With its indie, out-of-place feel, this is no ordinary Munich hotel – The Flushing Meadows Hotel & Bar’s more natural home might appear to be Berlin. Though owned by the people behind trendy bars and nightspots in the city, it doesn’t suffer from attempting to be a bit too cool for comfort.
It is located on a busy road, on the third and fourth floors of a slightly down-at-heels-looking shopping street. However, it certainly hasn’t suffered by its lack of gentrification and the wider Glockenbach quarter is a pretty hip place, with numerous interesting bars, cafés and restaurants. The river Isar is nearby, and in the summer its shores are a haven for sun and water lovers, and a prime place for barbecues. Fraunhoferstraße U-Bahn station is a two-minute walk (Altstadt/Marienplatz, 15 minutes).
Local creatives (composers, surfers and artists) designed the third-floor rooms. The hotel’s owners designed the fourth floor rooms. The sum is highly-individual room designs, with an overarching modern, unfussy and often fun style.
Room service is limited to drinks and snacks but informative employees know the area well and have plenty of recommendations for bars and restaurants – much of this is also included in the hotel’s highly recommendable Outside booklet.
Each room has its own individual design, such as DJ Hell’s with a life-size skeleton band in a crevice under the ceiling, plus record player and selection of records. Surfer Quirin Rohleder installed a hammock and surfboard on the walls of his room. All rooms have Nespresso machines, high and exposed-concrete ceilings, designed lamps, televisions and Boomboxes (for Bluetooth streaming from your phone or tablet). Coconut mattresses adorn good-quality beds.
Bathrooms are modern (most with showers only), have striking copper fittings and organic shower gel and shampoo. Rooms are not soundproofed, and though the noise is far from excessive, it might annoy people in the Fraunhoferstrasse-facing rooms.
There is no restaurant but the owners have recently opened the very good Cantine Cantona restaurant in the university district. As well as the usual breakfast options (breads, cereals, cold meats), guests can request favourites, such as bacon, in advance. The Flushing Meadows Bar is on the fourth floor (as is the reception – there is a lift) and is open to guests and locals. It’s a good meeting point before or after dinner, and it has a rooftop terrace.
Double rooms from €190 (£150) in low season; rising to €230 (£181) in high. Breakfast is €10.50 (£8, otherwise €12.50 [£10]).
There is one room with disabled access, on the fourth floor, with lift access. Door handles are lower and the bathroom entrance is larger.
Two of the 16 rooms can be used as family rooms.
Fraunhoferstrasse 32 80469 Munich, Germany.


Last time Joe Bob Briggs crashed the 24/7 horror movie party at Shudder, he also crashed their servers. Earlier this year in July, Shudder played host to the return of horror and b-movie critic, Joe Bob Briggs. His special The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs drew such a big crowd that the servers were unable to handle all the love. Users were frustrated that the marathon stream wasn’t loading or playing for a moment, before crashing.
After some time passed, Shudder did get their servers back up and running and the marathon continued as planned.
Now Joe Bob is coming back to Shudder with Dinners of Death, which premieres this Thanksgiving on November 22. According to a report from BirthMoviesDeath, the marathon will not feature the 24-hour runtime of Joe Bob’s July special. Instead, Dinners of Death will feature four different horror movies beginning at 9:00 P.M. and wrapping up at 6:00 A.M.
Also of note, Joe Bob Briggs stated in the new trailer for the special that Shudder will be airing his all-time favorite horror movie, but didn’t specify what that film was, leaving fans to guess. Many speculated that it was the 1974 Tobe Hooper film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
As of yet, that title has not been confirmed for the upcoming marathon.
This marathon will likely follow the formula Joe Bob Briggs’ last special and many before it. Generally, Joe Bob introduces a horror film by going on one of his famous rants, providing unknown facts about the movie and its creators. As is custom, the introduction to the movie is not complete until Joe Bob Briggs provides his “Drive-In Totals.” The movie is then played like normal, but stopped and interrupted by Briggs to provide more insight and laughs to the viewer.
Joe Bob Briggs is perhaps most famous for hosting Monstervision on TNT during the mid-to-late 1990’s.
The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs is still available on Shudder in an on-demand format. Last July Briggs’ 24-hour marathon included such horror films as Tourist Trap, Sleepaway Camp, Hellraiser, Re-Animator, Pieces, and Demons.
Almost immediately after the success of The Last Drive-In, Shudder announced that they were officially developing a new television series based on the 1982 horror anthology movie Creepshow. Greg Nicotero, one of the creators of The Walking Dead, will be helming the project, which is slated for a 2019 release.
An official release date for Creepshow has yet to be announced.


