WASHINGTON, Sep 18 2014 (IPS) - As the wobbly anti-ISIS coalition is being formed with American prodding, the Obama administration should take a strategic look at the future of the Arab world beyond the threat posed by the self-declared Islamic State. Otherwise, the United States would be unprepared to deal with the unintended chaos.
Driven by ideological hubris, the Bush administration on the eve of the Iraq war rejected any suggestions that the war could destabilise the whole region and rock the foundations of the Arab nation-state system.
Invading Iraq was a “dumb” war. Chasing after ISIS in the Iraqi/Syrian desert without a clear vision of the endgame could result in something far worse.
That system, which was mostly created under the colonial Sykes-Picot treaty of 1916, is now being severely stressed. The Obama administration should avoid repeating the tragic mistake of its predecessor. While trying to halt the advance of ISIS by focused airstrikes, and regardless of the coalition’s effectiveness in “degrading” and “defeating” ISIS, President Obama should instruct his senior policymakers to explore possible architectures that could emerge from the ashes of Sykes-Picot.
The stresses and fault lines we are witnessing in the region today could easily lead to implosions tomorrow. Rightly or wrongly, Washington would be blamed for the ensuing mayhem.
As Secretary of State John Kerry shuttles between countries chasing the elusive coalition to fight ISIS, the administration seems to be unclear even about terminology. Is it a war or a multifaceted counter-terrorism strategy against ISIS? Whatever it’s called, if this strategy fails to eradicate the Islamic State and its Caliphate, is there a “Plan B” in the making?
One of the briefings discussed the possibility that the Iraq invasion could fundamentally unsettle the 100-year old Arab nation-state system. National identity politics, which heretofore has been managed and manipulated by autocratic regimes—tribal, dynastic, monarchical, and presidential—could unravel if the Bush administration failed to anticipate what could happen following Saddam’s demise.
The artificiality of much of those states and their boundaries would come unhinged under the pressures of the invasion and the unleashing of internal forces that have been dormant. National loyalties would be replaced by religious and sectarian affiliations, and the Shia-Sunni disputes that go back to the 7th century would once again rise to the surface albeit with more violence and bloodshed.
The briefings also emphasised Iraq’s central Islamic dilemma. While for many Sunni Muslims Baghdad represents the golden age of Islam more than 1,200 years ago, Iraq is also the cradle of Shia Islam.
Najaf and Karbala in southern Iraq are sacred for the Shia world because it was there where the fourth Caliph Ali’s son Hussein was “martyred” and buried. Iran, as the self-proclaimed voice of Shia Islam all over the world, is deeply embedded in Iraq and will always demand a central role in the future of Iraq.
Bush administration senior policymakers ignored these warnings, arguing Iraqis and other Muslim Arabs would view American and coalition forces as “liberators” and, once the dictator fell, would work together in a spirit of tolerance, inclusion, and compromise. This view, unfortunately, was grounded in the neocons’ imagined ideological perception of the region. As we now know, it was utterly ignorant of ground truths and the social fabric of the different Arab Islamic societies.
Many Bush White House and Defense Department policymakers generally dismissed briefings that focused on the “morning after.” It’s safe to say they cared less about the post-Saddam Middle East than about toppling the dictator.
The region still suffers from those disastrous policies.
ISIS did not emerge in a vacuum, and its transnational ideology, warped as it may be, seems to appeal to Arabs and Muslims who have become disenchanted with the existing political order in Arab lands.
Many citizens view their states as fiefdoms of the ruling elites with no genuine respect for individual rights, personal freedoms, and human dignity. The “securitisation” of politics has alienated many young Arabs and is driving them toward extremism.
If the borders between Syria and Iraq are erased by the transnational “Caliphate,” what will become of the borders of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq? Is the Obama administration ready to pick up the pieces when these nation-states disintegrate?
These are the critical questions the Bush administration should have pondered and answered before they invaded Iraq. They are the same questions the Obama administration should ponder and answer before unleashing American air power over the skies of the Levant.
Mr Nekhieh as usual has the insight, but the powers to be don’t listen. Perhaps it’s because he knows more about the M.E. then even the so-called experts that abound in the Washington arena? I’ve noticed that there is a growing chorus calling for rethinking the present direction that is being played out. One might describe it as a free for all, helter-skelter, all trying to appease some invisible me-to-ism. If one looks at the present undertaking, there are just too many risks not being told to the public. In this day and age, the public is going to bury its head in the sand or smoke some of that feel good stuff. How long it’s going to last, until someone with the bomb-Atom-type, then what is left won’t be worth trouble that went into the present course. This is going beyond the rebellious youth in the playground, but I doubt anybody understands it. All this reminds me of commenting to a young housewife at the local supermarket about the taste of fresh fruit, that she doesn’t know what a good sweet peach tastes like, to which she replied, “oh yes I do”. Of course, I’m referring to the mass-genetic grown fruits today that have no taste, but a very long shelf life, vs the fruit of 30-40 years ago. When we look at the present conditions taking place today, with the hindsight of the past, there isn’t much hope that the planners will be successful, they will just create another group, more ruthless than the one[s] that they squashed.


Feb 8 (Reuters) - Schlumberger NV on Friday named Olivier Le Peuch as chief operating officer, setting him up as a possible successor to Paal Kibsgaard for the top role at the world's largest oilfield services company.
Le Peuch has previously served as the president of Schlumberger's oilfield equipments making unit Cameron Group.
"That process comes earlier than we expected given Paal's age and the recent downturn", he added.
"Some investors have expressed frustration over Schlumberger's strategic direction and may view succession planning as a move to shift the company's focus," said Cowen and Company analysts in a note.


Your Lordships, Friends, Comrades and Compatriots, good evening and welcome to this great farewell party to one of the most eminent sons of the soil!
First things first. I must introduce myself. I dare not presume that everybody knows me.
I’ve heard conflicting stories about my origins in the past: Who’s Mike Dingake precisely? a) South African according to some sources, born in Diepkloof, SOWETO.
Preposterous if you happen to know I am older than SOWETO and Diepkloof; it was a story peddled by the Boers for their own interest; b) in Botswana after a long ‘sojourn overseas,’ many came to know I was a native of Bobonong village; some mistakenly in the process nominated me Key Dingake’s father; I’m Key’s brother not his father; c) a motley of Botswana residents confer false titles on me: Professor, Doctor and Mdala.
I am none of those, neither Professor , Doctor, nor Mdala. In three weeks time I should be turning 90 years young! And I plan to form a new party to be launched in three weeks on my birthday!
We should be a big family of 13 with me at the head and Key wagging the tail, had five not succumbed to predatory nature in the course of time.
Dad fondly addressed me by the names: Tlou and Kgosi. Tlou is clan’s totem . Addressing a clansman/woman as Tlou is prestigious and dignifies the person so addressed; Kgosi was an unflattering title conferred on me circumstantially.
Dad thought, the world of me; he bent over backwards to my whims. Good education was in both our minds. Sending me to SA boarding school , at Standard V, was akin to brat‐spoiling; peasant farmer that he was, he wanted me to attend Fort Cox, Agriculture school to later walk confidently in his footsteps; I said, no! What about teaching? I demurred. What did I want then?
To study medicine and become a doctor! He was vanquished, as he remembered that I’d been my herbalist grandfather ‘s favourite; he had dragged me along when he went digging plant roots in the bush for his patients good health. Noble duty. And dad relented. Ambition turned out to be futile, when I opted impulsively to be a thorn in the sides of political authorities. Dad was devastated when I was later made to pay for it.
We argued misperception that lawyers were liars, taught how to lie to save criminals! Thankfully deadlocked debate didn’t stop Key from registering for his law degree. At UB junior did well in class, also at campus student activities.
Thankfully he detached himself from me by avoiding visits to the University Purchasing Office where I plied my hand‐to‐mouth trade. University authorities might have suspected my influence in his leadership of campus insurrectionary activities.
The likelihood of course, wouldn’t have worked under Professors Turner and Tlou; they were models of good management, skillfully manouevring tides of student activities sans blaming outsiders.
Unflattering background, mine didn’t bother them. The unholy trinity of RSA, PEA and Rhodesia was junk!
While I had lofty ideals which I dismally failed to achieve, brother Justice OBK Dingake seems to have been endowed with determination to drive his plans! I am overawed by the profundity of his mind, his dedication and vision to succeed in his profession despite challenges he has encountered along the way.
He has made steady, gentle, conspicuous presence in the war against the HIV and AIDS pandemic ; he is wooed avidly for his professional devotion by the legal fraternity around the world and Papua New Guinea in the bowels of the South Pacific, has eventually claimed him as a precious import. Someone eulogizing his qualities and juridical achievements, has said, his loss to Botswana is the gain of PNG.
I concur but add to the observation, that he is Botswana crown jewel in her international image. We must pat ourselves on the back that he is Botswana’s most precious export commodity exceeding he Lucra diamond inthe global market! None can say Botswana hasn’t contributed positively to the globalisation phenomenon integrating the world and humanity at large.
Globalisation has its negative impact particularly in developing world. Africa , Botswana in the lead role is consciously and unconsciously is helping to fumigate the stench hanging over the big polluted hole Trump and his racist colonial kinsmen have left in Africa.
Paradoxically Botswana demonstrates its strength in spite of our own intrinsic shortcomings reflected in our superstitious hangover and the corrosive PHD (non‐academic) syndrome that pervades our society including the courtrooms!
Brother Key, I vouch, is always, has been and will always be independent‐minded and original beyond petty suspicions of undue influence from brother or any kindred source whatsoever. His first letter during my sojourn ‘overseas’ revealed the quality of his budding mind.
In JC Form I class his first letter kept me thinking; it was informative, organized, thoughtful, passionate, with a fair amount of curiosity plotting a move on planet‐survival chessboard for his age. What was the salaries of Judges? He probed. Was it a mind conjuring and turning around avenging the injustice of an incarcerated brother? Don’t, ask me, I ask you to register my approval of the pursuit of his study of law.
I later gave him a book present, “Genius for Defence,” (forgotten the author), on the eve of his enrolment at UB. The book is about the life of Maurice Maurice, SA legendary lawyer, who very much fascinated me by his court‐craft in particular on cross‐ examination of witnesses, meticulous research he conducted prior to appearance in court and his punctuality.
MM was a legend worth emulating by all budding scholars. I don’t know whether the book inspired student Key Dingake or not. I only reminisce on my puny contribution to his efforts!
Justice OBK Dingake does impress me as a product from a kraal flowing with the milk of human kindness to be found only in Botswana! Since our clan is reared in this pool of the milk of human kindness, I am unsurprised. Our thinking, mine and his, sometimes converge.


