Cataracts are cloudy areas that form in the lens, which is normally transparent. They are the main cause of vision loss in people aged over 40 years.
Cataracts cause more vision problems globally than any other eye condition or disease, and the number of cataracts is increasing with the aging population.
In the United States in 2010, there were 20.48 million cases, rising to 24.41 million in 2015. By 2050, nearly 50 million Americans are expected to have cataracts.
A cataract causes a part of the lens to becomes opaque, or cloudy. Light does not pass through easily, and vision becomes blurry, like looking through a fogged-up window. The cloudier the lens, the worse the vision will be.
Congenital cataracts may be present at birth or appear shortly after, or at some time during infancy or childhood.
Age-related cataracts appear later in life and are the most common type. This article will focus on age-related cataracts.
Cataract surgery is a routine operation nowadays and the most common kind of eye surgery.
A doctor will normally recommend surgery for cataracts.
For severe cataracts, the only effective treatment is surgery.
Patients who take alpha-blockers or are considering taking alpha-blockers should be aware that these drugs may increase the difficulty of cataract surgery.
Pre-operative assessment: Before surgery, the specialist will assess the patient's eyes and general health. The eye will be measured so that the replacement artificial lens can be prepared.
Before the operation: Eye drops will be given just before the procedure, to dilate, or widen, the pupils. Sometimes the eye drops will contain an anesthetic, or the doctor may inject local anesthesia into the tissue around the eye.
As the anesthetic starts working, the area will become numb, and the patient will feel nothing. During the operation they will be aware of a bright light, but they will not be able to see what is happening. Cataract surgery is normally keyhole, or minimally invasive, surgery, and the patient will return home on the same day.
The operation involves removing the cloudy lens from the eye and putting an artificial, clear, plastic one in its place. This is an intraocular implant, or an intraocular lens.
This is known as phacoemulsification or phaco-extracapsular extraction.
The eye surgeon makes a tiny cut in the cornea at the front and inserts a minute probe through the cut. The probe uses ultrasound and breaks up the cloudy lens into very small pieces. These are sucked out.
The artificial lens is then inserted through the cut. The lens capsule acts as a pocket, to hold the lens in place. When it is first inserted the lens is folded, but it unfolds when in position.
The whole procedure takes around 30 minutes. Most patients will wear an eye pad for protection for a short while.
In manual extracapsular extraction, the lens is removed in one piece, and no ultrasound is used to break it up. The surgeon will make a slightly larger cut in the eye.
In intracapsular extraction, both the lens capsule and the lens are removed. The artificial lens is sewn into the eye. This type of procedure is much less common.
If both eyes need operating, this will usually be done 4 weeks apart.
Cataract surgery may be done using traditional tools, or it may be laser-assisted.
Laser may later be used to solve a complication known as after-cataract surgery that may occur months or years later.
For most patients, vision improves almost immediately. It may take a while for the eye to settle down completely. Sometimes, the cut in the eye needs a stitch, but this is normally small enough to heal by itself.
Patients should avoid vigorous activities for a while, but most people find they can go about their daily activities as soon as they get home.
The patient will need a vision test, because they will probably need different glasses after their operation. The new glasses can only be determined after their vision has settled down, but this can take several weeks.
Cataracts cause the lens to become cloudy.
Cataracts normally take years to develop, and they tend to appear in older age. The lens gradually becomes cloudy.
Cataracts can make it hard to read or drive a car, especially during the night. Seeing people's facial expressions can become difficult.
They develop slowly, so most people do not know they have them at first, but as the clouding progresses, the vision gradually gets worse. Long-distance vision is more severely affected at the beginning.
Cataracts often affect both eyes, but rarely equally.
As vision deteriorates, and the glare of oncoming headlights and street lights gets worse, driving becomes dangerous. Drivers with cataracts start to experience eyestrain and find themselves blinking more frequently as they try to clear their vision.
Cataracts do not usually change the appearance of the eye. Any discomfort such as irritation, aching, itching or redness is more likely caused by another eye disorder.
Cataracts are not hazardous to the health of the person or the eye. If the cataract becomes hypermature, or completely white, there may be inflammation, headache, and some pain. A hypermature cataract that causes pain or inflammation needs to be removed.
Anyone can develop a cataract, because the greatest risk factor is age.
In the U.S., over 40 percent of people aged 75 years or above have some degree of lens clouding. Over half of all Americans aged 80 or greater have their vision significantly impaired by cataracts.
Airline pilots are more likely to develop nuclear cataracts, because of exposure to ionizing radiation.
If the impact is mild, surgical treatment may not be needed. During the early stages, stronger glasses and brighter lights may help improve vision.
These are temporary measures, because the cataracts will continue to develop and the eyesight will worsen.
As it becomes harder to carry out everyday tasks, the individual may need surgery. This is usually a safe and effective procedure.
To minimize the complications of cataracts, people should have regular eye exams, especially as they get older.
The following tips can reduce the risk of developing cataracts. Some have been proven to work, while others are not confirmed.
Giving up smoking: Smoking raises the risk of a number of eye conditions, and studies have linked it to a 3-fold increase in cataracts. There are also indications that smokers may experience cataract symptoms earlier.
Nutrition: Healthy food reduces the risk of disease, including eye problems. A healthy diet has plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, unrefined carbohydrates, good quality fats, such as avocado, olive oil, and omega oils, and either plant-sourced proteins or lean, animal-sourced proteins.
Lutein and zeaxanthin have been described as "promising" in preventing cataracts.
Obesity and diabetes: Obesity significantly raises the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a cataract risk factor. Maintaining a healthy weight and keeping diabetes under control will help reduce the risk.
Research has suggested that pycnogenol, a pine bark extract, may help reduce the risk of cataracts.
There are different types of cataract. Some of them are not related to age.
Secondary cataract: These can develop after eye surgery for other conditions, such as glaucoma, or as a result of health issues such as diabetes. Steroid use may increase the risk.
Traumatic cataract: An eye injury may trigger a cataract, up to several years later.
Radiation cataract: Some type of radiation exposure can lead to cataract formation.
Congenital cataract: A cataract may be present at birth, often in both eyes. They do not always affect vision, but if they do, surgery may be needed.
Anybody who experiences vision problems should see a doctor, who then may refer them to an ophthalmologist or optometrist.
An eye examination and some tests can reveal a cataract.
An ophthalmologist specializes in the medical and surgical care of the eye, while an optometrist provides eye care, but not surgery.
The eye specialist will carry out tests.
A visual acuity test, to find out how clearly the person can see an object. It involves reading a list of letters from across a room.
A slit-lamp examination uses a microscope to inspect the cornea, the iris, the lens, and the space between the iris and the cornea.
Tonometry measures the pressure inside the eye.
A retinal examination is carried out after using eye drops to dilate the pupils.
In a retinal examination, dilating the pupils provides a larger window to the back of the eyes. The specialist examines the lens for signs of a cataract, and to see how dense any clouding is.
Nordqvist, Christian. "What you need to know about cataracts." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 19 Dec. 2017. Web.


A police officer said that "There are 100 such buildings in Mumbai, where anything can happen in the monsoon."
At least 20 people were killed and more than a dozen injured when an old residential building collapsed in India's financial capital of Mumbai on Wednesday as heavy monsoon rains continued to drench the western city.
Police said the five-storey building in a narrow lane was declared "unsafe" and that calls for residents to vacate it had been ignored. About 100 people lived in the building but most were either not there or had been rescued, they said.
"There are 100 such buildings in Mumbai, where anything can happen in the monsoon," police officer K.L. Prasad told Reuters from Mumbai.
"Today's accident is an example and was waiting to happen." Hundreds of people gathered around the area as rescue workers lifted concrete slabs and combed through debris looking for survivors, witnesses said.
Police cordoned off the area and emergency workers were seen removing people on stretchers to hospitals, television pictures showed. "The number of injured could go up further," Prasad said.
More than 60 people have been killed in the past week when the monsoon rains triggered flooding in southern Andhra Pradesh state, with tens of thousands moved to makeshift camps.


Is it enough to arrest slide in government market?
Research In Motion has won much-coveted US government security clearance for its BlackBerry 10 devices which are due to hit store shelves in the first quarter of 2013.
The company said the new enterprise management platform has received certification that would allow government agencies to deploy the new smartphones as soon as they are launched.
But RIM must still convince the agencies to stick with its security-focused smartphones and deploy the new BB10 devices, which will come in keyboard and touchscreen models.
Some agencies are already looking at alternative providers, eroding a market that RIM has dominated for years.
RIM pioneered mobile devices for email, but its fortunes faded as rivals like Apple and Samsung came up with faster, fancier devices.
RIM's stock and market share have slumped, and its fate is tied to the success of the new BB10 (BlackBerry 10) devices.
RIM, based in Waterloo, Ontario, said it was the first time a BlackBerry product had won Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 certification ahead of launch.
Last month, RIM said it had begun carrier tests on the BB10 devices, which the company hopes will help it regain some of the market share it has lost to Apple's iPhone and devices that run on Google's Android operating system.
FIPS certification, from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is one of the minimum criteria for products used by US government agencies and regulated industries that collect, store, transfer, share and disseminate sensitive information.
The stamp of approval gives confidence that data on smartphones running BB10 can be properly secured and encrypted.
"I think this was a prerequisite for the new platform," said Atlantic Equities analyst James Cordwell.
"Although government agencies are exploring other options, there's still a significant installed base of enterprises that use BlackBerry."
The certification provides a bit of a boost to RIM after the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said last month it would end its contract with the BlackBerry maker and instead buy iPhones for more than 17,000 employees.
The Pentagon recently said it will continue to support "large numbers" of BlackBerry phones, even as it moves forward with plans to allow the US military to use iPhones and other devices.
RIM says BB10 will be much smoother and faster than its existing devices and can manage corporate and personal data separately.
The company has been showcasing the new phones to developers at BlackBerry Jam sessions around the globe, seeking a critical mass of apps for its new devices to succeed.
The devices have been well received by the developer community, but financial analysts have mixed views on their likely reception in an ultra-competitive market.
Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette warned earlier this week that BlackBerry 10 is likely to be DOA — dead on arrival — with an operating system that gets "a lukewarm response at best," due to the unfamiliar user interface and a shortage of apps.
But Paradigm Capital analyst Gabriel Leung said the devices could help push back RIM's market share losses in such crucial markets as North America.
"We believe the company has significantly improved its ability to attract developers to build apps for the BB10 ecosystem," Leung said.