With his final term in the City Council coming to an end in less than a month, Councilman Peter Vallone Jr. has only a little time left to work on passing some of his bills that will impact the City for years to come and put a bow on his Council career.
Or, he can introduce legislation to revert the name of the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge to just the Queensboro Bridge.
Yes, Vallone is taking one more crack at his pet peeve on the bridge’s name, which was changed in honor of the late Mayor in 2011.
The bill would change back the name and instead honor Koch by naming the Manhattan Municipal Building the Ed Koch Manhattan Municipal Building.
“I wanted to start the process so that Queens elected officials who come after me can restore the Queensboro Bridge to its rightful owners while simultaneously providing an appropriate honor for the late Mayor Koch,” he said.
Maybe Vallone’s right. Perhaps another councilman will take up the fight for the Queensboro Bridge and get the City Council to restore its name.
If you believe that though, we’ve got a bridge to sell you!


Few will disagree with E.D. Hirsch’s observation in his latest book that American students have trouble reading. In fact, the longer they stay in school, the worse they perform compared with their peers in other countries. Nor is anyone likely to dispute his assertion that the gap in reading skills between Hispanic and African American students and their white counterparts is “tragic,” a wound in the American Dream. Not that whites read that well, either—more than half fail to do so at proficient levels.What will be argued and debated is Hirsch’s analysis of the root causes of this dismal situation and his proposed remedy for it.
The professor emeritus and founder of the Core Knowledge Foundation lays most of the blame on the many philosophical heirs of John Dewey advocating and practicing child-centered instruction throughout the American educational community. As he did in Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, his controversial 1987 bestseller, Hirsch denounces these “progressive” educators for institutionalizing the belief that the teaching of “mere facts,” a “specific, content-based curriculum,” isn’t necessary. For them, he says, it’s enough to teach children general-purpose how-to skills, which, in the case of reading, include finding the main idea, summarizing, and predicting.
Under current reading programs, Hirsch argues, most children learn to sound out words at an appropriate age, but by 4th grade they are struggling with comprehension. “We need to see the reading comprehension problem for what it primarily is—a knowledge problem,” Hirsch writes. Once children learn how to decode the printed word accurately and fluently, he adds, the main reason they do not read as well as they should is that they do not know as much as they should about the various subjects the printed words refer to.
This makes a fair amount of sense. Just because I’m able, for example, to decode the printed marks on the page doesn’t mean I can comprehend a technical passage on astrophysics. For that, I must possess background knowledge. But Hirsch stretches credulity when he claims that flawed educational theories are “the significant reason”—more significant than even poverty—for the reading gap between social groups. In short, he says the problems educators like to blame on society are actually their own fault.
Hirsch’s solution for low reading scores is relatively simple and direct. He proposes that schools follow a grade-by-grade, knowledge-based, nationwide curriculum. Of course, as with most proposed reforms, this one creates its own problems, such as how to get local school boards, notoriously jealous of their power, to give up control over curricular matters.
Despite being crammed with statistics and heavily footnoted, Hirsch’s book is an ideological tract—a screed rather than a balanced academic study. Its value lies not in its ideas, which are conservative and narrow, or its analysis, which is petulant, but in its power to provoke reflection and debate on the best way to teach our citizens to read, an issue no democracy can ignore.


An undated aerial photo during the oil boom era in Hermosa Beach.
South Bay Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi on Friday announced a bill designed to take the financial heat off Hermosa Beach voters who are being asked to decide whether to allow oil drilling in their city for the first time in more than 80 years.
The legislation would allow the city to take out a no-interest loan from the state to help pay off a $17.5-million penalty the city would face if voters in the beach town reject an oil drilling proposal.
The assemblyman said he wanted Hermosa Beach residents to vote "without the gun of this financial penalty to their head."
Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) unveiled the bill at a press conference, flanked by representatives from Heal the Bay and Stop Hermosa Beach Oil, both staunch opponents of new drilling.
The bill, if passed, could represent an innovative solution to the high-stakes question Hermosa Beach voters will likely face this fall, the result of a multimillion-dollar legal settlement that threatened to drive Hermosa Beach into bankruptcy.
If voters approve the ballot measure, oil company E&B; Natural Resources would gain the right to drill as many as 30 diagonal wells from a city maintenance yard just blocks from the beach.
Initial projections from a city-commissioned economic analysis say the city stands to gain $118 million to $270 million over the 35-year life of the project, with another $1 million to $2 million going to Hermosa Beach schools.
If they reject oil drilling, however, the city will be on the hook for the $17.5 million – the terms of the legal settlement reached in 2012.
The city already has $6 million saved up to pay toward the sum. Financing the rest could mean payments of $825,000 a year for 30 years, or $1.1 million a year over 20 years, according to the city-issued report.
Some hope the vote – and Muratsuchi’s proposal – will put an end to a years-long legal battle that has hung over the city’s head.
The 1.3-square-mile city has been an oasis from the oil derricks that once dotted the South Bay, thanks to a 1932 voter ban on all new drilling.
In 1984, Santa Monica-based Macpherson Oil dangled the prospect of tens of millions of dollars in royalties, and voters in then-cash-strapped Hermosa voted to lift the ban.
But the drilling rigs never came.
Voters changed their minds and reinstated the ban, and the City Council eventually halted the project, deeming it unsafe.
Macpherson sued, claiming as much as $750 million in damages, more than 20 times Hermosa Beach’s annual budget and enough, city leaders feared, to bankrupt it.
The city settled the suit in 2012, allowing Bakersfield-based E&B; to buy out Macpherson’s stake in the deal and limiting the city’s liability to $17.5 million.
In return, E&B; will have a shot at asking Hermosa Beach voters to exempt their project from the ban.
E&B;'s project proposal is undergoing environmental, health impact and cost benefit reviews, and city leaders are trying to meet a summer deadline to place the measure on the ballot in November.
Eric W. Rose, a spokesman for E&B;, said the firm was "unclear" why the legislation was needed because the city, if voters approve the drilling, will not be liable for the payment.
The oil question has become something of a campaign issue this year.
Muratsuchi is facing a Republican challenger, and his seat is one of a handful that political analysts consider up for grabs.
Congressional candidate Wendy Greuel, who is running in a crowded field to replace Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) in a district that hugs the South Bay coastline, came out against the oil proposal Thursday.