The Millville High School football team cruised to a 41-14 win over Kingsway Friday in the Bolts' home opener at Wheaton Field.
MILLVILLE - The Millville High School football team did not want a repeat of last year's showing against Kingsway.
Shortly after the Thunderbolts' 40-point win over Egg Harbor Township in Week 1, coach Dennis Thomas reminded his team of as much in the postgame huddle.
"7-0... We can't have that again," Thomas said, referring to the Bolts' tight victory over Kingsway in 2016.
Millville responded in a big way to their coach's plea.
The Bolts scored early and often en route to a 41-14 trouncing of Kingsway in Millville's home opener at Wheaton Field Friday night.
Senior transfer Elijah Nichols had an exciting debut in orange and blue. Nichols, who was forced to sit out last week, threw touchdown passes on Millville's first two possessions.
Nichols got things started with a 29-yard touch pass over the Kingsway defense to Carlton Lawrence for the game's opening score. The Camden Catholic transfer then hit Clayton Scott on a 45-yard touchdown pass to make it a 14-0 Bolts lead early in the first quarter.
"It's been a long wait, but I was ready for it," Nichols said. "It felt good, good to throw that first touchdown."
Tristan Harris, last week's starting quarterback, also tossed a pair of touchdowns in the win over Kingsway. The plan moving forward is for Harris and Nichols to share signal-calling duties.
Harris connected with Marical Ramos on a 4-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter before finding Lawrence in the third on a 63-yard catch and run.
Lawrence isn't concerned about Nichols and Harris coexisting.
"They love each other, their bond is crazy," Lawrence said.
Scott was his usual dynamic self again for Millville (2-0).
Aside from his touchdown catch, the senior ripped off second-quarter scoring runs of 41 and 16 yards, respectively. Scott finished with 121 yards on 16 carries.
It's off to rival St. Augustine next week for Millville in what figures to be the Bolts' biggest test of the young season. The Hermits were 45-7 winners over Williamstown on Friday.
"Coach said don't even think about the Prep, just keep your mindset on this game," Lawrence said. "Don't worry about the Prep, we got them next week, just finish this game then we'll deal with them."
Thomas, when asked, quickly shrugged of the notion that Kingsway could have been a trap game for the Bolts.
"We take one game at a time," Thomas said. "One game at a time, and this was the game at hand, this was the most important thing in the world right now.
"Now we're going to go lick our wounds and prepare for (St. Augustine). They're now our target."
Player of the Game: Carlton Lawrence — The versatile Millville senior added another wrinkle to his game Friday, serving as the team's kicker on extra points. Lawrence was 5-of-6 on his attempts to go with the pair of touchdowns. Lawrence was effective in the return game again, consistently giving the Bolts strong starting field position.
Quote of the Game: "I kicked my freshman year, but this was my first real action. When I kicked it, it was good every time except one. I ain't gonna lie, on the first one I was tired." — Carlton Lawrence on taking over extra-point duties.


Tag Archive | "House District 59"
Ignacio sheepman J. Paul Brown is now the second Republican in the race to try to keep Rep. Ellen Roberts’ House District 59 seat in the hands of the GOP.
Durango Democrat Brian O’Donnell will have a challenger for his bid to replace Ellen Roberts as the region’s representative to the state House.
“What a hatchet job the Republican Party – along with The Durango Herald – did on Lew Webb, the one-time candidate for the state representative of the 59th District,” Paul Bynum writes.
Republican Lew Webb has dropped out of the race to replace Ellen Roberts as state representative for the 59th District because local GOP party leaders deemed him too conservative, he said Wednesday.


High school football continues with one last game for one Gaston County senior Saturday.
Ashbrook wide receiver Demetrius Oliver will suit up for the North Carolina team in the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas in Spartanburg, S.C.
The 76th annual event kicks off at 1 p.m. at Gibbs Stadium on the campus of Wofford College.
The two-county area will have another participant in East Lincoln head coach Mike Byus, who is coaching North Carolina�s quarterbacks and receivers. Garner�s Nelson Smith is head coach of the North Carolina team.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Oliver was an integral part of Ashbrook�s spread offense this season, catching 39 passes for 645 yards and five touchdowns. Oliver turned in three 100-yard games as Ashbrook went 6-5 overall and 4-2 in the Big South 3A Conference.
Oliver has received an offer from North Carolina A&T and is also drawing interest from Limestone, the University of Charleston in West Virginia and Gardner-Webb.
Oliver becomes the second Ashbrook player to participate in the Shrine Bowl in as many years. Nortavius Otis, now at Wingate, played nearly every snap at safety last year and made the game�s only interception while recording a team-high seven tackles (one for loss) and forcing a fumble to help North Carolina win 26-19.
Byus jumped to Shrine Bowl week soon after coaching East Lincoln to its first state championship. The Mustangs beat Tarboro for the 2A state title on Dec. 1 to polish off a 16-0 season.
Byus, the teacher of the Mustangs� high-octane spread offense, has coached at East Lincoln eight seasons, compiling an 84-28 record while winning four conference championships and reaching the state final twice. The West Virginia native previously coached five seasons at Robbinsville and nine at Raleigh Athens Drive.
Cleveland County has three player participants Saturday: Crest defensive lineman Dane Rogers, Crest linebacker Quinton Patterson and Shelby offensive lineman Eric McCauley.


He anticipates being held in isolation in prison for the foreseeable future, where he would be able to write essays books and coordinate with far-right networks from his prison cell.
Breivik’s comments were reported by a team of court-appointed psychiatrists giving evidence on Monday, who have contradicted the diagnosis of two previous psychiatrists that he suffered from paranoid schizophrenia.
Terje Torrissen and Agnar Aspaas were asked to carry out a second assessment of Brevik’s mental culpability after the first examination diagnosing Breivik’s “psychosis” was leaked to the media triggering outrage.
The court was also told how Breivik had claimed to have received a steady stream of admiring fanmail including declarations of love from women and girls as young as 16. He added he had also received hate mail.
Torrissen and Aspaas, the final witnesses to give evidence in the trial of Breivik – who has admitted the murders and insists that he is sane – have said they had found no evidence of “psychosis”.
According to the two experts, Breivik said claims he had made in his assessment by the first two psychiatrists had been misunderstood or exaggerated.
One of the “presentational errors” he believes he made in his early conversations with police and psychiatrists was his emphasis on his position in and membership of the Knights Templar organisation.
Explaining his use of self-coined titles to describe himself in his “manifesto” – including “justiciar-knight” – Breivik explained that other terrorist groups gave themselves titles.
Contradicting the first psychiatric assessment, Terrisson and Aspaas told the court that far from showing a decline in “functionality” in the period leading up to his twin gun and bomb attacks last July, he appeared to be functioning despite his isolation at his mother’s house.
Supporting this claim they quoted Breivik, who said he still felt he had a “choice” not to commit the attacks even as he drove his carbomb to Oslo’s government district on July 22.
While Synne Sørheim and Torgeir Husby found Breivik “grandiose and suffering from paranoid delusions” including the belief his manifesto could “automatically” radicalise anyone who read it, Terrisson and Aspaas found him “groomed, alert, focused, although emotionally neutral with few signs of persecution, neologisms and no hallucinations”.
To find Breivik insane – and not culpable under the penal code – the court must rule that he was suffering from a psychotic illness as opposed to a severe personality disorder.


Chris Britt's editorial cartoon for Sunday, Aug. 29.
Chris Britt's editorial cartoon for Sunday, Aug. 29. Click the "Zoom" link at left to enlarge.


A threatening note with the logo was attached to a plastic bottle filled with cement that was thrown through a window of the Maccabi Jewish Community Center and sports club in Santa Fe City, the capital of the Santa Fe province.
A Jewish sports club in Argentina was the victim of a threat that included the Islamic State logo.
The note read “This is a warning, the next one will explode” and “Allahu Akbar,” or “God is great” in Arabic.
The National Institute Against Discrimination expressed “deep concern” about the attack “written in Spanish and in Arabic with a motto used by fundamentalist groups,” according to a statement issue by its Santa Fe office.
The Santa Fe representative of the Argentine Jewish political umbrella DAIA, Horacio Roitman, met with police and security authorities to strengthen surveillance of the institution and to put in place preventive measures. Roitman denounced the attack in interviews with local and national media.
The JCC said on social media that its activities will continue as usual. Maccabi is celebrating this month its 60th year, as well as the 30th year of its headquarters in Santa Fe City.
Argentina was hit by deadly bombings in Buenos Aires of the Israeli Embassy in 1992 and the AMIA Jewish center in 1994. Iran, through the Hezbollah terrorist group, has been accused of plotting the attacks, though no one has been brought to justice.
The late special prosecutor Alberto Nisman charged that the Argentine government was involved in covering up Iran’s role in the AMIA bombing. He was found shot to death in January 2015 in his Buenos Aires apartment; the official cause of death has yet to be determined.
In March, the murder of a Jewish businessman in Uruguay by a gunman who yelled “Allahu Akbar” was seen as marking the arrival of Islamist terrorism from the Middle East to South America.


ANTHONY MARTIAL is seen out and about with girlfriend Melanie Da Cruz Pires in Manchester city centre ahead of this week's derby clash.
The 21-year-old forward and his stunning girlfriend were spotted enjoying a spot of lunch on Monday afternoon, with Martial looking much happier than in recent weeks at Old Trafford.
The French international played a staring role in Manchester United's 2-0 win over Burnley on Sunday, scoring his 25th goal for the club and triggering an £8.3m payment to former team Monaco.
Having been on the fringes of the first team for much of the season, Martial will be hoping his performance at Turf Moor on Sunday has given him a shot of starting when Jose Mourinho's men take on Manchester City at the Etihad on Thursday (8pm).
Scroll through the gallery above to see the best pictures as Anthony Martial and Melanie Da Cruz Pires are seen out and about in Manchester.