Last Saturday, medieval fighting enthusiast gathered in Saula to make battle with sword and shield.
The open tournament on full contact medieval fighting, organized by the Estonian Historical Fencing Association, took place in the Viking Village in Saula on September 5.
Medieval knights fought in three categries: in the Iron League, a duel with sword and shield, and HMB Buhurt 5vs5.
Watch the video from 00:12 onward to see some action.


United States that investors believe could damage global growth.
or he would terminate the trilateral pact altogether.
referring to the U.S. Labor Day holiday.
Macri's ability to rein in a fiscal deficit and curb inflation.
the International Monetary Fund (IMF).


Longtime tenant Occidental Oil and Gas Corp. signed a lease extension for space in 3 and 5 Greenway Plaza.
Occidental has been in Greenway Plaza since 1987. The size of the lease was not disclosed.
Boykin, Warren Savery and Bubba Harkins represented the owner, Crescent Crown Greenway Plaza SPV. Charles Gordon and Brandon Clarke of CBRE represented Occidental.
Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. employs 1,849 people in Houston. The company operates in three core areas: the United States, Middle East/North Africa and Latin America. Its OxyChem subsidiary manufactures and markets chemicals.
The company came to Texas in 1963. It has oil, gas and chemical operations in Deer Park, La Porte and Pasadena in the Houston area, and in Dallas, Denver City, Fort Stockton, Ingleside, McAllen, Midland and Odessa.


Public housing applicants will have to get a job if they want a taxpayer-funded home under a tough new test to be introduced in NSW.
The state government is overhauling the public housing system to punish those locked out of the workforce by the slow economy.
Currently, less than a quarter of social housing tenants are in the workforce.
There are about 55,000 people on the public housing waitlist in NSW, and under the new program they will be able to skip the queue if they agree to get a job.
But if they get into the home then fail to get a job or maintain work they will be booted from the property.
Once they are secure in a job they will then move into the private rental market and out of the welfare system.
Social Housing Minister Pru Goward said the program will "help break the cycle of disadvantage".
"This is about equipping tenants with the skills they need to not only obtain a job, but keep it over the longer term and achieve their full potential," she said.
"We also want to set to a clear expectation that social housing is not for life and, for those who can work, social housing should be used as a stepping stone to moving into the private rental market."
The new program will be trialled in Punchbowl and Towradgi, near Wollongong, for three years across 20 properties. Its success will be evaluated over this time and it's likely the program will be expanded across the state.
Homes will be leased for six months at a time, with renewal dependent on the resident maintaining their job or education, such as TAFE, and meeting agreed goals within the plan.
People in social housing such as housing commission blocks in Surry Hills pay cheap rent, as low as 20 per cent of normal rates, taken from their Centrelink payments.
The trial is part of the $42.6 million Opportunity Pathways program, which will connect 3000 public tenants with jobs or study as well as helping them write resumes and conduct job interviews.
"We hope through employment and education we can divert people from the need to enter social housing," Ms Goward said.
A new trial by the government to link public housing to having a job has split opinion among residents who live in the properties.
Luis Lopez, 66, a resident of Northcott public housing project in Surry Hills, said any young people capable of working should be banned from properties.
"The government shouldn't let people who are under 50 and can get a job to go into housing because they can obviously support themselves," Mr Lopez said.
Sharna Millard, 27, lives in the block and is unable to work currently due to health problems.
"Even people who earn more than $500 a week can barely afford rent and the money you get (from Centrelink) barely does anything," she said.
Matthew Towt, 65, has been in housing for five years.
"Because of my age I don't want to look for a job, but even if I wanted one there just aren't many jobs out there."


Bill Clinton, getting a little too explicit in explaining the need for a new administration.
John McCain on September 15, what has now come to be known as Black Monday.
Sarah Palin, trying to validate her foreign policy experience in an interview with Katie Couric.
Sen. Joe Biden introducing his running mate.
Barack Obama comments on small-town Pennsylvanians during Democratic primary season.


EMBATTLED “mob cop” Lou Eppolito says the prosecution’s star witness might just have put his foot in his mouth.
During lunch yesterday, Eppolito, clearly in an upbeat mood, told me, “Now, Burt [Kaplan] said on the witness stand that he would meet me and Steve [Caracappa] at least three times a month over . . . three years.” That would mean they’d all met, give or take a few days, about 140 times.
Now ask anyone about the feds and their surveillance, when it comes to both hidden audio and video surveillance – second to none. “Kaplan said that he operated during his criminal career as if he was always under surveillance,” Eppolito said.
I don’t believe the feds were asleep at the wheel.
Now while this is no slam dunk for the defense, it has to raise a question mark in the jury’s mind.
Kaplan conceded that he thought they may have put a tracking device on his car but dismissed it. Kaplan told the court they would meet in a Staten Island cemetery or they would come to Kaplan’s house late at night and that they used the code word ‘Marco’ when talking on the phone.
Not very sophisticated for a brilliant man who believed the feds were watching him.
Kaplan on the stand revealed how in the 1980s Lou needed a loan for two houses, one he was building and one he wanted to buy. The builder did not have money to make things straight with Eppolito.


Bill Scott has always had the goal of reaching the NHL.
That dream came to fruition on Monday morning as the Edmonton Oilers announced that Scott would become the team’s new Assistant General Manager, replacing Ricky Olczyk.
"I would like to welcome Bill and his family to Edmonton,” Oilers General Manager Craig MacTavish said in a press release following the announcement. “Bill has done an exceptional job managing all facets of the Barons day-to-day operations and has played a large part in their success over the past four years."
Scott started as a student manager with the Spartans hockey team at Michigan State University, where he graduated with a degree in Business Management. He interned under Predators Executive Vice President and General Manager David Poile in Nashville and then moved on to work in the ECHL, then served as Director of Hockey Operations for the American Hockey League. He has since spent the past four seasons as the general manager of the Oilers’ farm team in the AHL, the Oklahoma City Barons.
It has been a long and yet quick journey to the Oilers front office for Scott. At just 33 years-old, Scott makes the jump from the AHL to the NHL in a prominent position with an organization that knows him well. Scott says he’s been the beneficiary of some well-placed and well-timed career moves and opportunities thus far in his career, all along the path that has led to Edmonton.
The Unionville, Ontario native now returns to his home country to further his career, an exciting time for the man who has spent the past four years tending the farm for the Oilers.
Scott replaces Olczyk, whom the Oilers say was offered a position within the organization but has ‘respectfully declined the offer at this time’. In Scott, the Oilers get someone who has familiarity with the organization and has worked closely with the management staff over the last few years.
By adding Scott to the mix, MacTavish is also gaining someone with a similar vision for the direction of the organization. Scott says he and MacTavish hit it off right away and see eye-to-eye on a lot of issues surrounding the club.
Scott’s main duties in Oklahoma City revolved around maintaining contact with MacTavish and the rest of the Oilers decision makers. He provided updates on prospects, their performance, development, health and talent on a daily basis. He provided assessment and information on who might be the best fit for call ups and he mined the ECHL for talent while assessing other team’s players in the AHL as well.
With Edmonton, Scott’s responsibilities will include contract negotiations for players and staff, scheduling, salary arbitration, salary cap management and other administrative duties. These responsibilities are all too familiar to Scott from his time in Oklahoma City.
Scott will also serve as the Oilers’ liaison to the NHL for matters pertaining to the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
During Scott’s time with the Barons, the team has made the playoffs for four straight seasons, there have been developmental successes in players like Martin Marincin and the organization did well with an ECHL acquisition of Mark Arcobello. Scott says there have been positives and successes but it’s not on the general manager alone to take the credit. He also says the atmosphere created in Oklahoma City, in resurrecting a development program for the Oilers, was the biggest success to date for the Barons.
That atmosphere created in Oklahoma City is something Scott says reflects his own management style. He hopes to bring those qualities along with hard work and success to the big club.
Scott will remain with the Barons throughout their playoff run before making the move to Edmonton. The goal is still to win a Calder Cup as a general manager at that level. However, Scott will begin work right away to transition to his new post as the off-season will begin to heat up very quickly.


Just like so many other attributes of the Christian life, the key to rest is in our attitude.
Jesus said it best, of course. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, he told us it was not enough to refrain from murdering; one has to purge hatred from the heart. Also, it is not enough to refrain from committing adultery; one has to abandon lust as well.
We must refrain from what I have formerly called the “headless chicken syndrome.” This is when we run around like a chicken with its head cut off, going from activity to activity, desperately trying to fill our time for one reason or another, caught up in the “hamster wheel” of 21st-century life.
Of course, some days or weeks are headless chicken days or weeks. Oftentimes, we cannot help being busy and sometimes circumstances are beyond our control. However, like I said, it is our attitude that counts.
The next time you find yourself running around the proverbial barnyard in an aimless fashion, ask yourself, “Why am I doing what I am doing?” It could be that you are trying to please someone, or perhaps you have trouble just saying “no.” It could be that you feel guilty about something and you are trying to pay penance. (The only trouble with paying self-induced penance is that it will never be enough.) Maybe you are too busy because you are disorganized.
There are a multitude of reasons as to why we run around in a frenzy. However, once we start figuring out the whys and wherefores of why we are doing what we are doing, we have to be careful not to fill our time with other needless activities. That’s why the attitude is the heart of the matter. We will never be cured of the headless chicken syndrome until we get to the root of our behavior.
So what is this attitude of rest that I am trying to describe? It is peace. It is simplicity. It is the ability to maintain the right priorities. It is the desire to live a godly life, to develop a personal relationship with God. It’s the realization that you can pitch your Blackberry into the pond and everything will still be okay. That is the attitude of rest. It is worth working toward.
Alicia Gossman-Steeves is the managing editor of the La Junta (Colo.) Tribune-Democrat, Bent County Democrat, Fowler Tribune and the Ag Journal. She can be reached at editor@ljtdmail.com.


