he was."
in an interview on the "Alex Jones Show"


With Spring finally emerging the opportunity to get outside with your pet for some longer walks is one thats too good to miss.
With Spring finally emerging from the frozen fingers of a bitterly cold Winter, the opportunity to get outside with your pet for some longer walks is one that’s too good to miss.
You can put the woolly hat and scarf away for a few months and bask in the sunshine – although a jumper and a rain jacket might still be a good idea in this part of the world!
Famous for the witch trails in the 17th Century, Pendle Hill has plenty of myth and legend attached to it.
If the changing of the season has inspired you to stretch your legs, we have come up with five of Lancashire’s best dog walks that all offer different attractions.
From stunning views to bracing sea air, there’s something for every man (and woman) and his dog to enjoy.
Jennifer Dean, animal expert for Lancashire-based dog food manufacturer Webbox Natural, said: “Regular exercise is vital to keeping your pet healthy and owners also benefit from getting outside in the fresh air.
“Daily strolls in your local area are fine, but when time allows it’s great to vary routes and surroundings.
Views from the top of Darwen Tower can stretch as far afield as the Isle of Man, North Wales and Derbyshire.
Lovely Lytham boasts fantastic dog walks along the beach perfect to blow away the cobwebs at the weekend.
But there’s no reason to get spooked – in this part of East Lancashire the views and surroundings are simply stunning on the way to the top.
A decent footpath makes it easy terrain for human and canine, although dogs must be kept on a lead to ensure the safety of the local livestock.
On a clear day you can see all of the Yorkshire Three Peaks – Penyghent, Ingleborough and Whernside – and even Blackpool Tower.
Start: Park in one of the lay-bys on the Nick of Pendle that heads north from the village of Sabden up to Clitheroe.
Route: Two main tracks take you up to the first summit of Apronfull Hill and then continue across Pendleton Moor.
The route then descends slightly into Ogden Clough before tracking a stream. Cross the water, go through a gate and climb up to Barley Moor.
The path here is well maintained, so while there is effort in the climb the conditions underfoot are good.
Keep going and you will reach the trig point at the summit where you can enjoy the stunning views.
The journey back down is equally breathtaking.
Amenities: The nearby villages or Sabden and Barley have a host of pubs and cafes.
Another walk with great views, this shorter route takes in the officially named Jubilee Tower that was opened in 1898 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s 60 years on the throne and also the local people’s victory in their right to access the moors.
Views from the top can stretch as far afield as the Isle of Man, North Wales and Derbyshire.
Start: Use the car park near the Royal Arms just outside the village of Tockholes.
Route: Follow the Woods and Water Trail, then the Witton Weavers’ Way towards Earnsdale Reservoir. Cross the damn and bear left, following the trail above a house before heading right onto a concrete track. Take the left-hand fork before climbing to the summit and the magnificent vistas.
To complete the circular route, follow the path from the top towards Sunnyhurst Hey Reservoir and turn left before the second stile, then cross the stream and use the track to the left of the houses to take you back to the car park.
Amenities: The Royals Arms offers traditional food and drink, while the Rock Inn and Sunnyhurst in Tockholes are also nearby.
Lovely Lytham boasts fantastic dog walks along the beach – perfect to blow away the cobwebs at the weekend.
The sand dunes offer some protection from the wind but the stunning beach is the highlight, so make sure you wrap up warm.
You can let your pooch off the lead to enjoy a decent run on the sand. The only non-dog friendly section is between the lifeboat station slipway and the northern end of North Promenade car park, which doesn’t allow canines – on or off the lead – between Good Friday and September 30.
Start: Street parking is available on Clifton Road North.
Route: It’s more a case of make your own way as the beach stretches south. At the pier you can head up onto the South Promenade, then back onto the sand further along.
Amenities: Take your pick. Lytham has enough cafes, pubs and restaurants to suit every taste, with dog-friendly options aplenty too.
One of Lancashire’s hidden gems, this area often flies under the radar despite the fact it offers some lovely views and excellent facilities at Wyre Estuary Country Park.
Start: Car parking is available on Wyre Road. Take the turn off the main Skippool Road at Thornton Lodge.
Route: Follow the track down to the yacht club, past rickety jetties and boats of various shapes and sizes. Some look river-worthy; others definitely do not!
The route goes in front of the yacht club building and then joins a well-established path that heads along the edge of the marshes to the county park.
There you will find a visitors centre, picnic benches, a children’s play area and the chance to let your dog enjoy the well-maintained paths.
You can retrace your steps back along the River Wyre to your car, with the changing tides offering different views on your return leg.
Amenities: Wyre Estuary County Park has a café and toilet facilities.
Lying just off the M6 and often overshadowed by neighbouring Garstang, Scorton is easily missed but well worth a visit for an excellent walk that takes in the scenery of Nicky Nook and the Trough of Bowland.
Start: The centre of the village.
Route: Walk up Snowhill Lane and across the bridge over the motorway. Continue over the brook and round to the right, before turning left at the road junction on to Higher Lane. At this point you will get views of Wyresdale Lake and Morecambe Bay.
Cross the brook again and take the path to the left down to the farm buildings, after which a right and a left will take you to Scorton Picnic Site. From there the signs will lead you back to the village past Scorton Lake.
Amenities: The Priory Restaurant and Apple Store Café are great for refreshments and a loo visit.


People in Cromer are without water this morning.
The areas around Overstrand Road, Norwich Road and Roughton Road are experiencing very low water pressure or have been left with no water at all.
Anglian Water said it was aware of reports of problems in the area and was “working hard to identify the cause”.
It said there were indications that the interruptions to supply could have been caused by a leak.
Anyone who thinks they have spotted a leak in the area is asked to call Anglian Water on 03457 145 145.