No one should miss the incredible Museum of the Moon.
The transfixing exhibit has toured around the world and is soon coming to the magnificent Ely Cathedral.
I witnessed the awe-inspiring orb when it travelled to the Arc Shopping Centre in my home of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
The exhibit tucked inside a room at the Apex event venue was so popular, I had to wait for a few minutes to enter.
Everyone's eyes were instantly glued to the massive illuminated orb dangling from the ceiling.
The 3D moon is so mesmerising because it is covered with detailed NASA photographs of the moon. I felt compelled to slowly circle the structure several times because each angle of the moon is so different.
The sculpture feels eerily realistic with its internal lighting and NASA imagery of the lunar surface with an approximate scale of 1:500,000 – each centimetre of the 7-metre spherical sculpture represents 5 kilometres of the moon’s surface.
I was impressed with the exhibit even in Bury's little shopping centre but now that it is coming to Ely Cathedral it will be even more of an incredible sight to behold.
The experience by UK artist Luke Jerram will be on display in the nave of the Cathedral and set to a surround sound composition by BAFTA and Ivor Novello award-winner Dan Jones.
As the moon travels from place to place, it will gather new exhibit features that focus on the latest moon science.
The moon's Ely stop will include a replica of the space suit worn by Neil Armstrong, fragments of meteorites collected from around the world, space food for astronauts, a space toilet and more.
There will also be exhibits from the Cambridge Science Centre and a stunning lunar-inspired art exhibition Moon-shot: Woman on the Moon by ESERO-space Ambassador, Helen Schell.
The exhibit will open on May 18, 2019 and run until June 9, 2019. Normal admission fees for Ely Cathedral apply (children under 16 go free), excluding special events.
The exhibition has been presented across the world, including at the Commonwealth Games in Australia, five cities in India with the British Council and in Aarhus, Denmark for the European Capital of Culture.


Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, will join the Notre Dame faculty as a guest lecturer in economics and political science, the University announced in a press release Monday.
Ryan, who recently finished two consecutive terms as Speaker of the House, has served as a Republican representative of Wisconsin’s first congressional district for the last 20 years. He will be joining former Indiana senator Joe Donnelly and former White House chief-of-staff Denis McDonough as “professors of the practice” at the University, the release said.
Ryan will be lecturing on topics such as the basics of the United States government, current polarization in American politics and the intersection between Catholicism and economics, among other topics, the release said.
Ryan has had family ties with Notre Dame for over 20 years, the release said.
Ryan said he is looking forward to working and collaborating with Notre Dame students.
Ryan will assume his position as guest lecturer during the 2019-2020 academic year.


If the French adage "mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux" ("a rainy wedding means a happy marriage") holds true, the sun should shine for Alexia Landeau and Guilhem de Castelbajac.
VAUVILLE, FRANCE — If the French adage “mariage pluvieux, mariage heureux” (“a rainy wedding means a happy marriage”) holds true, the sun should shine for Alexia Landeau and Guilhem de Castelbajac.
“It’s a good omen,” offered the Oscar de la Renta-clad bride of the rainy day, just before making her entrance into the picturesque church of Vauville as guests stood on tiptoe hoping to sneak a peak.
The ceremony, held Saturday near Deauville in Normandy, wasn’t a complete washout, however. As Landeau, an actress, and de Castelbajac, the artist son of French designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, exited the church, they encountered a meteorological marvel.
“A little California sunshine,” joked the groom, nodding to the black clouds looming overhead that had parted just in time. He then led the procession of guests up a winding, candlelit path to the Haras de La Londe, the Landeau family’s private estate, for the reception.
“It’s breathtaking here,” sighed film director Alexandra Shiva. Indeed, thatched cottages, picket fences, rolling hills and a selection of picture-perfect farmyard animals surrounding the hilltop chateau created a fairy-tale setting. “Even the donkey is dressed for the occasion,” Shiva said, referring to one animal decked out with a bow tie.
Los Angeles and New York’s film set mixed with French movie aficionados and fashion’s finest at the wedding. Shiva chatted with actress Ione Skye and Fernanda Niven.
“I cried when I walked into the church,” confessed Landeau to French director and actress Julie Delpy, who last week presented her latest directorial project, “Two Days in Paris” (in which she costars with Landeau), at the Cannes Film Festival.
“She’s the only girl I know who would jump into the Seine to save her dog,” Marc Landeau, father of the bride, said during the wedding speeches, relating an actual incident.
This story first appeared in the May 30, 2007 issue of WWD. Subscribe Today.
“I was up all night working out the speech,” said Tatiana von Furstenberg, who, on top of writing her first feature-length film, penned an ode to the bride, her best friend. “She would consult me on what to make him for dinner and whether to share the bed with him every night. I speak of her dog, Webster, of course,” von Furstenberg reminisced.
Ties between the von Furstenbergs and the Landeaus can be traced back a generation. “Alexia’s mother caught my wedding bouquet,” recalled Diane von Furstenberg. She talked with British actress Tara Summers, who stars in the television series “Boston Legal” and is working on a new film, “Love Lies Bleeding,” with Christian Slater. “He lent me a bunch of DVDs that marked my adolescence, and I realized he starred in most of them,” she said with a laugh.
After dinner, curtains were pulled back to reveal a multiple-layer wedding cake before Landeau whisked his daughter around the room for the evening’s first dance. Then, de Castelbajac kicked the party up a notch with Hypnolove, the Toulouse, France, band that performed at his last fashion show.


SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento Kings hired Luke Walton as their coach Monday, just days after the Los Angeles Lakers parted ways with him following three losing seasons.
Neither the Kings nor Walton waited long following changes that came just after the end of the regular season. Sacramento fired coach Dave Joerger on Thursday following a 39-43 finish that was the best record for the franchise in 13 years, while Walton was dismissed in Los Angeles a day later when he failed to get the Lakers into the postseason in the first year with LeBron James.
Kings general manager Vlade Divac met with Walton on Saturday and the two sides quickly came to the agreement that was formally announced Monday.
That performance helped him get the job with the Lakers but he was unable to duplicate that success with a roster with far less talent during his first two years and then again this year, even with James on board.
Walton now takes over an up-and-coming team in Sacramento that features several talented young players acquired by Divac: guards De'Aaron Fox and Buddy Hield, forward Marvin Bagley III and center Willie Cauley-Stein. The Kings finished 39-43, nine games out of a playoff spot after being tied for the Western Conference's eighth seed heading into the final game before the All-Star break.
Sacramento had its most wins since going 44-38 in 2005-06 during coach Rick Adelman's final season. That ended a run of eight straight playoff berths and Sacramento hasn't been back to the postseason since for the NBA's longest active drought.
Divac is now counting on Walton being the one who can get the team back to the level it reached under Adelman, when the Kings were a contender for several years and played an entertaining brand of basketball.


Walgreens is working to close its $9.4 billion purchase of Rite Aid early next year. It said Tuesday that it's selling the Rite Aid stores in response to concerns raised by federal anti-trust regulators. The deal still needs to be approved by the Federal Trade Commission.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., based in Deerfield, Illinois, announced in October 2015 that it planned to buy Rite Aid in a deal that would create about 12,000 U.S. locations. That's several thousand more than the nearest competitor, CVS Health Corp.
The combination is expected to give Walgreens beefed-up negotiating muscle with drugmakers and other suppliers and to help enlarge its presence in the Northeast and in Southern California. But the nation's largest drugstore chain also knew it would have to drop some stores to ease regulatory worry about competition.
Shortly after announcing the deal, Walgreens said it was willing to divest up to 1,000 stores to win regulatory approval, but it expected it wouldn't have to sell more than 500.
Fred's runs 647 general merchandise discount stores clustered mainly in the Southeast, and it operates 371 full-service pharmacy departments within its stores. It also runs three specialty pharmacies.
Walgreens says its purchase agreement requires Fred's to buy additional stores if the FTC requires the divestiture of more than 865.
Shares of Fred's Inc., based in Memphis, Tennessee, soared 73 percent, or $8.12, to $19.27 Tuesday morning, while broader indexes started off nearly flat. Rite Aid Corp., based in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, rose 5 percent, or 42 cents, to $8.59; and Walgreens rose 66 cents to $86.72.


Geneva: Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev and his ex-wife Elena on Tuesday announced they had reached a deal to settle their divorce, which had been dubbed the costliest break-up of all time.
In May, 2014, a Swiss court awarded Elena Rybolovlev over four billion Swiss francs ($4.2 billion, 3.6 billion euros) -- the equivalent of half his fortune, in their divorce, which at the time was dubbed the divorce of the century.
On Tuesday the pair said in a joint statement that they had "reached an agreement on the terms of the divorce" in a move they said "puts an end to all legal procedures launched in different jurisdictions.".
The statement did not specify the amount agreed upon.
The agreement came after a Geneva appeals court in June overturned the 2014 ruling, downgrading the payment required from the owner of French football club AS Monaco to 564 million Swiss francs, along with two real estate holdings.
One of the contentious points was Rybolovlev's worth, as he had transferred shares in 2005 to a trust and then sold them three years later at a huge profit.
His ex-wife's lawyers argued that the appeals court calculated his net worth on the basis of the 2005 figures and not the 2008 ones.
They appealed the June ruling to the country's highest court, but following the agreement announced on Tuesday, the court will no longer be called upon to rule in the case.
The couple married in Cyprus and were together for 23 years, but have been battling over the terms of their divorce since 2008.
Dmitry Rybolovlev has recently made headlines over his conflict with a Swiss art dealer, Yves Bouvier.
The Russian tycoon, a big collector of art, has accused Bouvier of selling him works by the likes of Picasso, Modigliani, Degas and Gauguin at hugely inflated prices.