SPIELBERG, Austria (AP) Mercedes duo Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas were fastest in practice on Friday for the Austrian Formula One Grand Prix after an upgrade to the aerodynamics of their cars paid off.
With a new side pod design and an adapted rear wing, Hamilton led his team mate by 0.127 in the morning session and 0.176 in the afternoon.
Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who trails championship leader Hamilton by 14 points going into Sunday’s ninth of 21 races, had a fastest lap that was 0.236 behind Hamilton’s.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen had the fourth and fifth best times, respectively.
The changes to the aerodynamics of the chassis came a week after Mercedes finally introduced its improved engine, which helped Hamilton to a convincing win at the French GP.
Mercedes has won all four races since the Austrian GP returned to the calendar in 2014. Nico Rosberg took the first two editions, Hamilton triumphed in 2016, and Bottas last year. The Finnish driver also earned his first podium result here, in a Williams in 2014.
Fourth in the morning, Vettel reduced the gap to Hamilton in the afternoon, leaving the German hopeful for Saturday’s qualifying session.
Red Bull did not use a long-awaited improved Renault engine. The new version should make reliability better, according to the manufacturer, but the team decided not to deploy it as Verstappen and Ricciardo would have received grid penalties for using yet another version.
In first practice, Ricciardo spent time off the track as mechanics worked on his front left brakes. Verstappen spun his car on the fourth turn and ended up in the gravel but didn’t damage his car.
In the afternoon, the Dutch driver was slowed by a damaged floor.
McLaren was fined 10,000 euros ($11,500) for an ”unsafe release” after sending Stoffel Vandoorne out of the garage just as Vettel passed, forcing him to brake sharply.
”Did you see that?”, Vettel asked his team over the radio.
Surrounded by the Styrian Alps, the 4.3-kilometer Red Bull Ring is one of the fastest tracks on the circuit, with drivers on full throttle for about two-thirds of each lap and reaching an average speed of 240 kph.
New this year is a third zone where the drag reduction system can be used, helping with overtaking as it gives a speed boost to a chasing driver.
Not everyone approves, however. ”There are a lot of people that maybe like the idea of Mario Kart (…) but I think it shouldn’t get artificial,” Vettel said.
Third practice is scheduled for Saturday, followed by qualifying.


CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden will headline his first public event in about three weeks on Saturday— in Munich, Germany, nearly 5,000 miles from Iowa, site of the 2020 presidential campaign’s first contest.
In a wide-open race, Biden’s take-it-slow approach has given other candidates a head-start in fundraising, scooping up top-tier staff and perfecting their pitch to voters. It’s also given them a chance to chip away at what would be a central argument of a Biden campaign: that he is the only candidate who can defeat President Donald Trump in 2020.
Biden has said he’ll only run if he doesn’t believe Democrats have other viable options, and he’s privately raised doubts about the electability of some of his potential rivals, according to a person with knowledge of those conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about private discussions.
“While these others are here, I’m wondering if he would be committed to it,” Maybanks, a county prosecutor, said of Biden as he and his family gathered to hear New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker address Iowa voters.
The former vice president initially expected to make his decision by now. But he blew through a self-imposed January deadline without a campaign announcement, and some longtime allies say they simply don’t know when, or if, he’ll enter the race.
“He’s prepared, but he’s also doing his due diligence,” said Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond, the former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus who has spoken to Biden in the past two weeks.
But for now, he doesn’t have plans to visit any of the early states. He heads to Michigan on Tuesday to deliver a eulogy at a funeral for Democratic Rep. John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress. On Saturday, he’ll speak at a high-profile national security summit in Germany.
Biden advisers say he can afford to get a later start. After eight years as vice president, he’s well-known to most voters and has deep ties to Democratic activists in the early primary states. His tight-knit group of senior advisers is ready to swiftly stand up a campaign operation if Biden gives them the go-ahead.
The former vice president would also bring a more moderate track record to a campaign that is so far being defined by liberal candidates pushing big government programs, like a Green New Deal to tackle climate change and “Medicare-for-all.” Biden hasn’t endorsed either concept.
California Sen. Kamala Harris has set the pace for the field, drawing an eye-popping 20,000 people to her campaign launch last month. Her early start has also helped her campaign bank crucial information on voters, including boosting its email list by 20 percent on Harris’ first day as a candidate, according to a campaign aide.
Lesser-known candidates are using the winter to start making introductions to voters. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s team sought to maximize media attention by announcing an exploratory committee during a week in mid-January when no other major campaign announcements were planned. She followed that up with quick trips to each of the early voting states, including a three-day swing through South Carolina that wrapped up Sunday.
Although she’s only formed an exploratory committee at this point, Gillibrand has already hired 40 staffers.
Obama is said to have made similar points to the many prospective candidates he’s met with so far, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. While the former president hasn’t recommended a specific timetable to candidates, he has emphasized the importance of investing early in the kind of ground operations in Iowa and elsewhere that helped catapult him to the nomination in 2008.
While most Democratic White House hopefuls have made their intentions clear by now, a handful of others share Biden’s slower strategy.
Beto O’Rourke, who shot to Democratic stardom with his narrow defeat in last year’s Texas Senate race, says he’ll make a decision before the end of the month. O’Rourke will headline a march in his hometown of El Paso on Monday night, about a mile away from where Trump will be holding a re-election campaign rally.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders hasn’t said when he’ll decide whether to launch a second presidential campaign. But he’s kept making high-profile appearances, including delivering a rebuttal to Trump’s State of the Union address last week.


1958 – Betsy Rawls wins LPGA Tour St. Petersburg Open; first-place money – $1,248.
1975 – J.C. Snead wins PGA Tour Andy Williams-San Diego Open Invitational; first-place money – $34,000.
1986 – Corey Pavin wins PGA Tour Hawaiian Open; first-place money – $90,000.
1986 – Gary Player wins Senior PGA Tour General Foods PGA Seniors’ Championship; first-place money – $45,000.
1992 – Lee Janzen wins PGA Tour Northern Telecom Open; first-place money – $198,000.
1992 – Jim Colbert wins Senior PGA Tour GTE Suncoast Classic; first-place money – $67,500.
1997 – Terry-Jo Myers wins LPGA Tour Los Angeles Women’s Championship; first-place money – $97,500.
1997 – Paul Stankowski wins PGA Tour United Airlines Hawaiian Open; first-place money – $216,000.
1997 – David Graham wins Senior PGA Tour GTE Classic; first-place money – $135,000.
2003 – Tiger Woods wins PGA Tour Buick Invitational; first-place money – $810,000.
2003 – Vincente Fernandez wins PGA Champions Tour ACE Group Classic; first-place money – $240,000.
John Morse (52) of Marshall, Michigan; former PGA member; one-time winner on PGA Tour.
Mike Ford (57) of New York City, New York; former Canadian Tour member; winner of 1976 Port Jefferson Open.
Marlene Bauer Hagge (76) of Eureka, South Dakota; founding member of the LPGA Tour; 26-time winner on LPGA Tour, including major LPGA Championship; inducted into World Golf Hall of Fame in 2002.


Photo from the Long Beach Lifeguard Association.
Each candidate must bring picture identification such as a valid driver’s license, California identification card, or birth certificate with a school photo ID card, swimsuit and towel to the tryouts. Applicants aren’t required to have had training or experience prior to trying out. They must be 17 years or older by July 1, 2018 and anyone under 18 years old must possess a valid work permit.
Sign-ups begin at 8:00AM and tryouts will start at 9:00AM. The 1,000-yard swim and run-swim-run will determine which candidates will move forward to the pre-employment scored oral interviews that will take place at 12:30PM. The pre-employment oral interview will determine who qualifies for the Training Program. Candidates will be entered in the program once they complete all pre-employment forms and medical exam, according to the release.
The Training Program is scheduled for May 12, 20, 26-27, and June 2-3, 9-10 for a total of 80 hours and begins at 8:00AM each day. Training will include lifeguard tactics, lifeguard operations, first aid, Department of Transportation (D.O.T) first responder, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, rescue buoys, rescue boards and timed events. Day eight will include a comprehensive written and practical test.
The starting pay for a seasonal lifeguard is $19.97 per hour. Lifeguard duties include answering calls for help and performing rescue and resuscitation work, warning bathers of beach and water hazards, taking charge of lost children and assisting in salvage operations of small boats.
For more information on Sunday’s tryouts, visit the link here.
Long Beach Lifeguard Beach Operations is located at 2100 East Ocean Boulevard.


Cartoon depicting Irish nurses dancing alongside a leprechaun cases outcry online.
A cartoon published in The West Australian newspaper, depicting Irish nurses dancing alongside a leprechaun, has caused outcry online.
The satirical cartoon is related to the news that that St. John of Healthcare, a Western Australian hospital, plans to recruit 150 nurses, due to a predicted shortage of graduates. The hospital is seeking to hire Irish nurses. This move has been criticized in some quarters as an attempt to hire immigrants instead of hiring locals.
Visitors to the 'Irish People Living in Australia' Facebook page have vented their anger at the comic by cartoonist Dean Alston.
The 30,000-strong Facebook group requested an apology and threatened to contact the Australian Press Council.
In an email to the Irish Times Brett McCarthy, editor of The West Australian, said the cartoon was an “irreverent and a bit of fun”.
He wrote “As someone of Irish ancestry I’m totally baffled by the claim the cartoon was racist” said Mr McCarthy. “It is a light hearted portrayal of the nurses as fun loving Irish women (all of whom happen to be named Colleen) - how is that racist?
“They were not portrayed as incompetent or stupid.
Eoin Hahessy, an Irish emigration columnist working at University of Melbourne, spoke to IrishCentral about this case.
He continued “A lot of Australians don't realize it is offensive, but that is the problem, a joke like this would never be made about an Asian.
Earlier this year there was similar outcry in Australia led by the Irish Ambassador Noel White following the coverage surround the case of Padraig Gaffney, a man who pleaded guilty to causing $500,000 in damages to a Melbourne Hotel and was found dead just days later. The Age newspaper ran with the headline “Drunk Paddy in A$500k flood of tears”.
The Honorary Consulate of Ireland in Western Australia, Marty Kavanagh, has posted the article on their website, but as yet has not made a statement on the matter.
Do you think poking fun at the Irish is somehow not seen as racism? Let us know your views below.


Occupation: Shift manager at Quiznos at North Village Shopping Center on Longmeadow Road.
Hometown: Hammond, La. Now lives in Washington County.
Where would you see Murray? When she's not hiking the Appalachian Trail, Murray either is at work, or enjoying one of her creative pursuits - making music, painting or writing. In fact, it was the trail that brought Murray to Washington County in October 2005.
Murray's connection to the trail began in 1988, about a year before her almost 30-year marriage ended in divorce. She was living in Knoxville, Tenn., at the time, and decided to drive the 50 miles to Great Smoky Mountains National Park on a beautiful fall day.
Even though Murray never had done any hiking before, she said she fell in love with the trail.
"It just sort of drew me," said Murray, who also goes by the nickname "Louisiana Lou."
Murray is a section hiker - which means she hikes a portion of it at a time - as opposed to a through hiker, who hikes it from end to end at one time.
When she began hiking it, Murray was in her 40s and in condition to complete 20-mile day hikes. She said she is increasingly afflicted by rheumatoid arthritis, but is determined not to let that interfere with her goal of hiking the majority of the trail in sections.
Murray said her original goal was to hike the entire trail, but last fall, she "got real" with herself and decided she didn't have to hike "every inch of it." Her new goal is to complete 2,000 miles of the 2,160-mile trail that extends from Georgia to Maine. Murray said she has hiked more than 1,900 miles on the trail, 175 miles since moving to Hagerstown.
She day-hiked all of the trails in the Great Smoky Mountains in three to four years, and established the 900 Miler Association to honor hikers who had completed all of the trails in that park. One of her three sons, Andy, was the youngest person to earn the honor at age 14.
Having hiked most of the southern and northern sections of the trail, Murray decided she would need to move north to complete the middle sections in northern Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York.
She hadn't belonged to a church in 30 years, but after arriving in Hagerstown, Murray became a member of the Presbyterian Church of Hagerstown, where she attends church on Sunday. In search of a midweek service, she started attending the Wednesday evening services at St. John's Lutheran Church, where she now is a member of the New Spirit Praise Band.
"It doesn't make any sense to be a live wire if you're not connected to anything," Murray said.
A writer all her life, Murray has completed a manuscript detailing her experiences on the trail. She said most of the books published about trail hikers glorify the through hikers, and she wanted to present the perspective of the section hiker, which she said makes up the majority of hikers on the trail.
Titled "Blue Blazes and a Pickup Truck - Slow-Hiking the Appalachian Trail," Murray shares the lessons she has learned from hiking the trail. She met with members of the National Appalachian Trail Conservancy at Harpers Ferry in October about having the book published, but hasn't heard back from them.
Murray's dream is to travel as a representative for the conservancy, sharing stories from the trail and showing her paintings of scenes along the way.
"I want to return something to the Appalachian Trail that has given so much to me," Murray said.
Hobbies: Working six days a week leaves little time for hobbies. Murray, who was born on Mozart's birthday in Seattle, said she has had about 10 careers, from typesetter and art director for a newspaper to secondhand shop owner to food service worker.
Music was a hobby in her teens when she was in a rock 'n' roll band, and became a career for about seven years in the 1960s.
She said she started taking piano lessons at age 4, composing music at age 6, and while a senior at a Catholic girls' high school, she won a piano concerto contest and debuted with the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra, then played in a student concert with the New Orleans Symphony.
Murray, who plays piano, alto saxophone, guitar, drums and trumpet, studied music composition at Louisiana State University for 3 1/2 years and dropped out just short of graduating when she became pregnant with her first child. She felt not having a degree wouldn't prevent her from pursuing music as a career.
What does Murray like best about Washington County? Murray didn't know where she would settle as she headed north, but when she drove through Hagerstown, she said she liked the energy of the town, where there was new construction in a city that seemed rooted in its history.
"I liked the mix of new and old," Murray said. "It's not a sleepy little town."


The government of this oil-rich twin-island republic yesterday said it had applied for membership in the Brussels-based Egmont group of Financial Intelligent Units (FIUs).
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday that this year's wheat harvest will be off more than a third, down to 60 million tonnes. Last year, the world's third largest grain exporter harvested 97 million tons of wheat and exported 21.4 million tonnes.
The Jamaica Dairy Development Board (JDDB) says the one per cent levy recently imposed on the farm-gate price of milk will have minimal impact on consumer prices even as it generates an estimated J$64 million in its first year to finance projects to help resuscitate the island's struggling dairy industry.
University and college application and enrolment timetables locally have been altered by economic conditions, as prospective students, faced with growing inability to pay, wait until the last minute to apply, and institutions, confronted by dwindling student numbers, continue eleventh-hour registration appeals.
Travellers used to getting a free wireless Internet connection on land are not willing to pay for one at 30,000 feet (9,000 metres). Wireless Internet service on airlines has not caught on, mostly because of the price.
Local distributorship Medical Disposables and Supplies Limited (MDS) has inked a deal as co-distributor for an Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing company, Dr Reddy's Laboratories Limited.
Operator of the Baskin Robbins franchise in Jamaica, Richard Burgher, is looking to expand the ice-cream operation locally through franchises now up for sale.
Pan Caribbean Financial Services Limited (PCFS) has seen a 38 per cent drop in profit, to J$231 million, resulting from a decline in net-interest income and in the second quarter ending June 30.
BlackBerrys still fly off the shelves. They still convey the message that their owners mean business - that they're people who are important enough to need email access all the time.
The crushing impact of high interest rates in the late 1990s forced the Jamaica Agricultural Development Foundation (JADF) to change gear from what was dictated by its original mandate to what Chief Executive Officer Vitus Evans describes as project development.
Like many young farmers in his position, Ricardo Hyman is grateful to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries' Young Farmers' Entrepreneurship Programme (YFEP) for providing him with the opportunity to start and sustain his own business.
Nothing, it seems, has gone right for Caribbean Cement Company Limited in the second quarter.
Last Thursday, James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, came out with a view that's gaining ground among members of the Federal Reserve Board.
An undisclosed party connected to First Jamaica Investment Limited has acquired 6.86 million of the company's shares, amounting to 2.26 per cent of the equity.
BP pumped cement into its blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, hoping to start sealing it for good a day after it forced a slow torrent of heavy mud down the broken wellhead and pushed the crude back to its underground source.
The Treasury Depart-ment said Wednesday that it has scaled back its annual borrowing capacity by US$232 billion since April and plans further gradual cuts in coming months.


TEHRAN –- President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has called for full cooperation between the Majlis and the administration in implementation of the economic reform plan.
“Cooperation between the administration and the Majlis is a necessity for the implementation of this plan,” Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday in a meeting with the members of parliament’s special committee on the economic reform plan.
He pointed out that his administration believes the parliament’s expert opinions are essential for the implementation of the economic reform plan.
The plan states that all subsidies for various products should be directly paid to the people.
The president also called energy a “national asset” and cited “saving the energy” as one of the aims of the plan.
The committee members were given an initial briefing by Ahmadinejad and Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance Shamsodin Hosseini.
The plan was devised to tackle the country’s main economic problems, such as rising inflation (currently at 26.1 percent), and to ensure that low-income families pay less taxes and receive more government benefits.
In order to decrease inflation caused by middlemen, the plan calls for the creation of a direct link between consumers and producers through new chain stores and monitoring of the distribution of goods through the use of a new national coding system for all products.


A 6.6 MAGNITUDE earthquake has hit the northeast of the Indoesnian city of Raba on the island of Sumbawa, just weeks after an earthquake in Lombok killed 460 people.
The earthquake struck the Flores Sea but there has been no tsunami warning issued.
The quake was located 153 km northeast of Raba at a depth of 564.7 km, the US Geological Survey said.
There are about 3000 people living within 100 kilometres.


We've got the world's first Vaio Blu-ray computer here, in our hands. It's blinking heavy, but who cares when it can burn four hours of HD video to one disc?
Mad props to the people at Sony for sending us the UK's first Blu-ray-ready PC (which we've reviewed here). It's called the Vaio RC204 and it's an imposing-looking thing. After spending several minutes just staring at it, we ripped it open and peered inside to find out what makes it special.
On the surface, it's very similar to the other desktops in the Sony Vaio RC range. It uses the same mammoth chassis that has a gaping hole all the way through the side, which serves as part of an elaborate cooling system. It's not our favourite case in the world, but we can't help but drool when we see the Vaio logo gradually light up when you hit the power button.
Inside, Sony has opted for a dual-core Intel Pentium D 940 processor clocked at 3.2GHz, 1GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT graphics card. Hard drive space is pretty generous thanks to 250GB and 350GB disks in a RAID 0 array (600GB total), and there's a hybrid analogue/digital TV tuner to help make the most of the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system.
It's the Blu-ray disc burner sitting in the top drive bay that's got us truly excited though. It'll write up to 50GB of data onto Blu-ray discs, which is enough to burn around four hours of high-definition movie footage onto a single disc. Close your mouth.
Update: a full review of the Sony Vaio VGC-RC204 is now live.