Ukraine — The small Ukrainian tax software company that is accused of being the patient zero of a damaging global cyberepidemic is under investigation and will face charges, the head of Ukraine's CyberPolice suggested on Monday.
Col. Serhiy Demydiuk, the head of Ukraine's national Cyberpolice unit, said in an interview with The Associated Press that Kiev-based M.E. Doc's employees had blown off repeated warnings about the security of their information technology infrastructure.
"They knew about it," he told the AP at his office. "They were told many times by various anti-virus firms. ... For this neglect, the people in this case will face criminal responsibility."
Demydiuk and other officials say last week's unusually disruptive cyberattack was mainly spread through a malicious update to M.E. Doc's eponymous tax software program, which is widely used by accountants and businesses across Ukraine.
The malicious update, likely planted on M.E. Doc's update server by a hacker, was then disseminated across the country before exploding into an epidemic of data-scrambling software that Ukrainian and several other multinational firms are still recovering from.
M.E. Doc has given various explanations for its role in the outbreak. It initially acknowledged having been hacked, but then deleted the statement . It then called allegations it had seeded the outbreak "clearly erroneous" but later said it was cooperating with authorities. The company has not returned messages from AP seeking comment.
Meanwhile, several companies hit by last week's cyberattack say they are edging toward normalcy.
Law firm DLA Piper said late on Sunday that it has restored its email service and was working to bring its other networks back online. Danish shipper A.P. Moller-Maersk said on Monday it was that "getting closer to full speed" and that all but one cargo terminal was back in action. Russian companies were reportedly affected as well; Russian state-owned oil giant Rosneft said on Monday it had taken the company six days to fully repair its computer systems after they were badly hit in the cyberattack.
Ukrainian authorities have blamed Russia for masterminding the outbreak, although several independent experts say it's too early, based on what's publicly known, to come to any firm conclusions. Ukraine has repeatedly come under fire from high-powered cyberattacks tied to Moscow.
The extent of the damage and disruption in Ukraine was still unclear on Monday. Authorities have yet to release an accounting of the number of victims or guess at the cost inflicted by the malware. Demydiuk said his service was still collating figures and declined to even provide estimates.
It's clear, though, that the economic disruption has not been negligible. Some bank employees have not been to work in days. At Kiev's Boryspil Airport, senior airport official Yevhenii Dykhne told the AP that about a third of computers, mainly those devoted to back-office work such as procurement, were still offline.
Hanna Rybalka, who works at the state-owned Oschadbank's headquarters in Kiev, said that business had taken nearly a week to recover.
"Today is the first day of full-time work," she said in a Facebook message on Monday.


The costume Elon and Grimes designed together for the Met Ball came out quite nicely. Must have taken some time and effort.
Elon Musk doesn't care about you.
If he did, he would have details about the things that matter to customers and shareholders — the progress of the Model 3, his company's profitability, and continued efforts to make his cars as safe as possible.
In light of Tesla founder Elon Musk's tweetstorms railing against media coverage against the company, I think it's a good time to remind you of something I've mentioned here before.
By you I mean his customers, Wall Street, his shareholders, his creditors, his employees, and anyone who just might be interested in learning more about electric cars. Teaching you about what's going on with the cars, after all, is partly the business of the media. The stories that have most recently upset Musk have to do with dangerously lax safety protocols at Tesla's factory in Freemont and poor review s of his now $78,000 Model 3.
He seems like a busy guy.
The last time I pointed out Musk's lack of interest in anything you was during Tesla's first-quarter earnings call a mere 22 days ago. Musk had virtually no details on his cash-poor company's progress solving the problems that will define its future. He had no details about when Tesla would meet production goals for the Model 3, how he was going fix production issues, or how he planned to swing the company into profitability.
This is because none of that interests him. That has to do with you, and what interests Musk has to do with him.
Musk is more interested in the appearance of action at Tesla than action itself. That's because, so far, the appearance of action has gotten him as much praise and adulation from the faithful as inaction. Musk is the anti-Cicero. For him seeming is as good as being.
"Every metric that we've looked at internally suggests we are the best in class," he said on the call, failing to discuss what those metrics are or any metric, really.
Seeming, so far, has done enough to give Musk what he really craves — enough money to run his businesses with contempt for anyone who might question him, and, more important, the role of venerated leader of the cult of Musk. Everything else is just bothersome detail.
Now the cult of Musk has some good attributes. People love how Teslas drive, and Space X has captured the imagination of the entire country. In what are unquestionably confusing times, the cult of Musk is getting Americans excited about the future. For even the most cynical people, the positivity of endless possibility through science is infectious.
That's where my list of positives ends.
Now back to those bothersome details, because that's where you come into play.
My colleague Matt Debord wrote that Musk's contempt on the call was clearly, singularly for Wall Street. Debord's assessment doesn't go far enough for my taste, obviously, and far be it for me to defend the cabal of geniuses who gave the world such hits as the 2008 financial crisis and the tech bubble.
"First of all, I think moats are lame," Musk said. "They're, like, nice, in a sort of quaint, vestigial way. But if your only defense against invading armies is a moat, you will not last long. What matters is the pace of innovation. That is the fundamental determinant of competitiveness."
This is not a game of Dungeons and Dragons with your friends. This is a business, and your investors (shareholders and creditors) would like you to protect it. At some point during the call, with all the enthusiasm of a Chinese politician reading out their guilty plea on state TV, Musk monotoned something about how he realizes Tesla "isn't a real company until" it's profitable.
Even Adam Jonas, one of Wall Street's most faithful Tesla fans, got the side of Musk's tongue for suggesting Musk raise money while he could. This in the midst of reports that the company is burning cash at a mind-bending rate.
So, no, Musk does not care about Wall Street bankers, and frankly that's fine. But he also doesn't care about his creditors and shareholders either. That is not OK.
Where are the customers' yachts (Teslas)?
And then there are the customers. On the call, Musk said he was focusing on Model 3 production, and as such is not focused on the Tesla Semi. We "haven't really tried to sell the Semi," he said.
Oh, so you've accepted about 2,000 reservations, and who knows how many thousands of dollars, for a vehicle you haven't really started working on manufacturing yet?
Reports that Tesla is underpaying workers and undercounts their injuries have barely gotten attention. Perhaps that's more of a reflection on us than it is on Tesla. Just this week Son Nguyen, a former worker at Tesla's Freemont factory, filed a lawsuit against the company for injuries.
The complaint says his injuries were caused by an explosion that threw him 15 to 20 feet. Now suffers from permanent orthopedic and neurological traumatic brain injuries, "among other catastrophic permanent injuries."
Either way, add employees to the list of things Musk would rather not bother getting into detail about.
You know what else Musk does care about? The media (he even made a poll about us!) and the short sellers. These are two entities that can't attack or change what Tesla is, only its perception. Nevertheless, these are two entities that bother him. Musk called short-seller attacks "hurtful" in Rolling Stone, and on the call he seethed about reporters who dared write about Autopilot crashes.
I bring this up here because it should be clear to anyone with the desire to experiment with any new technology that there should be as much information in the public domain about it as possible. In this case we're talking about the potential for a deadly car crash.
Musk disingenuously compared coverage of traditional car crashes (the causes of which have been known for decades) with an Autopilot crash, the causes for which are still being understood.
The comparison itself is an insult to anyone who might consider driving a Tesla at all, let alone on Autopilot. Which brings me back to my point: Musk doesn't care about customers.
Toward the end of the call someone asked if Musk could just please (please) send a tweet out or something when Model 3 production ramps up to 3,000 cars a week. The investor said he was concerned about the volatility of Tesla's share price.
Musk responded to this by telling the investor that if he didn't have the stomach for volatility, he shouldn't own Tesla's stock.
He has more important things to tweet, anyway.