SANDY HOOK, CT (WFSB) – A Connecticut judge ruled that Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones, must submit a sworn deposition.
This comes after a defamation case was brought against him by family members of Sandy Hook victims.
Judge Barbara Bellis also ruled that the families of the victims can depose other defendants in the case.
In April 2018, the Sandy Hook families filed a lawsuit after Jones claimed the shooting never took place.
The defamation lawsuits were filed in Texas, which was the home of Jones’ media company, Infowars.
The plaintiffs in the case are the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook: Jacqueline and Mark Barden, parents of Daniel; Nicole and Ian Hockley, parents of Dylan; Francine and David Wheeler, parents of Ben; Jennifer Hensel and Jeremey Richman, parents of Avielle; and Robert Parker, father of Emilie.
Alex Jones is fake news.
Alex Jones is not fake news. Alex Jones is a money-grubbing, low-life, scumbag. CNN is fake news. Do not confuse the two.


Around the turn of the 21st century, television in the United States began to take two distinct, divergent courses. As network television started to hone and package dramas designed for global syndication (such as the CSI franchise), made up of self-contained episodes that could be watched in almost any order, something unexpected was starting to happen in cable television. Daring long-form dramas with conflicted, unheroic central characters were being given the green light, leading to an unbroken succession of classic television series, from HBO’s The Sopranos and The Wire, to AMC’s Mad Men and Breaking Bad.
This creative revolution is documented in two new books, Viewing America by Christopher Bigsby and Difficult Men by Brett Martin. It would elevate television from a medium that in Martin’s words had “a reputation somewhere beneath comic strips and just above religious pamphlets” into the dominant narrative art form of its time. And as both books explore, it was brought about by a set of writers who saw themselves as playwrights, film-makers, even journalists (in the case of The Wire’s David Simon), and who had mixed feelings about the medium they transformed.
In Viewing America, Bigsby begins in 1999 with NBC’s The West Wing, which starred Martin Sheen in the role of the American president. It was written by Aaron Sorkin, whose roots were in theatre. Sorkin had wanted to be an actor, had become a playwright, and had written the first draft of The West Wing as a film. The draft, however, had run to 400 pages, so when a producer suggested he adapt it for television, the framework for a series was already in place.
That the intelligent, fast-moving, complex political drama had found a home on a traditional network was striking. But more revolutionary undercurrents were forming in cable television, where companies were beginning to experiment with original drama. Their paid-for subscription model had long relied on sporting events and movies to attract customers, but as they branched into drama it soon became clear that they were not tied by the traditional mores of middle America or the advertiser-pleasing fare of the networks. The only requirement was that the work was good enough to make customers return. Even so, as Martin makes clear, no one involved with the creation of the 1999 HBO pilot of The Sopranos expected it to be picked up as a series, with its casual violence, reliance on the f-word and mobster-with-a-mid-life-crisis central character, Tony Soprano (the late James Gandolfini).
Martin’s book starts from the tenet that this new golden age of American television was created by, and took as its basic subject matter, “difficult men”, and in both books, none flies off the page with quite the same force as The Sopranos’ creator David Chase. Chase was an Emmy-winning television writer, who had cut his teeth on The Rockford Files, but he was also a frustrated film-maker, who had little respect for television.
As Martin shows, it was his determination to make The Sopranos “as good as The Godfather. As good as Goodfellas” that raised the bar in television, along with a bloody-minded commitment to his vision that forced it through in its rawest, most truthful state.
He was gunning for The West Wing too, says Bigsby, when he objected that “so much of television nowadays is teaching and lecturing and hectoring and sermonising”. He wanted to create work that “didn’t provide you with all the answers, which didn’t give you arrows saying you’re supposed to feel this way now”. “I don’t have the answers for s---,” he went on. “But others think they do.” The Sopranos would stay true to these principles right up to its famous last scene.
While both books cover The Sopranos, The Wire and Mad Men, Viewing America also explores lesser but no-less-fascinating works such as Friday Night Lights, about American high-school football, with its difficult real-life backdrop of racial politics, and the science-fiction reboot Battlestar Galactica, about the terrifying conflict between mankind and the robot race it created, the Cylons, which Bigsby compares to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Martin’s book is more dynamic and accessible, as it traces the progression of a timeline of important works, keeping central the way that they came into being. It includes a glimpse inside the writers’ room run by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan.


Hundreds of new immigrants from Ethiopia are hosted for a sample Passover seder, their first ever.
Hundreds of new Olim [immigrants] from Ethiopia were hosted for a sample Passover seder in a Jewish Agency absorption center in Mevaseret Tzion, near Jerusalem. The event provided a first look at traditional Passover celebrations to many of the new Olim, who are members of the Falashmura community. The Falashmura converted to Christianity generations ago, but many have expressed interest in immigration to Israel and in return to the Jewish faith.
The sample seder is intended to introduce them to the holiday tradition, ahead of the real seder Monday evening.
"I'm sure that for you, like for me, the night of Passover will be characterized by a sense that we are heading toward freedom, just like the people of Israel during the Exodus from Egypt,” he said.
The government recently agreed to continue bringing members of the Falashmura community to Israel, after a temporary halt in their immigration. Flights brought a total of 165 new immigrants from Addis Ababa to Israel on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
Approximately 1,000 Falashmura have immigrated to Israel since the first days of 2010.
The Jewish Agency will host real Passover seders for new immigrants on Monday night in absorption centers around the country. 5,000 Ethiopian immigrants are expected to take part in the communal seders.


The party in power in Pierre has ignored South Dakota’s rock-bottom Medicaid reimbursement rates for years.
To refer to the cascading closures of South Dakota nursing homes as a “crisis” gives crises a bad name. Let’s call it what it is: a disaster unfolding in real time.
The pace is accelerating. The South Dakota Health Care Association reports that a Huron facility’s end marks the sixth such closure in three years, half of which occurred in 2019.
Two of the most recent facility closures, in Mobridge and Madison, were managed by Black Hills Receiver, LLC. The state-approved receivership still manages 16 of the South Dakota nursing homes orphaned when New Jersey-based Skyline Healthcare declared bankruptcy. The outlook for those facilities appears bleak.
The culprit is the financial loss long-term care facilities incur with residents who rely on Medicaid. The state’s funding formula falls far short of what it costs to provide them care.
We’ve seen this coming. The party in power in Pierre has ignored South Dakota’s rock-bottom Medicaid reimbursement rates for years. Their stubborn refusal to turn out their pockets and fix the problem has driven our nursing home system over the edge.
Governor Kristi Noem, who has called this situation a priority, proposed a mere 5 percent increase to Medicaid reimbursement. At first glance, the legislature doubling that amount to stanch the industry’s financial hemorrhage looks like a bold step in the right direction.
It is a step, but it’s hardly bold. It’s a band-aid on a gut shot.
Former Republican governor Dennis Daugaard proposed expanding Medicaid in the state, a move that would have netted South Dakota a windfall of federal funds. He was forced to abandon the effort due to resistance among the most conservative factions in his own party.
As Daugaard told the Argus Leader at the time, if legislators only crunched the numbers, they would have agreed to the expansion. But because such expansion was an element of the Affordable Care Act – Obamacare – it was a political non-starter. South Dakota is one of the 14 states in the nation that have not yet expanded Medicaid.
That’s Pierre in a nutshell: partisanship over practicality for our supermajority. In the case of nursing home closures, such intractable shortsightedness has dire consequences for elderly citizens.
These closures are not just an inconvenience for families who can’t visit loved ones as often because they now live hours away. Nor are they merely late-in-life instances of residents forced from towns where they have lived most, or all, of their lives.
One of its recent victims was Harold Labrensz, whose story was reported in the New York Times. The nursing home where he lived in Mobridge closed for good this January. Able to find no better option, Harold’s wife found a place for him 220 miles away in North Dakota.
Three days after he arrived, he was dead.
The critical state of our nursing homes is not unique to South Dakota, and the challenges facing the industry are many. Operational margins have fallen to around zero, which makes it hard to keep quality employees due to low pay. That makes it difficult to attract private-payer residents, whose fees are needed to bridge the Medicaid reimbursement gap.
Noem’s one-time $5 million grant to encourage innovation in care is a nice idea – in the long term. Innovating takes time, while implementing such measures can be costly.
We can certainly explore ways to keep our grandparents and great-grandparents independent longer, or in assisted living for longer. We might be able to find ways to lure more workers to such facilities – big breaks or even forgiveness on student loans for certified nursing assistants, LPN or RN degrees, for instance.
But all that innovation won’t help if there are no more nursing homes to benefit from the changes. Lawmakers need to be able to hit the ground running at the beginning of the next legislative session. We know our new governor hates the idea, but this is the perfect time to put smart people from stakeholder agencies and organizations into a room to knock this out.
Task forces aren’t the answer to everything, but they’re tailor-made to solve problems that we can get our arms around. It’s time for our governor and our lawmakers to take measure of their political will and take care of South Dakota.