Michael Flynn is involved in Trump’s weirdest scandal yet.
How the incoming national security adviser got tangled up in the Trump administration’s weirdest scandal yet.
Can brain waves be used to detect lies? What even is a lie?
The weirdest scandal of the Trump transition—the one involving brain electrodes, Russian spies, Hillary Clinton’s email server, and an expert in kung fu—probably should have been a bigger deal. But I’m sorry to say that Bloomberg reporters David Kocieniewski and Peter Robison’s gift to journalism, published on the morning of Dec. 23, barely registered before it disappeared into the tinsel.
Their delightful scoop, headlined “Trump Aide Partnered With Firm Run by Man With Alleged KGB Ties,” describes a business link between Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and a shady biotech startup called Brainwave Science. In February, Brainwave, which sells a “helmet-like headpiece fitted with sensors” as a sort of lie detector for law enforcement and counterterrorism efforts, brought on Flynn as an adviser. At that point, a biotech entrepreneur named Subu Kota was serving on Brainwave’s board of directors. As Kocieniewski and Robison point out, Kota (whose name has since been scrubbed from the company website) happens to have been indicted for trying to sell hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of stolen micro-organisms, as well as classified information on missile-defense systems and stealth bombers, to KGB agents during the Cold War. (He signed a plea agreement admitting to the sale of the biotech material in 1996). Flynn, who has been criticized for his own coziness with Russian officials, allegedly promised to help Kota’s company sell its sensor helmet to U.S. agencies.
This would seem to be the perfect story for the Age of Trump, encapsulating as it does a sad mélange of foreign intelligence, questionable business deals, and suspect science. But a closer look at the Brainwave scandal suggests an even deeper resonance with our present, post-factual predicament. It’s a story, after all, that layers lies on top of lies about lies: whether lies can be detected in a person’s brain waves; whether people have been telling lies about that method of detecting lies; whether other people have been telling lies about the telling of those lies; and, finally, inevitably—insanely—whether it means anything to “lie” at all, since according to the neuroscientist at the center of this mess, each one of us has the mental power to bend reality to our will.
The Bloomberg story focuses on Subu Kota, but “Braingate” really starts with the neuroscientist, Larry Farwell of Seattle. Farwell comes from a family of professors and ship captains: His grandfather Raymond was an expert in naval transportation and commerce who wrote a classic book on how to avoid maritime collisions; his father, George, was a physicist who studied under Enrico Fermi and worked on the Manhattan Project; his sister Jacqueline is a pediatric neurologist. Like George, Jacqueline, and Farwell’s uncle Raymond Jr. (another noted seaman), Farwell got his bachelor’s degree at Harvard University. For 10 years after graduation he invested in real estate and studied transcendental meditation, among other avocational pursuits. (He’s also been a semiprofessional swing-dance performer and a broadsword-wielding black belt in kung fu with a penchant for the flying kick.) Finally, in 1984, Farwell went back to school for a Ph.D. in neuroscience in the lab of the brain-electrode pioneer Emanuel Donchin.
Farwell had shown that brain electrodes could be used to read a person’s mind—but only when the message had been spelled out on purpose. Could the P300 signal reveal information that a person meant to hide from view? Farwell had another project in development that aimed to do exactly this. He based his work on a classic form of lie detection called the “Guilty Knowledge Test” (or else, the “Concealed Information Test”), in which suspects are asked a series of multiple-choice questions related to a crime, for example: “Was the getaway car a red Ford, a yellow Toyota, a gray Chevy, or a white Plymouth?” The interrogator checks the suspect’s physiological responses to each potential answer. According to the theory of the test, a guilty person—and only a guilty person—would know the true answer to the question, and he might give himself away by responding to that answer in a subtle or unconscious way. His heart rate might begin to quicken, or his palms would start to sweat. Though such measures are widely used for lie-detector tests conducted by the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and other government agencies, they are not very reliable.
By the time that paper had been published, Farwell was already on the payroll as a full-time research consultant for the CIA. (The agency would provide him with about $1 million in research funding between 1991 and 1993.) Eventually he started up a company, the Human Brain Research Laboratory Inc., based around his guilty knowledge test and the notion that a suspect’s presence at a crime scene would leave an indelible trace, like a set of fingerprints, smeared across the circuits of his cortex. If an investigator could figure out the right questions to ask during a brain-recording session, she could, in effect, dust the suspect’s brain for evidence. Any hidden knowledge of the crime would reveal itself as a telltale P300.
Meanwhile, other EEG researchers (including Emanuel Donchin, who helped create the test) suggested that the P300 lie-detection method was not as reliable as Farwell was suggesting, and certainly not appropriate for real-world applications. Among other potential problems, the P300 signal seems to have more to do with a subject’s belief than actual fact—even false memories are known to yield a positive result. Then there’s the fact that the test is only as good as the questions that are used to probe for guilty knowledge. How would the investigator know exactly which specific details a guilty person is likely to remember, especially when the test may be given weeks, months or even years after a crime has been committed? Others argued that the brain-fingerprinting test, like the classic polygraph test, could be beaten by a savvy subject, or undermined by a subject who wasn’t that observant in the first place.
Farwell responded with his own display of scholarly indignation, accusing Donchin and the other authors of having distorted facts in their rebuttal and insisting that data could still be useful even if it wasn’t in a peer-reviewed journal. (Farwell notes that some of the data in question have since been published. The original studies were classified, he says, which led to some delays.) In any case, the latter point is true, no doubt; the published record carries just a small and biased sample of all scientific research, and it’s often very useful to consider work that hasn’t made its way to print.
But Farwell has been making some fishy-sounding claims. First and foremost, that his lie-detector test has near-perfect accuracy—a finding that is out of whack with other research in the field. A recent meta-analysis of P300 lie-detection research finds the test has an accuracy of about 88 percent. That isn’t bad at all, but it’s also not much better than what you’d get from more conventional lie-detector tests that measure people’s sweaty palms and blood pressure. (In fact, a version of the Guilty Knowledge Test based on standard polygraph measures is widely used by police in Japan.) Farwell answers that this meta-analysis surveyed all versions of the P300 test, not just his. When the test is run the way he does it—according to his list of 20 standards for the field—he claims the error rate does indeed drop close to zero.
Farwell has drawn some rather more adventurous conclusions from other work that never made its way through peer review. In the 1990s, as he wound down his research contracts with the CIA and FBI, Farwell took a break to spend a year working in an inpatient mental institution—“just to round out my experience,” he told me, “and get more hands-on experience of people who were really very seriously deranged.” He also said that he used leftover money from the government contracts to support himself as he pursued a private line of research into the nature of reality.
In 1999, Farwell wrote up the results of these experiments in a scientific treatise on quantum theory and the power of the mind, called How Consciousness Commands Matter: The New Scientific Revolution and the Evidence That Anything Is Possible. The book begins with a description of the brain-computer interface that he’d invented with Donchin in the 1980s—the device that enabled people to control a keyboard with their brains, by sending signals through a set of EEG electrodes. But Farwell had begun to wonder whether the electrodes might be extraneous. What if we could control the world, starting at the quantum level, just by thinking hard enough?
Subu Kota, the espionage-linked businessman, joined Brainwave as a board member in 2013. In August 2014, Ika announced Brainwave’s official worldwide launch, claiming to have sold Farwell’s technology to police in Singapore and to a police department in Florida. In February 2016, Brainwave added Michael Flynn—who had been fired from his post as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency around the time of the company launch—to its advisory board. Two months after that, a friend of Flynn’s named Brian McCauley, who had just retired from the FBI, joined the board as well.
McCauley’s presence on the board would soon provide evidence for the interconnectedness of all things, or at least the interconnectedness of all scandalous shenanigans in Washington. In mid-October, the Washington Post reported on McCauley’s link to Hillary Clinton’s private email server and to documents related to the attack in Benghazi. In 2015, while still at the FBI, McCauley had proposed trading favors with the State Department, whereby the bureau would agree not to classify a Benghazi-related message from Clinton’s server. (He says that he quickly rescinded the offer when he learned the contents of the email.) Both McCauley’s and Flynn’s names have lately disappeared from the Brainwave website. Ika says they had to sever ties because both had taken jobs in the Trump administration.
According to Ika, that story has it backward: Farwell is the one who lied. Ika says that most of Farwell’s patents had already expired when their deal was signed—and that Farwell hid this fact from him. In October 2013, Farwell reassigned the (mostly expired) patents from Brainwave Science back to their original owner, a company called American Scientific Innovations, run by one of his high school classmates from Seattle. (The patents have since been offloaded to another company affiliated with Farwell.) Ika claims that Farwell did not have the authority to make this transfer and that he falsely presented himself to the U.S. Patent Office as a “managing member of the company” so as to steal Brainwave’s intellectual property. After discovering the reassignment in July, Ika says, he called the FBI and terminated the consulting contract with Farwell.
Ika also stands behind his claim of having signed brain-fingerprinting contracts with police in Singapore and Florida—though it turns out that the latter deal, at least, began and ended with a free-trial period. No money was exchanged., and the technology was never put to use.
“I’ve told you the truth about Mr. Ika, and I take no pleasure in telling you those things,” Farwell told me in response to these claims and counterclaims of fraud. Ika’s version is rife with misinformation, in his telling. The original deal from 2012 was never signed, he says, so the original transfer of the patents was itself a fraudulent attempt to pilfer his intellectual property. Also: He and his business received 49 percent of Brainwave Science, not 45 percent as Ika claimed; and his consulting contract had been for $11,000 per month, as opposed to $10,000.
By this point what I’d understood to be the truth now seemed to be, as Farwell might say, “a tiny portion of reality.” I had no idea exactly who was lying and to what extent. Did Brainwave really sell its product to police in Singapore? Does Brainwave’s lie detector really work as advertised? Does Farwell’s? Who owns those patents, and why should that matter if they’re all expired anyway? How involved was Michael Flynn? Did Subu Kota sell secrets to the KGB? And while we’re at it, how much did Hillary Clinton know about Benghazi?
It would be nice if we could just slap EEG arrays on everybody’s heads and find the truth in the dips of their P300s. In fact, that’s just what Farwell proposed to me: “We can resolve all this,” he said, “if everyone would agree to a brain-fingerprinting test.” Someday, perhaps. Whatever one thinks of Farwell’s science, recent academic research on the P300 lie-detection method has been somewhat promising. A version of the test developed at Northwestern University, for example, has now delivered greater than 90 percent accuracy in lab experiments. In October, an independent group of researchers in Hungary successfully replicated that work. We may yet find a way to use our brain waves to navigate through squishy facts.
Until that dream is realized, though, we’re all stuck here on this lowly plane of consciousness—where it often feels like anyone can make his own reality, and even find great success, living by the facts inside his head.


Best selection of natura stone tile flooring, travertine, limestone. Taj grey brushed limestone in 2018 marble / limestone / travertine. Dijon tumbled limestone google search flooring indoor. Travertine limestone tiles flooring tiles limestone tiles.


What Good Is Praying When Israel Is at War?
During the Gaza war, people were thrust into voicing passionate rhetoric while simultaneously refraining from action. Were our words superfluous?