Disregarding the fact that it has been warmer these past three days than it was throughout the entire month of November, it is, indeed, December. As we approach the end of the world, we want to take the time to celebrate the little things that make this month so great. So even though we only have 18 days left in this month, here are some things you can enjoy in that time, hand picked by the editors of The Fourth Edition.
Corp Drink of the Month?
KP – Medium mocha with a hazelnut flavor shot. There’s just something about the idea of chocolate and hazelnut that reminds me of happiness and Christmas cheer. Maybe it’s a latent craving for Nutella. Maybe it’s the endorphins that the chocolate gives me. Maybe it’s just a gift from Santa’s elves (read as: Corpies). Either way, it defines my holiday season and it should define yours too.
Kate – Seltzer from Vittles. It’s a dollar and nine cents for a liter. Bang for your buck.
Clothing Trend of the Month?
KP – Holiday themed socks. Red socks, green socks, reindeer socks, Santa socks! When I was a child, I personally had the greatest amount of satisfaction when wearing my Grinch socks to my Grandma’s house on Christmas Eve. Get those feet festive, kids.
Kate – Flannel pants and a sweatshirt from the airport gift shop in Texas. I interpreted trend as “outfit I have been repeating so far into December”. Maybe it’ll catch on because I just look so good.
Lindsay – “Twas”. I have slipped into saying things like “I had a french toast bagel for breakfast, ‘twas glorious”. Or “I went to the Corp Gala this past Saturday…’twas a mess and a half”.
Kate – “December to Remember” but not in the context of Lexus Christmas car commercials.
Lindsay – Snow. All of the snow. Except I only like it whilst it’s falling and only if it sticks to the ground, I don’t like the weird slush bullshittery when it is too wet to stick. I like the blinding whiteness when I try to take my dog out and consequently lose her in the snow as she romps around.
KP – Family. Whether it’s one of your crazy uncles or the weird girl that lives down the hall, December is a time to embrace the ones you love. Share some cookies, decorate the tree, and celebrate the amazing people in your life.


Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie demonstrates an alternative to voter photo ID called photo poll books or electronic poll books.
The advantages over voter photo ID: It would bring “visual verification” into the polling place without the risk of disenfranchising voters. It would cost about $7 million to $9 million to implement. Last year the estimate to implement a voter photo ID system was about $40 million.
Representative Keith Downey (R- Edina) questions why the Secretary of State is considering such an system before the state has a voter photo ID requirement.
Full video of the electronic poll books demonstration in the Minnesota House State Government Finance Committee.
REPLAY: A Minnesota House committee heard testimony Tuesday from environmental activists, mining advocates and other stakeholders on the controversial copper-nickel mining proposal for northern Minnesota that is being advanced by PolyMet Mining Corporation.
Minnesota Marriage Equality: Is It Worth $678K? House Ways & Means Says Yes.
Something was different when Hennepin County voters cast their primary ballots Tuesday. Things were faster. Not just because it was a primary with light turnout, but because the voter check-in and registration was done from an iPad.
Most of us know July 4th is the day the United States issued the Declaration of Independence. But have you ever read it? Consider its words in the light of today's political turmoil. Has much really changed?


Using non-opioid drugs, or non-drug treatments, is more likely to help control chronic lower back pain, the causes of which are often difficult to determine.
SYDNEY, May 26 (UPI) -- Although the drugs can have some short-term effects, opioid-based painkillers such as oxycodone and Percocet have largely minimal effects on chronic lower back pain unrelated to other injuries, according to researchers in Australia.
Opioid painkillers are often prescribed for chronic back pain but researchers at The George Institute found in a review of studies that the drugs do not always work for patients, and many participants in studies drop out because any benefits are outweighed by side effects.
The causes for lower back pain not linked to an injury or other condition can be difficult to determine, according to doctors, and the evidence that opioid drugs, or any others, alleviate symptoms of the condition is weak at best.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control changed its recommendations for opioid drugs earlier this year, suggesting chronic pain patients are at higher risk to develop a dependence on the drugs while their conditions are unaffected.
The agency also cited a lack of long-term studies on the drugs examining their positive or negative effects, posing a potential concern for patients with chronic conditions.
Researchers in the new study, as well as CDC scientists, suggest pairing opioid drugs on a short-term basis with other forms of pain management, including non-pharmaceutical therapies, if opioids are to be used at all.
"We do not yet understand the effects of the long term use of opioid analgesics, as no trials have followed up patients beyond 3 months," Dr. Andrew McLachlan, a professor at the University of Sydney, said in a press release."Importantly, we do know that these medicines can have significant harmful effects when used inappropriately or for longer periods of time. The recent CDC guideline for prescribing opioids for chronic pain provides some excellent advice for clinicians considering use of opioid analgesics for their patients."
For the study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers reviewed the results of 20 randomized, controlled trials with a total of 7,925 participants.
Of these, 13 trials looked at the short-term effects of opioids on chronic low back pain, and none of the placebo-controlled trials included patients with acute low back pain. At least half of participants in these trials withdrew because the drugs did not work or they experience adverse health events.
Overall, the studies showed opioids can benefit chronic low back pain patients on a short-term basis, but that even at doses much higher than recommended the benefits are moderate.
With eight of 10 people who abuse painkillers saying they do so for pain management, and a strong link already established between chronic pain treatment and prescription drug abuse, Australian researchers say finding other, more effective methods of treatment is warranted.
"People have the mistaken belief that opioids are strong pain killers," said Dr. Chris Maher, a professor at Sydney Medical School and director of the musculoskeletal division at The George Institute. "When you look closely at the evidence from the low back pain trials, a completely different picture emerges."


Opposition politicians in Chad have claimed fraud during Sunday's presidential election, but African Union (AU) observers say the poll, while flawed, was fair.
Former Malian president and head of the AU observer mission to Chad, Diouncounda Traore, said issues included the late opening of polling stations in hard-to-access areas and poorly trained polling officers.
He said he doesn’t know what will happen after the proclamation of the results, but the AU is urging all candidates and their followers to accept the verdict. He said those who are not satisfied with the results should contest them in the courts.
Kamalloh Salifou Tourabi, leader of the Pan African Institute for Election Assistance observer mission, said that despite irregularities, voter participation was estimated at 85 percent.
The opposition said there was fraud, including ballot stuffing.
Chadian president Idris Deby is widely expected to win a fifth term in office.
The country faces continued threats from the Nigerian terror group Boko Haram. Social issues like the high cost of living sparked unprecedented protests in the run up to the poll. Five rights activists have been in jail for the last three weeks.
Chad has cracked down on the media, in particular the foreign press, since the vote. The French broadcaster, TV5 Monde, said its crew was forbidden from filming.
Mahamat Abdoulaye Issa, Chad's official in charge of press accreditation, said journalists were not authorized to report as the country waits for results.
Issa said journalists wishing to report on non-election related issues must apply for new accreditation to remain in Chad. He said that does not infringe on press freedom.
The electoral commission has two weeks from the April 10 vote to declare results.


there was even more electricity than usual because some genuine rock royalty was in attendance. U2’s Bono and The Edge were on hand to accept the Sonny Bono Visionary Award, which acknowledged their major humanitarian work as well as their iconic musical contributions to the world. The award was well-timed as, like the rest of the honorees, they also have a song that is making waves this awards season. And it’s a very personal one. The band, and particularly Bono, had a long friendship with Nelson Mandela — who died December 5 — and their work in the anti-apartheid movement goes back to their beginnings as a band in the 1970s. And now they have written a song, “Ordinary Love” for the film of his life story, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom. The Weinstein Company is hoping it will get the Oscar recognition that has eluded U2 before. They currently have a Golden Globe nomination for it, their sixth, with one win for 2002’s “The Hands That Built America” from Gangs Of New York.
That song also represented their sole Oscar nomination to date, but that could change with this powerful and intimate tune that brings out the humanity in Mandela and manages to be a love song of a very different sort as it also explores the toll taken on his marriage to Winnie Mandela. It was a challenging assignment and one that came as they were under heavy pressure to complete a new album. But Nelson Mandela is hard to ignore, and so is Harvey Weinstein, who Bono says was actually a promoter for the band in 1981. The singer says he hasn’t changed. “Harvey is remarkable. And he has the same fire in his belly now that he did back then,” he told me as I sat down to interview him and The Edge before taking the stage to moderate a discussion with them and Mandela stars Idris Elba and Naomie Harris for the PSIFF’s Talking Pictures series that followed a Sunday morning screening of the film. They received a standing ovation when I introduced them to the sold-out house at the Annenberg Museum. But first in a secluded patio area behind the theater, they told me how the song came about and what it means to them.
Deadline: You’ve written for many movies before, but what made this one so special — particularly with the pressure of writing about someone like Nelson Mandela?
Bono: You don’t want to let him down. Our first thought when they asked us was, “Can we do it?” We had some time, but it meant putting our album back a bit, and there was some worry with the management about that. But it’s one of those things you can’t turn down, actually. And although there were some butterflies and a little bit of nausea, we just felt we had to do it, but not to blow it. We thought they would probably want a big anthem or one of those political songs. That just felt too obvious for us. But we were so surprised to discover that the film, as well as being a big historical drama that it has to be, is made much more interesting by being a love story — a very complicated love story, but a love story.
The Edge: And that’s the emotional part that we picked up as we saw the film. We realized that while politics were, and are , so important and couldn’t be more relevant it was that human part of the story where the film went. So we followed it and it made perfect sense from an emotional point of view to follow their relationship.
Deadline: You’ve said the title “Ordinary Love” works on a couple of levels.
and when he saw it up close, the ugliness of it and when he saw what it did to the people who committed the violence, he fought against his own party, against the ANC, against his best friends, to make peace. He didn’t want to become a monster to defeat a monster, and so “Ordinary Love” is also an appeal to South Africa. So it works in the personal and it works in the political. That’s why we took it in the central image of the song. The rest of the lyrics were inspired by the letters of Nelson to Winnie Mandela. Anant Singh , the producer, sent them to me. And reading them the language is so beautifully archaic. He’s such a gentlemen. He talks about kissing her photograph in the prison cell. He talks in a very tender way to her. Very old school. And clearly words meant a lot to him. And indeed in my own conversations with him over the years he would always talk about writers. He loved the Irish writers, George Bernard Shaw; he loved the Anglo-Irish literary renaissance. He had the complete works of William Shakespeare smuggled to him in his prison cell in a Koran. They were only allowed religious books. The idea of Shakespeare coming in like a drug deal (laughs). … This film is about two transformations: his from a badass to this global statesman and Winnie’s from this very sweet girl to a bit of a monster. And Winnie came to the premiere in South Africa and stood by Naomie Harris’ portrayal of her because it was truthful. I think she’s an extraordinary woman. But it’s two transformations that are the inverse of each other.
had and the wisdom to know that the only possible way forward for South Africa was truth and reconciliation, not vengeance. There’s that great quote of his: “I want vengeance too, but I want a country that my children can live in more.” That’s the important thing here. That level of insight and wisdom came to him during those years in prison and by reading extensively and pondering the situation and doing it in a very cool headed way.
Deadline: Do you like writing for film?
Bono: It’s a holiday from the first-person for me. We really like writing for other people for the same reason. I remember writing for Willie Nelson and Roy Orbison. It’s so wonderful to get out of your own head.
The Edge: To take a love song is easier as well. Suddenly you’ve got an inspiration that is fresh. We always approach it the same way, to take the emotional core and fleshing it out from there.
Bono: And to try and make it a love song to the South African landscape as well. It really is the most extraordinarily beautiful place on earth. (Recites) “The sea wants to kiss the golden shore/The sunlight warms your skin/All the beauty that’s been lost before/Wants to find us again/I can’t fight you anymore/It’s you I’m fighting For/The sea throws rock together/But time leaves us polished stones/We can’t reach any higher/If we can’t deal with ordinary love.
Deadline: Harvey Weinstein was once your promoter. How persuasive was he in making this all happen?
about having family time and I was sneaking out on my family to work on the song. And then Harvey actually arrives while we were on holiday in France. He says, “So where’s the song?” He arrives in the house! And I said to him, “We need a few more weeks; this is one we can’t blow.” And to be fair to Harvey, he said, ‘OK, I will tell them they just have to wait.” So he broke all the rules for us. … We just wanted to make it a very emotional moment to bring people back to the heart of the film, which is a human heart. That’s more complicated than any political situation.
Deadline: How difficult has it been to promote the song since his death came just as the movie had opened?
Bono: It’s No. 1 in about 15 countries without any promotion. We can’t really go out and launch it, though. It’s interesting because you want to go out and shout from the rooftops if you’ve got one of these tunes. They don’t come all the time. But we can’t.
The Edge: To me it’s just so amazing how things worked out. It’s almost to me that Madiba stage managed this entire thing. You think about this film that is coming out on his life. He was so aware of the delicacy of what’s going on in South Africa. You couldn’t tee up a better way to spotlight his politics and his legacy and focus the world’s attention on what he’s achieved politically in South Africa. That is the best way to pave a way for the future.
Bono: It was almost like perfect timing in a way.


An Oxford County woman and her dog had a close call Friday afternoon when they were pulled out of a frozen pond by firefighters and police.
Shortly before 1 p.m, a 52-year-old woman was walking with her Labrador Retriever near Pine Pond in Blandford-Blenheim Township when the dog fell through the ice, Oxford OPP said.
The woman, helped out by a teenaged nephew who was in the area, got into a canoe and went out on to the ice to rescue the dog.
But after the dog was put in the canoe, the craft broke through the ice and tipped over.
The woman was able to get the dog back into the canoe while she clung to the side.
The teenage boy called for help and the Oxford OPP and East Zorra-Tavistock Fire Department responded.
A volunteer firefighter, who was tied and anchored by the two OPP officers on shore, was able to grab a rope attached to the canoe and pulled the craft to safety.
The woman was treated at the scene by paramedics and was taken by ambulance to Woodstock General Hospital with hypothermia and other minor injuries.
The dog was assessed at the scene and appeared to be in good health.
OPP said the incident serves as a reminder about the dangers of water ways as ice begins to melt.


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Telecoms equipment group Marconi, which employs more than 1,500 people in Coventry, has reported wider losses after first quarter sales slipped and the company embarked on more restructuring.
Marconi said losses from continuing operations stood at #36 million in the three months to June 30, higher than the #11 million seen a year earlier.
Revenues of #285 million were down by #4 million, but chief executive Mike Parton said the performance had been "solid" in a competitive market, and that he stuck by previous guidance given for full-year results.
Marconi announced earlier this year that 450 jobs would go from its 1,600-strong workforce in Coventry. Further cuts were planned for its sites in Liverpool and north-west England.
The losses were among thousands of cuts over recent years. The company required a #4.7bn debt restructuring to stay afloat in 2003.
In the latest figures, as well as lower sales, the former GEC industrial giant started to book the cost of a restructuring launched after it failed to win a major contract from BT.
Marconi said consultation with trade unions and employee representatives was "progressing amicably" and that it expected the first job reductions to take place towards the end of its second quarter, which is in September.
It added it continued to target business cost reductions as part of attempts to counter ongoing price pressures.
Despite the tough conditions, Mr Parton said its order book remained healthy and that it had secured business wins for next generation products from customers including Cable & Wireless and Vodafone.
Sales to BT - still Marconi's biggest customer with 27% of all business - were stable on the previous quarter at #77 million.
Even though the failure to win the major BT contract is expected to cost #50 million in revenues, Marconi said it still expected full-year revenues to be at a level similar to a year earlier.


ToDo X is a dedicated to-do list application with a clean, lightweight interface but plenty of power under the hood: it allows you to maintain multiple, prioritized lists of to-do items, each with unlimited attached notes and clickable links to web locations, documents, folders and addressbook entries; you can link items to multiple lists and use drag & drop to copy, link or move items between lists; you can search, display and print the union of selected lists.You have instant access to your to-do lists from the dock or the menu bar, and you can create a to-do item from selected text in any application that supports the Services menu.ToDo X can import to-do items from iCal and other Mac or Windows applications that generate industry-standard ".ics" data files. Users of the classic Mac OS desk accessory "ToDo!" will be happy to hear that ToDo X can import from that venerable utility as well.


Vineland Public Library employees will join IBEW Local 210 based on election results on Feb. 28.
VINELAND – The Vineland Public Library is as little as a week away from becoming a “union shop” based on the results of a mail-in election that wrapped up Thursday afternoon in Trenton.
The New Jersey Public Employment Relations Commission handled the election. Barring objections, PERC election officer Bryan Markward said the commission could certify results in as soon as six days.
Markward said the employees approved starting a “mixed bargaining unit,” meaning it will serve both professional staff such as librarians with degrees as well as security guards and others.
The organizing effort was done through International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 210. Local 210 attorney David Watkins attended the ballot count in Trenton. There was no library observer.
Markward said Watkins was given a copy of the results. The attorney has not returned telephone calls.
The library board of trustees was notified of the outcome at its meeting Thursday evening by its legal counsel, Jeff Medio.
On another labor matter, the trustees revisited the layoff plan that members approved on Feb. 7. Five trustees were present on Feb. 7 and the vote was 4-1, with the “no” vote from Sally Goode.
The board approved the layoffs in what the majority stated was an effort to produce a balanced 2019 budget. The decision continues to draw protests from library users that it will significantly undermine the ability to deliver services.
At Thursday evening’s meeting, with nine members present, the board unanimously voted to approve a resolution endorsing a letter and a proposed layoff notice that the solicitor recently drafted and sent to the state Civil Service Commission.
The resolution, additionally, incorporated the original Feb. 7 layoff resolution. By voting on Thursday, members reaffirmed the layoff decision.
The layoffs affect five people, including the position of Director Brandi Grosso, who was not present for the meeting Thursday evening.
The other positions to be eliminated are a principal library assistant, a supervising library assistant, and two librarians.
After the meeting, Medio said the specific employees to be laid off still need to be identified. Whether the new union affects the process is unclear, he said.
Medio said he expects to hear next week from a commission official about the plan. The layoffs now are expected to take effect on May 15, he said.
For 2019, the library currently anticipates having $1,359,545 in revenue. That would be insufficient to operate with the current staff of 17 full-time employees and nine-part-time employees, the board maintains.
On Thursday, members present and voting were Goode, Maritza Gonzalez, Karen Kreck, Sheena Santiago, MacLeod Carre, President Luis Amberths, Elizabeth Bermudez, Melanie Lovisone, and Gina Randazzo-Dawkins.
In another matter, Medio reported receiving two bids from accounting firms interested in performing a proposed forensic audit of library operations.
Medio recommended the board direct him to ask the city purchasing agent to advertise for a new round of bids for the proposed forensic audit as well as for elevator services. The board approved the request on a 9-0 vote. In another vote, Lovisone was approved without dissent as the new vice president.
The library was a topic of discussion at Vineland City Council on Tuesday.
At the close of the regular meeting, council President Paul Spinelli threw scorn at rumors about the library’s future. There are no discussions about closing or privatizing the library, he said.


As inkjet printers have become more capable in recent years, the differences between them and lasers have narrowed. But laser printers still generally offer better text quality, the ability to print in greater volume, greater paper capacity, lower running costs, and higher speeds than inkjets. Relatively high prices and mediocre photo quality have traditionally relegated laser printers to office settings, but that picture is changing. Prices have come down—though, by and large, they remain more expensive than inkjets—and photo output has improved.
A monochrome laser printer can provide the speed, durability, and paper handling to deal with the high printing volume of a busy office. And inexpensive monochrome lasers with modest paper handling can serve as personal desktop printers in any size office. Many current color lasers print photos are fine for many business uses, such as client newsletters. In higher-quality lasers, overall output quality for text, graphics, and photos is typically good enough for brochures and other marketing materials, allowing many companies to take such printing in-house.
While the vast majority of new inkjets (except photo printers) are multifunction printers (MFPs), with lasers, there's an abundance of both single-function printers and MFPs available. MFPs provide copying and scanning in addition to printing, and often fax capabilities as well. Most laser printers or MFPs include Ethernet connectivity, and some integrate Wi-Fi. There's also Wi-Fi Direct or its equivalent, for establishing a direct peer-to-peer connection between computer and printer so you don't need to connect to a network, and near-field communications (NFC) touch-to-print, which lets you print from a mobile device by simply tapping it on a specific spot on the printer.
Many lasers include a touch-screen interface, secure (password-protected) printing, a built-in hard drive, and/or the ability to perform a range of functions over a network. Most have an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper, and nearly all have both a flatbed for scanning and an automatic document feeder (ADF) for scanning, copying, or faxing multipage documents unattended. Many higher-end MFPs now offer ADFs for automatically scanning two-sided pages, either reversing ADFs (RADFs), which scan one side of the page, flip the page over, and scan the other side, or duplex scanners, which are ADFs that scan both sides of the page in a single pass, and are thus considerably faster.
LED printers—which use light-emitting diodes instead of lasers as a light source—share many of the characteristics of laser printers, and are considered laser-class devices. They are somewhat smaller than laser printers that share the same capabilities, so they're particularly suitable for smaller offices where space may be at a premium.
Laser printers have much to offer businesses of all sizes, from sole proprietorships to large corporations, and are increasingly worth considering for home use as well. Take a look at the 10 best lasers we've tested, which span a wide range of prices and capabilities. For more buying advice and reviews, check out our top printer picks overall, our favorite wireless and portable printers, and the best printers for Macs.