It's been seven years since Cake baked up a new recording.
Of course, part of the mischievous pleasure for John McCrea and his hard-to-label Sacramento anti-rock band is checking out all the puns, rhymes, metaphors and cliches their name precipitates. You can't help it.
"Showroom of Compassion," title of the group's first album since 2004's "Pressure Chief," is bound to prompt even more wordplay.
Bottom line, though: It's Cake's dependable recipe (how can you resist that one?) of slightly off-kilter tunes full of subtle sonic delights, McCrea's deadpan vocals and wry observations and, Vincent DiFiore's playfully engaging horn tootings and the wiggly, squiggly keyboard injections of McCrea, DiFiore and Xan McCurdy.
As always, it's hard to determine exactly how serious, sarcastic or silly McCrea & Co. are trying to be.
No doubt, though. The opening "Federal Funding," taken at a slinky crawl, lobs some sarcastic salvos at lobbyists (they're big in Sacramento) and their insatiable special-interest selfishness and greed.
McCrea, 45, tends to tease (himself?) with lyrics like "It's been a long time since we rode your Pontiac/But I don't mind when I've got you close to me," from "Long Time."
The silliness of the seemingly playful "Italian Guy" is undercut by a sense of spite and DiFiore's wry, busker-style horn.
The instrumental "Teenage Pregnancy" captures some happy-sad angst while "The Winter," with its quasi-pretty melody, could become a regular, though slightly oddball, Christmas song. Really.
Dependably, Cake's sixth studio album since 1994 is an engaging curiosity piece in the mode of England's Robyn Hitchcock and Akron, Ohio's Devo - maybe a bit of early Weezer, too - that's full of imaginative detail, lyrical whimsy and what-was-that? sonic moments.
Environmentally aware activists, McCrea and Cake created the 11-song, 40:36 album using solar energy, recycled paper stock and vegetable dyes.
No puns are required or intended to recall that one of the group's early performing homes was Stockton's Blackwater Cafe - until the lines got too long for the coffee shop's limited capacity - and that Cake sold out Stockton's 2,000-capacity Bob Hope Theatre on Sept. 21, 2001.
On this reunion tour, the quartet settles in for four nights at The Fillmore in San Francisco, Feb. 14-17. Go to cakemusic.com.
Chi Cheng, the bass player in Sacramento's Deftones who incurred a severe brain injury in a 2008 traffic accident, is in need of special care.
In a continuing effort to generate funds to pay for experimental treatments in New Jersey, two Wake Up Fest events have been scheduled for Saturday in Stockton, where Cheng - who still is being cared for at home - grew up.
There'll be a 6 p.m. performance by Built by Stereo, Braata, Art of Explosion, Heartless Nightlife, Tragic Culture, Princess Die, Trances and In Oceans at Burning Bush, 4799 Foppiano Lane, and a 9 p.m. show at Fat's Grill & Bar, 4555 N. Pershing Ave. Quick 50, Miles Divide, Sonic Shift, Self Destroyer, Mere Image, Unborn Sun and Gruesome Twosome will play.
The Tokay High School graduate's family has been trying to generate $500,000 to pay for care not covered by insurance.
For more information, go to wakeupfest.com or onelove forchi.com.
The Tracy-based singer-songwriter is planning to release her third album - the appropriately upbeat-sounding "Beautiful Day" - on Feb. 5.
The former motorcycle racer and Miss California USA contestant also has been recording some more interesting experiences - touring Japan, acting in San Francisco and founding Musicians for a Better Planet, a nonprofit group dedicated to environmental preservation.
Tinsley introduces the album during a Feb. 5 show at Tracy's Great Plate. Ryan Toth, Machuko and DJ Dave will join her. Go to taratinsley.com.
Megan Slankard reaches No. 3, too.
"A Token of Wreckage," her third album that she's been working on for three years, will be released March 8.
"The record almost wrote itself," says Slankard, who grew up in Tracy and now is based in the East Bay. "That doesn't mean it wasn't a ton of work. It was probably one of the most challenging projects I've had. It did feel like the record was dictating the direction. All I had to do was to listen and put my back into it."
Slankard co-produced the album with Jerry Becker and David Bryson of Counting Crows mixed the sound. A video of the title track, directed by Matthew Ward, has been released. Go to meganslankard.com.
Glenn Zaleski, once a member of the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet at University of the Pacific, has released his first CD: "Duet Suite."
Zaleski, a pianist, is joined on the jazz recording by brother Mark, who plays alto saxophone, soprano saxophone and clarinet.
The Zaleskis, from Boylston, Mass., studied under two-year fellowships at the Brubeck Institute between 2003 and 2007. Mark released his "Mark Zaleski Band" CD, on which Glenn played, in 2009.
"Duet Suite" is available on CDBaby, Amazon.com, and iTunes. Go to glennzaleski.com.


The Asian session see’s the Euro trading with a slight decline against the USD; however it remains still relatively firm as yesterday’s hawkish comments by European Central Bank President Jean Claude Trichet which saw the EURUSD surge by over 65 pips in yesterday’s late European session. The comments made gave a positive outlook with regards to upcoming release of the European interest rates, with the market expecting the rates to be raised – an event that may see the EURUSD break past the November 4th high of 1.4281. The Euro is currently trading some 20 pips under the 1.4100 level, which it momentarily broker yesterday, from an Asian session open of 1.4091.
The Sterling dropped in the early part of the Asian session from an open of 1.5991 to a session low of 1.5974 before recouping its losses and rising above the Asian open to a high of 1.6002. The Sterling is currently some 60 pips above yesterday’s 5 month low that was reached in mid European session, following weak UK economic data that casted doubts on when the Bank of England may raise its interest rates as the current state of the UK economy appears somewhat fragile. The current level of the sterling is around 1.6005 and is currently supported around the 1.5970’s – a level which it has failed to convincingly break the last couple of months.
The Japanese Yen momentarily strengthened against the USD in midsession, bringing the USDJPY to a low of 81.53 before bouncing back up to trade close to the session open around the 81.72. A number of economic data for February came out better than expected for the Japanese Yen in early Asian session, including a drop in the unemployment rate and a significant increase in the country’s Retail Trade. The current level of the Japanese Yen is relatively close to the 55-day exponential moving average which currently sits at 81.92 and is regarded as the next resistance level for the USDJPY pair. Should this level be broken, the next resistance for the USDJPY is seen at the March 14th high of 82.44. Support for the pair is seen at 80.46, the March 18th low.
The Australian Dollar remains relatively firm in the Asian session around the 1.0237 levels after experiencing a sharp drop in yesterday’s late US session which saw it drop some 30 pips against the USD. Some technical analysts are expecting to see a reversal of trend as the AUDUSD pair has dropped below the previous trend low of 1.0231. Support for the AUDUSD can be seen from the hourly chart at the March 25th low of 1.0185, with resistance at the 29 year high of 1.0313.
Gold has continued to depreciate in today’s Asian session as it has done so since last Thursday after having reached an all time high of $1447.5 per ounce. The precious metal is currently trading at $1418.6 per ounce after having dropped by $1.50 from the Asian session open. Support for the precious metal is seen at $1410, the Match 28th and March 3rd low, with resistance seen at the 20 Day simple moving average which currently stands at $1421.8.


How the Park Community Arena could look.
Sheffield Sharks say they’re 'edging closer’ to finialising a bank loan which would help them achieve their goal of building a community basketball arena.
Sharks were asked to finalise a finanical plan which would enable them to build an arena on the Olympic Legacy Park by Sheffield Council in July.
The council is under pressure to be able to provide students with facilities by September 2019, when secondary pupils are due to join primary children at Oasis Academy Don Valley and its cabinet approved alternative proposals to provide provision at the English Institute of Sport.
But Sarah Backovic, Sharks’ managing director, said the club were expecting verification reports to be submitted to the bank over the next few days as part of plans to build a community arena, which the schoolchildren could use.
She said: “It’s all edging closer. It’s been a been frustrating for us because this things aren’t in our own hands and timing wise we would like to be much faster.
Ms Backovic said the Sharks, together with Park Community Arena Ltd, have written to the council making them aware that its construction team can have it built by the September 2019 deadline - subject to final verification of the loan.
She said: "We have responded positively to all of the points in the cabinet meeting report. In terms of the construction, our team has confirmed that this build can be built by September 2019 so we are now a viable option for the council.
"If all matters can be finalised by the end of September then we can complete it by next September."
If the bank loan is approved, Sharks then hope to obtain the rest of the funding from the council as a loan.
Speaking after a council meeting in July, council chief executive John Mothersole said: “If we move forward with EISS then change the decision there will be aborted costs and the council will have to face up to these and deal with it.


Police press releases, public safety updates, traffic updates and general breaking news.
The Austin Parks and Recreation Department has re-opened Barton Creek Greenbelt.
After continually monitoring the safety of the Barton Creek Greenbelt, the Austin Parks and Recreation Department has made the decision to re-open it for public use today, Wednesday, August 24, 2016. Patrons using the Barton Creek Greenbelt are asked to use caution and avoid any areas of standing water or debris on the trail.
Beginning Saturday, August 13, East Riverside will be reduced to two east and westbound lanes between Shore District Drive and Lakeshore Boulevard.
The visitation for fallen Travis County Sheriff’s Sgt. Craig Hutchinson will be Monday, Aug. 1, 2016 from 4-8 p.m. at Cook Waldon Funeral Home, 6100 North Lamar Blvd.
A celebration of Sgt. Hutchinson’s life will be on Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2016 at 10 a.m. at Shoreline Church, 15201 Burnet Rd. Following the funeral service, there will be a procession to his final resting place.
Protesters will hold a rally at 8 p.m. Wednesday to protest a grand jury’s Tuesday decision not to indict former Austin police officer Geoffrey Freeman over the shooting death of 17-year-old David Joseph in February. Follow Statesman reporter Marty Toohey who will be live-tweeting the event.


Motorists have been warned to expect difficult driving conditions as icy weather continues to grip the UK.
The Met Office has issued yellow 'be aware' warnings for ice across the entire country and snow across the Midlands, northern England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The Met Office said sleet and snow showers would affect parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland today, with snow falling to lower levels and extending further south through the day.
A very cold airmass will spread southwards across Scotland and Northern Ireland accompanied by strong winds, spreading southwards into northern England and north Wales later in the day.
Frequent showers are likely to form in this airmass, and with the cold air snow is likely to accumulate, even to low levels in places.
Periods of enhanced snowfall are possible within this general flow, perhaps more especially across the high ground of Scotland and north-east England, but these details are more uncertain.
Snow showers and sleet expected to affect parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland, with snow extending further south.
The first heavy snow of the season has fallen in northern parts of the UK causing some delays at airports and traffic problems on the roads.
Sub zero temperatures have caused havoc across the country this week. But for some the colder it gets, the better.


What is Jennifer Lopez’s age, what movies has the singer been in and what is J-Lo’s net worth?
JENNIFER Lopez is a triple threat - actress, singer AND dancer.
Here's everything you need to know about the talented Jenny From The Block.
Jennifer Lopez, 49, was born in The Bronx, New York.
Her parents are Puerto Rican and she has two sisters, Leslie and Lynda.
Lynda is a journalist and TV news anchor.
J-Lo started her career in 1991 as a backing dancer for New Kids on The Block.
She performed with the boyband at the 18th Annual American Music Awards.
Shortly after, she became part of the Fly Girl dance troupe in the sketch comedy series In Living Colour.
What movies has Jennifer Lopez been in?
Jennifer Lopez had her first leading role in 1997 in the biopic Selena - a film about the singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.
Her performance earned her a Golden Globe nomination and made her the first Latina actress to earn over $1 million for a US film.
She soon became the highest paid actress in Hollywood, starring in the 1997 horror Anaconda and the 1998 comedy Out of Sight.
Her other films include Maid in Manhattan (2002) and 2003 romcom Gigli which she starred in alongside Ben Affleck.
What are Jennifer Lopez's hit songs?
Jennifer Lopez launched her music career in 1999 with the debut album On the 6 which had two top ten singles.
If You Had My Love and Waiting For Tonight both topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
She produced her second album J.Lo in 2001 and also starred in the romcom The Wedding Planner.
This made her the first woman to have a Number One album and film released in the same week.
J.Lo contains the top ten singles Love Don't Cost A Thing and I'm Real.
Her third album This is Me...Then was used in the soundtrack for the film Maid in Manhattan.
It contains the hits Jenny From the Block and All I Have.
In 2011 the superstar collaborated with Pitbull on the comeback single On The Floor.
In 2007 and 2011 she won the American Music Award for Favorite Latin Artist.
At the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards J-Lo wore a green Versace silk chiffon dress with a plunging neckline.
The image of the dress was downloaded so many times that it gave Google's chairman Eric Schmidt the idea to launch Google Images.
Who is Jennifer Lopez's fiance?
J-Lo's fiance is former professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez.
The couple got engaged in March 2019 after they started dating in February 2017.
From 1997-1998 J-Lo had a brief marriage to Cuban waiter Ojani Noa and then Cris Judd from 2001 until 2003.
She has also dated the rapper Sean Combs and was engaged to Ben Affleck.
In 2004 J-Lo married singer Marc Antony but they divorced in 2014.
She gave birth to twins Emme Maribel and Maximillian David in 2008.
During her 49th birthday celebrations in July 2018, Lopez revealed a ginormous Cartier engagement ring.
What is Jennifer Lopez's Net Worth?
Jennifer Lopez's net worth is $360 million as of April 2017 according to Celebrity Net Worth.
She has an annual salary of $40 million.
J-Lo reportedly earned $20 million when she appeared as a judge on American Idol in 2012.
She is also a global ambassador for L'Oreal Paris and her own fragrance Love and Light has made over $2.9 million.


Monopolies are strangling competition and cutting off opportunity. Here’s how to stop them.
It’s an age-old question, a cliché so apt it never gets old: What is to be done?
After nearly four decades of lax antitrust policy, during which a handful of corporations have been allowed to gobble up market share like a horde of deranged amoebas, the consequences of unfettered monopoly have become painfully apparent. Competition has fizzled, replaced by pockets of extreme concentration. The number of new businesses has plunged. Wages have stagnated. Inequality has spiked. And extreme wealth—alongside its evil twin, extreme power—has pooled in fewer and fewer hands.
Many Americans feel the consequences of monopoly in their daily lives. Nurses in Michigan saw their income depressed by an estimated 20 percent as a result of alleged collusion among dominant hospitals seeking to keep labor costs low. Dairy farmers in the Southeast contend they have been denied a fair price for their milk by two dominant firms that control the processing and distribution of milk. Independent pharmacists say that CVS Health, which manages prescription benefits on behalf of many insurers, has been abusing that power to reduce reimbursement rates for local pharmacists, with an eye to putting them out of business. Air travelers in the United States continue to pay inflated ticket prices, even as the cost of jet fuel, a major expense for the airlines, has fallen by more than half since 2014.
That sentiment should prompt members of Congress to organize regional field hearings to investigate the real-world impacts of concentrated economic power and engage citizens in a conversation about what to do about it.
For inspiration, they might draw on hearings held in the late 1930s by what newspapers at the time often referred to as the “Monopoly Committee.” Officially named the Temporary National Economic Committee, it had been established jointly by Congress and the Roosevelt administration to investigate the causes and effects of concentration. The committee heard testimony from 552 people over a three-year period, and its findings laid the groundwork for stepped up antitrust enforcement for years to come.
Both the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—the two agencies that share the task of enforcing US antitrust laws—regularly close investigations and approve mergers without offering any explanation to the public. In 2012, for example, Obama’s DOJ closed a three-year investigation of the agricultural-chemical producer Monsanto—a case closely followed in rural America—without issuing a statement. Nor did the DOJ explain its reasons, in 2013, for abruptly reversing course on the merger of US Airways and American Airlines, initially suing to block the merger, and then, a few months later, okaying it with only minor concessions from the companies.
Moreover, it’s only because of an inadvertent disclosure of documents to The Wall Street Journal a few years ago that we know that officials at the FTC concluded in 2012 that Google was abusing its monopoly power in ways that had resulted “in real harm to consumers and to innovation in the online search and advertising markets.” Staff from the agency’s competition division had recommended that the FTC file suit against the company, but the agency’s commissioners voted against that recommendation—and kept the public in the dark about the fact that it had been made.
It wasn’t always this way. When Franklin Roosevelt decided, in his second term, that restoring prosperity would require breaking the grip of dominant corporations, he hired a spirited lawyer from Wyoming named Thurman Arnold to run the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. Arnold believed that, to take on titans like Dupont and Alcoa, he would need to build broad support for the agency’s mission. Soon after taking the job, he made the case for stepped-up action against monopolies in an essay penned for his fellow citizens and published in The New York Times Magazine. Under his direction, the division opened regional offices across the country to uncover antitrust violations, and it began issuing detailed public statements with every case it prosecuted. Within two years, the division’s caseload had grown eightfold and its activities were regularly covered by the news media.
It’s time to bring this spirit of transparency and public oversight back to the DOJ and the FTC.
About three-quarters of industries are more concentrated than they were 20 years ago, and much of this increase has been fueled by mergers. The tipping point came in 1982, when Ronald Reagan’s DOJ adopted new guidelines for reviewing mergers. Prior to this, the DOJ’s merger guidelines had focused on market structure, and embodied the idea that having many competitors in an industry generally produced the best outcomes. The guidelines even stipulated specific market-share thresholds that would generally cause a merger to be opposed by the government.
The 1982 guidelines represented a radical change in thinking. They were the culmination of an ideological movement led by Robert Bork, a prominent legal scholar and Nixon’s solicitor general. Bork believed that the only aim of antitrust policy should be maximizing efficiency, which would lead to lower prices. His “consumer welfare standard” has been the centerpiece of merger policy ever since, embraced by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
As a consequence, merger reviews have become highly technical affairs, hinging on complex economic analyses. If the corporations involved can show that the merger will produce efficiencies that open the way for lower prices, then their marriage plans generally win the DOJ’s blessing.
As it turns out, however, these economic models are not very good at predicting future prices. John Kwoka, an economics professor at Northeastern University, recently studied the outcomes of dozens of major mergers. In 75 to 80 percent of the cases, he found, they had led to sizable price increases. Meanwhile, new scholarship has concluded that rising concentration is pushing down wages and causing other problems, like widening geographic disparities, that current merger-review policy sidelines as irrelevant considerations.
It’s time to dump Bork’s consumer-welfare standard and bring back an approach to reviewing mergers that recognizes that promoting competition, not efficiency, best serves the public interest. Altering the merger guidelines is something a future administration could do—as could the current one, at least in theory—and the idea is beginning to find some traction. Last year, the Democratic Party released a platform of proposals that included creating new standards for reviewing mergers. And in December, the Senate’s bipartisan Antitrust Subcommittee held a hearing on whether the consumer-welfare standard is outdated. Although four of the five invited witnesses, including two conservatives and two liberals, argued for keeping it (though they differed on whether to enforce it with more vigor), that the discussion took place at all was nevertheless a breakthrough.
Google, Facebook, and Amazon pose such a fundamental threat to American democracy that the only rational solution is to break them up.
These companies command markets to a degree that makes agribusiness and airline giants seem meek by comparison. Google controls 92 percent of internet searches. Last year, Google and Facebook attracted an estimated 84 percent of global spending on digital advertising, excluding China. Amazon owns over 70 percent of the market for e-books and, through the spread of Alexa, 71 percent of the in-home voice market.
One reason these pervasive digital platforms constitute an existential danger is that they control the fates of so many other businesses. Retailers and manufacturers at once compete with Amazon and depend on it to reach the market. Media companies are beholden to the algorithms of Facebook and Google. Google has used its control of search to privilege its own travel and shopping services, while marginalizing those of rivals. In 2013, Facebook bought a tiny start-up, Onavo, and used its technology to spy on smartphone users as a way to detect popular new apps early and then either buy them or copy their functionality.
A second reason these firms have become dangerous is that they control the flow of ideas and information—an arrangement no democracy can tolerate. They mediate our interactions, and they decide which sites show up when we search; which news stories, real and fake, we encounter in our feeds; and which books we run across. Surveillance is a central strategy of all three of these tech monopolies. And they all use the extensive data they’ve gathered about us to hinder upstart competitors, keep us tuned into their services, and otherwise sustain their dominant positions.
What would breaking up these companies look like? It would essentially mean removing the conflicts of interest at the heart of these digital giants by compelling them to spin off their platforms, which provide market access for other firms, from the other parts of their business that compete with those same firms.
That process would likely begin with an antitrust investigation. Last November, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican, launched an antitrust investigation of Google. His office is looking at, among other things, whether Google manipulates search results to favor its own products over those of its competitors, in violation of the state’s antitrust laws. It would be a promising development if other state attorneys general, who have broad authority to protect their citizens from monopolies, did the same. Many of the nation’s most pivotal antitrust cases, including those that led to the break-up of Standard Oil and the almost-break-up of Microsoft, were first initiated by state investigations and later taken up by federal antitrust enforcers.
Today’s monopolists have found that they don’t have to out-compete their smaller competitors to gain market share. Instead, they can use their size and financial resources to muscle them aside.
Walmart, for instance, demands that, for 80 percent of the groceries it buys, suppliers offer it prices that are 15 percent lower than those they give to its competitors. And Walmart has such a commanding share of the nation’s grocery market that many suppliers feel they must comply. As a result, independent grocers and competing chains, even those buying at high volumes, pay more. Over time, they’ve lost ground to Walmart, which, in 2015, captured half of grocery sales in more than 40 metro areas.
Amazon, meanwhile, has routinely flexed another monopoly muscle available to deep-pocketed companies: selling goods below cost. When the online shoe retailer Zappos soared in popularity in the mid 2000s, Amazon began selling shoes at loss, eventually losing an estimated $150 million. The strategy worked: Unable to sustain similar money-losing prices, Zappos agreed to a merger. Today, Zappos is Amazon.
Amazon’s investors, content to forgo present returns for future market dominance, have happily supported this strategy, and the company has used it repeatedly. It bled money on diapers to capsize and eventually buy Quidsi, the firm behind Diapers.com, and for years, sold books at a loss to squeeze out competing booksellers.
US antitrust law technically bans this kind of behavior. Predatory pricing, or selling goods below cost with the intent of harming competition, is illegal under the Sherman Act, while price discrimination, achieved by demanding special discounts from suppliers, is prohibited by the Robinson-Patman Act. Congress passed the latter in 1936 in response to the growing power of the A&P grocery chain. The idea behind these laws was that companies should win by competing, not by using their financial resources to warp markets in their favor. And for a long time they worked: A&P grew to be a national grocer, but it never overwhelmed the food industry to the degree Walmart has.
What changed is that, in the 1980s, as the consumer welfare framework took hold, the US Supreme Court began to shift how it viewed predatory pricing and price discrimination cases. Consumers, the Court reasoned, were benefitting from lower prices. It therefore set an almost impossibly high bar for ruling against such behavior, even if it harmed competition. “While predatory pricing technically remains illegal, it is extremely difficult to win predatory pricing claims,” notes Lina Khan, a legal scholar with the Open Markets Institute.
Khan argues that the doctrine the Supreme Court adopted in the 1980s to analyze predatory pricing cases urgently needs to be revisited. This is especially true in light of “the economics of platform markets, where firms can sink money for years given unlimited investor backing.” That kind of shift in jurisprudence will take patient work by legal scholars, attorneys, and judges. But the good news is that that work has already begun, led by Khan and others.
A growing number of places are taking up the cause. In a statewide referendum in 2016, Oklahoma voters strongly favored a policy to check the power of large agribusiness. A few years ago, Jersey City capped how much space chain retailers may occupy in its downtown, as part of a broader effort that has led to the opening of hundreds of new local businesses. In 2014, the citizens of North Dakota voted overwhelmingly to keep their state’s pharmacy ownership law, which mandates that pharmacies be independently owned and has largely spared North Dakotans from the higher prices and other harms that the rest of the country is seeing as a result of concentration in the prescription benefits industry.
Cities are also sidestepping monopolies by creating their own public options. Half of US households have, at most, only one provider to choose from for high-speed Internet access. While the federal government has been content to let these monopolies maintain their chokehold, many municipalities have not been. Dozens have built their own publicly owned high-speed fiber networks. As a result, some of the country’s best Internet service is now found in out-of-the-way places, like Ammon, Idaho; and Wilson, North Carolina. And, unlike the private monopolies they compete with, these public options have no intention of abandoning net neutrality.
Scanning the country with this lens, it’s possible to trace the broad outlines of an anti-monopoly movement—one whose geography, it’s worth noting, suggests a latent potential to rearrange America’s divided electoral map. Right now, though, these scattered uprisings are not linked as part of a common cause.
Today’s political leaders have an opening to do what Franklin did. It’s up to us to help them see and grasp that opportunity. We can do that by passing local laws to limit the reach of monopolies in our own communities and demanding transparency from the nation’s antitrust enforcers. Most important, we need to speak up about the ways monopoly is affecting our own lives—ideally at a series of congressional field hearings.