There are two options: Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia worked together to help elect our current president of the United States, or we are witnessing the greatest coincidence since the Big Bang.
Call it collusion. Call it a collaboration. Or, even better, call it a “conspiracy against the United States” — since that’s probably what the indictments will keep calling it.
Just don’t call it a coincidence, especially if the FBI is interviewing you.
Though the Trump/Putin meeting in Moscow never happened, the courtship continued.
In 2014, Trump opportunistically attacked Russia’s policies when it was convenient to criticize Barack Obama, but he refused to say a negative word in public about Vladimir Putin — a policy he pretty much only extends to his businesses, his relatives and his anatomy.
In April 2014, after the U.S. had levied sanctions on Russia for “violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the Internet Research Agency allegedly began its U.S.-focused “translator project“ with a goal of spreading “distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.” Coincidentally, that became a major theme of Trump’s presidential campaign that he officially launched in June of 2015.
As Trump continued to praise Putin and question NATO, the backbone of Soviet and Russian containment for more than half a century, social media trolls backed by the Kremlin rained support on Trump.
In October 2015, two weeks after Trump’s Twitter account tweeted an article entitled “Putin Loves Trump,” Trump signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow (something he never disclosed during the campaign).
In March 2016, Paul Manafort, a Trump Tower resident with a long history of lobbying for Trump interests and foreign despots, joined the Trump campaign. For some reason, Manafort was willing to work for free despite apparently owing as much as $17 million to pro-Russian interests. That same month, the Gmail account of Hillary Clinton campaign chair John Podesta was hacked.
After the Democratic National Convention, Trump famously said at a press conference: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 (Clinton) emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.” Trump could only be sure Russia would be “rewarded mightily” if he knew Russia was aiming to harm Clinton.
And on and on it goes. That’s just a sample.
If you don’t see the conspiracy by now, you just don’t want to.


The assassination of Martin Luther King, 40 years ago today, was an event of singular importance, silencing one of the century's most profound and influential advocates for nonviolent change. But all too often what gets lost in the commemoration of King's death is the violence it unleashed around the country. It takes nothing away from King's greatness to suggest that when we look to that April day for historical import, we do a disservice by not going further to examine the broader consequences of James Earl Ray's gunshot.
In only the strictest sense was King's death the cause of the riots. In Baltimore, Washington, Kansas City and elsewhere, frustrations had been building for years. De facto segregation, workplace discrimination, police brutality and immense poverty were the inescapable realities of ghetto life, and they chafed against the postwar national rhetoric of consensus and progress. By the mid-1960s, ghettos around the country were tinderboxes, going off at the slightest provocation. And King's assassination was the greatest provocation possible.
Over the course of the following week, riots broke out in 125 cities nationwide. In many instances the National Guard was required to quell the violence. In Washington, Chicago and Baltimore, it took tens of thousands of regular army soldiers and Marines. When they were over, some 39 people were dead, more than 2,600 injured and 21,000 arrested. The damages were estimated at $65m - about $385m today.
But the real damage was rendered over a much longer term. First was the physical destruction. The riots literally burned out the centres of major American cities, and in their aftermath few investors, insurance companies or businesspeople were willing to return. Dozens of inner cities, already under strain from the suburbs, simply collapsed, leaving in their wake a miasma of unemployment, crime and poverty.
To be sure, there had been riots before - Watts, Newark, Detroit, among others. But as late as fall 1967, the majority of Americans told pollsters that they didn't believe a riot could happen in their city. After April 1968, no one could hold that illusion any longer.
The riots thus provided an entrée for conservatives to finally, fully assert law and order as a national political issue. Something that had been brewing for decades at the local level, and which had played a role in the GOP victories of 1966, became after April 1968 the single most important domestic concern in the 1968 presidential race. Polls repeatedly put it at par with, and even above, the Vietnam war. Richard Nixon, who had largely avoided talking about riots and civil rights before April, now made law and order - and the revulsion of white suburbia against the violent images of rioters reacting to King's death - a central theme in his campaign.
The riots also vaulted Nixon's eventual running mate, the obscure Maryland governor Spiro Agnew, to national prominence. In the wake of the violence in Baltimore, Agnew had called local civil rights leaders to a meeting and then ambushed them with accusations that they had facilitated the racial militancy that he - and much of white America - believed to be the cause of the riots. Nixon aide Patrick Buchanan clipped a news story about the speech and handed it to his boss. And while Nixon toyed with other running mates, he ultimately chose Agnew based on his newfound fame as the standard-bearer of the "silent majority". Agnew was consistently marked for his boorishness by the press corps, but, as an astute Time magazine columnist wrote: "What Agnew has got is a reflexive feel for how millions of fellow Americans view the world - many of them through suburban windows."
Whether or not Agnew made the difference that November, his selection defined the new White House as a decided turn in American politics, one that pivoted heavily on the riots. Along with the growing appeal of law and order as a political attitude came a rejection of the liberal state and its ameliorationist, integrationist attitude toward the inner-city poor. Conservatives drew a direct line connecting ghetto unrest and liberal social policy, an accusation that also appealed to the pocketbooks of a new generation of middle-class, suburban whites.
Whereas the liberal state portrayed the ghetto as something to integrate into the rest of society, the riots gave impetus to a new domestic militarism that saw the ghetto as an alien entity within American borders, a cancer that had to be isolated from the rest of the body public. In the wake of the riots suburban gun purchases skyrocketed, and Nixon, through the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, funnelled money to police departments to buy exotic anti-riot weaponry: body armour, tear gas, even surplus tanks. By the early 1970s an anti-riot urban infrastructure was in place, one that psychologically, bureaucratically and even physically severed the ghetto from the rest of the city, and the city in turn from the suburbs.
Even elements of the integrationist liberal state became transmuted into tools in isolating the ghetto. Rejecting the employment-and-education focus of the Great Society, city, state and federal agencies greatly expanded income supports and other welfare programmes, often as the result of pressure from activist groups who subtly - and sometimes not so subtly - threatened renewed mob violence otherwise.
In his 1973 State of the Union, Nixon declared: "America is no longer coming apart - the hour of urban crisis has passed." Of course, it was only getting worse in the inner city. But the ebbing of the "riot era" left a thick ring of contempt toward the inner city. He and subsequent presidents used that revulsion to power cuts in housing supports, small-business loans, funds for inner-city schools and job training.
Today the hour of urban crisis continues in dozens of American cities. It did not begin the night King was killed. But the long echo of the riots that followed is a critical reason why America abandoned any effort to end it.


The shrinking of the once-powerful MSG name has got to be bringing beads of sweat to the brow of owner James Dolan.
James Dolan’s MSG Networks is sounding out suitors, several sources told The Post.
The regional sports network, which has the TV rights for the Knicks, Rangers, Devils, Islanders and other sports teams, collects roughly $5 per subscriber per month — among the highest in the country, SNL Kagan said.
ESPN, a national network, charges $7.86.
The sales process is believed to be rather young and there is no guarantee a deal will be made.
“Dolan’s gone to his friends” to gauge interest, a source said, referring in part to Guggenheim Partners Executive Chairman Alan Schwartz, who is on the board of Madison Square Garden, a company that shares ownership with MSGN.
Investment bank Guggenheim has experience selling media assets.
MSG Networks reaches roughly 7 million homes in New York and adjoining states. Its enterprise value is $3 billion, including a market cap of $1.7 billion and debt.
Its shares have risen 7.2 percent since Feb. 17, to $22.95 at Monday’s close.
If a sale happens, Dolan could use the proceeds to help fund a bid for The Garden — the family-controlled entity that owns the Manhattan arena, the Knicks and Rangers and other arenas and venues across the country , sources said.
In October 2015, The Garden spun off its media assets.
“I think the point of the spin-off was to sell the cable business a year or two later,” said one analyst who requested anonymity.
MSGN is the only stand-alone, publicly traded RSN.
Verizon is one possible buyer for MSGN, two sources said, noting that the wireless giant needs content.
AT&T is seeking to buy RSNs to add to the five it already owns — including Root Sports in Pittsburgh — but might be reluctant to make a purchase now, as it is trying to win regulatory approval to buy Time Warner, one RSN expert said.
An MSGN sale will not be easy, several sources said, as RSNs are considered mature and perhaps even a melting ice cube as viewers opt for skinny bundles and cord-cutting.
Plus, there are some MSGN contracts with local cable companies expiring soon and hammering out deals for more money could be tough.
Fox Sports Networks wants more sports content, but is likely not interested because it already owns New York’s YES Network, which televises Yankees games, sources said.
Comcast, which owns a piece of Mets’ rights-owner SNY, another Big Apple RSN, is said to be looking to exit the sector — not grow it, according to the RSN expert.
Last year, James Dolan, MSGN’s executive chairman, and his family received $2 billion from selling Cablevision and should have little trouble funding a bid for The Garden if they choose to make such a move, the analyst said.
On a positive note, if the board of MSG, which some think is undervalued, were interested in a quick MSGN sale, it might agree to reasonable rights fee increases, the RSN expert said.
MSG Networks and Verizon declined comment.