Death Valley is famous among geologists because it offers the chance to study a variety of exposed and accessible ancient rock.
The mountains of Death Valley are dry and sparsely vegetated, supporting some grasses and the odd creosote bush and cactus.
Caltech's John Grotzinger, lead scientist for the Curiosity Mars rover mission, likes to get white cars for his geology field trips, so he can use the vehicles as mobile dry erase boards.
A coachwhip — a fast-moving, nonvenomous snake — cruised through the courtyard of our hotel in Shoshone, Calif., on April 30, 2012.
A rusty old bed frame bakes in the Death Valley sun. Many prospectors came here in the early to mid-20th century to seek their fortunes in precious metals, but few struck it big.
An old talc mine in Death Valley. Nearby are great fossils of billion-year-old stromatolites, mound-like structures built by sediment-trapping microbial mats.
Caltech's John Grotzinger, lead scientist for NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, discusses Death Valley geology and points out our route up a slope on May 1, 2012.
An ancient lake bed sits beyond a mountain range in Death Valley.
A group of science reporters hikes up a Death Valley slope on May 1, 2012.


The Mueller report notwithstanding, the Leftmedia won't concede that Trump isn't a criminal.
Wondering just how obsessed the Leftmedia was (and still is) with Robert Mueller’s just-concluded investigation into Donald Trump? Well, here’s your answer.
Two prominent newspapers even won Pulitzers for peddling Russian-collusion drivel.
Indictments for Trump and Co.
Of course they do. The thing about witch hunts is that they never end.


A respected member of Lebanon County’s law enforcement community died Monday morning.
Ray Barry passed away suddenly after collapsing at his home on Bollman Street in Lebanon. He was 65.
Barry’s career in law enforcement spanned four decades, including 21 years as chief of Cleona Borough Police Department. He retired in August of 2015, but kept busy working part-time for the Lebanon County Sheriff’s Office and teaching law enforcement classes at Lebanon Valley College and Harrisburg Area Community College.
Barry grew up in Lebanon and settled on a career in public service at an early age.
The viewing will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 2 from 6 to 8 p.m. at Kreamer's Funeral Home, 618 E. Main St., Annville.
Funeral services will be held on Thursday, Aug. 3 at the Good Shepherd Church, 1500 Quentin Rd., Lebanon. The viewing will begin at 10 a.m. and services will begin at 11 a.m. Interment will follow at Indiantown Gap National Cemetery in Annville.
The procession to Indiantown Gap National Cemetery will depart between approximately 11:50 a.m. and 12 p.m. The route for the procession will begin at the Good Shepherd Church, follow Rt. 72 to Rt. 422 and continue to the cemetery via Rt. 934. There will be a flag arch at the cemetery as well as multiple fire police and EMS agencies participating in the procession.


May 28, 2016  "[C]ancelling or changing the location of the 2016 Olympics will not significantly alter the international spread of Zika virus," WHO says, after scientists called for the Games to be moved.
May 12, 2016  Brazil's first female president was suspended on Thursday, and the man replacing her quickly installed a new Cabinet that has no women.
May 12, 2016  Brazil's Senate voted overwhelmingly to try President Dilma Rousseff for alleged manipulation of the country's budget. She is now suspended as president as impeachment proceedings move forward.
May 11, 2016  Brazilian media report that a majority of senators have said they will approve the impeachment trial of Dilma Rousseff — although some face scandalous allegations of their own.
May 9, 2016  The speaker of Brazil's lower house of Congress annulled a vote on the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. And then he decided to reverse his decision.
April 18, 2016  The embattled president says the vote to impeach her is "an attempt at indirect election because those who want to rise to power would not have the votes to do so in a normal election."
April 17, 2016  The 367 to 137 vote Sunday easily surpassed the two-thirds majority required to send the proceeding to Brazil's Senate.
April 15, 2016  Early Friday morning, the country's Supreme Court ruled it will allow the impeachment proceedings to move forward. The lower house is expected to vote on Sunday.


A Jersey City 24-year-old with a criminal past turned himself in last night to police, facing a murder charge for a fatal shooting Friday.
Daquan Mixson, accompanied by his attorney, turned himself in last night at about 8 p.m., Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Gene Rubino said. Mixson is charged with the fatal Friday shooting of 21-year-old Darius Dashawn Redmon. Redmon died Saturday.
This development ends the weekend hunt for a suspect police considered armed and dangerous. Mixson is currently being held at Hudson County jail on $1 million bail.
This is not the felon's first run-in with the law. Mixson is a reputed member of the 52 Hoover Street Gangsta Crips in Jersey City, whose previous offenses include running over a 6-year-old boy and dragging him for over 70 feet before fleeing the scene in July 2008.
After being in an induced coma for several weeks, the young boy, Jabari Cooley, miraculously survived. In that case, authorities tracked Mixson down in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., and in June 2009 he pleaded guilty to assault by auto.
In September 2009, Mixson was among a dozen people indicted on various charges, including conspiring to commit four murders, as members of the 52 Hoover Street Gangsta Crips.
In September 2007, Mixson, then 17, and his brother filed an internal affairs complaint accusing police of using excessive force during an arrest on aggravated assault charges.
Today, Mixson is charged with the fatal shooting of Darius Dashawn Redmon, who police say was found unconscious in the back seat of a vehicle outside the Booker T. Washington housing complex, known as the home base of the Hoover Street Gangsta Crips, on Friday.
Police had entered the Booker T. complex to search for a man suspected of assaulting a cop when some 200 people interfered with their search.
According to the prosecutor's office, a vehicle pulled up about 11:30 p.m. Friday to the Jersey City Police Department's West District on Communipaw Avenue with three men who told police someone had been shot.
Redmon was unconscious in the back seat of the vehicle with an apparent gunshot wound to his head, the prosecutor's office said.
Police found Redmon with an apparent gunshot wound to his head, the prosecutor's office said, and pulled him out of the vehicle to administer CPR until Emergency Medical Services arrived and transported the victim to the Jersey City Medical Center in critical condition. Redmon was pronounced dead shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, authorities said.
The investigation revealed that Redmon was shot while inside the vehicle in the area of the Booker T. Washington housing complex near Fremont and Colden streets in Jersey City.
Heavily-armed members of the Jersey City Emergency Services Unit descended yesterday afternoon upon a building at 16th and Coles street searching for a “shooting suspect,” according to police radio transmissions. Police cleared the area about 3 p.m. without making any arrests.
Mixson's uncle, Lance Mixson, was shot and killed on Jan. 9, 2013. No one has been charged in his murder, his sister, who is Daquan's mother, told The Jersey Journal this morning.
Anyone with information about the fatal shooting is asked to contact the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Unit at (201) 915-1345 or by email at hcpotips@hcpo.org. All contacts will be kept confidential.


The Fort Mill High School girls soccer team knew what it was getting into as the bus rolled into Clover Friday night.
The two teams met with the top spot in the region on the line, a position the Lady Jackets have held for much of the past five years and something that Clover was poised to challenge for this season.
It took a goal by Fort Mill team captain Taylor Parker, more than midway through the second half, to finally put away the Eagles 1-0 in an emotional meeting. Fort Mill Head Coach Vic Johnson credited the Clover team for a hard-fought match and said he was impressed with the way that they played.
"Our first half was very average, mainly because of Clover's intensity," Johnson said. "I thought they outplayed us, they really outworked us...it was their home field, they wanted it more."