There are over 150 Skyrim Special Edition mods we think you should try on your PS4 and Xbox One as we push into the new year.
As we push into 2019, Skyrim Special Edition owners can no longer rely on Bethesda for new, free content. The company hasn’t confirmed any new feature updates and the last update, version 1.5.62, delivered content that requires players to spend real cash.
Bethesda periodically updates Skyrim’s Creation Club with new downloadable content, but the content isn’t free. If you want new, free content to Skyrim Special edition you’ll have to rely on the Skyrim modding community.
Skyrim Special Edition mods can change your game in a variety of different ways. Some mods make small tweaks to the game. Other mods deliver new items, characters, and graphical changes to Skyrim Special Edition.
Bethesda’s catalog now features well over 10,000 mods. That’s an amazing statistic, but if you’re starting the game for the first time or jumping back in after a long time away, it can be overwhelming.
We want to help you narrow it down with a list of the best Skyrim mods we’ve come across for PS4 and Xbox One.
In this extensive list of Xbox and PS4 Skyrim mods, we’ll highlight more than 150 of our favorite mods for both consoles.
Before you dig in note that PS4 Skyrim mods are more limited than Xbox One mods. This is because PS4 mod developers can’t use external assets. Each slide notes the mod’s status for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Many of these are exclusive to Microsoft’s console.
We’ll continue to add new mods to this list so be on the lookout for updates in 2019 and beyond.


President Donald Trump has nominated William Barr to become the U.S. Attorney General, leaving the future of Iowa native who has been serving as acting Attorney General unknown.
Iowa Senator Joni Ernst says Matt Whitaker is a friend from Iowa and she recently talked with him about it. “Not sure where he is going to land — but when I spoke to him just the other day before President Bush’s Memorial Service — (he said) he would take it as it comes, and I am sure he will land on his feet,” Ernst says. Whitaker was the chief of staff for Attorney General Jeff Sessions before Sessions resigned, and he immediately was in the spotlight after being named to the acting role.
“Of course all of us from Iowa, we wish the absolute best for Matt Whitaker, in whatever his endeavors may be. Whether he is staying at the Department of Justice or moving on to another career,” according to Whitaker. Ernst says she has not had a chance to meet Barr.
“So, I can’t tell you about his character. I am sure he is a good person, I think just by virtue of his nomination — it speaks very well to his capability, his credibility. I look forward to the opportunity to meet him,” Ernst says. Ernst says she will get a chance to meet and talk with Barr during the Senate confirmation process.


ABS-CBN Foundation's Gina Lopez spoke to the audience about how important it is to preserve islands' natural beauty and resources, and how tourism can fit into that vision.
The keynote speaker at the Bank of Guam's Economic Forum, Gina Lopez, got the audience singing, dancing and cheering for Guam's well-being on Tuesday.
Lopez briefly served as the Philippines' Director of Environmental and Natural Resources and is member of the Lopez family that owns the prominent ABS-CBN media company in the Philippines.
She spoke to the audience about how important it is to preserve islands' natural beauty and resources, and how tourism can fit into that vision.
"Tourism must benefit the local communities as well," Lopez said. "It can't be just about the money. It has to be driven by values."
She insisted that the motivator for sustainability must be love: love for one's environment, love for each other.
"I truly believe in the power of love," she said. "We're not material beings. We're spiritual beings."
She shared many examples of projects she is overseeing which intend to clean up the environment and provide sustainable living for communities who are dependent on tourism. According to Lopez, higher spending visitors are seeking unique experiences, farm to table food experiences and pollution-free natural environments.
One of her projects includes supporting Bantay Kalikasan, an organization that provides relief operations and rehabilitation programs for the environment. The organization was integral to the reforestation of the 2,700-hectare La Mesa Watershed Area in the Philippines and catalyzed the public to adopt more trees. The organization, like Lopez, "believes that a community rooted in the love for nature makes it a champion for true sustainable livelihood," according to her website.
She finished her talk off by asking all the audiences members to stand up, and led them through a song, dance motions and a cheer.
"Do you care about Guam? Do you care about your future?" she said. "There are two things you need to make things happen: the heart and the will."


ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI)- St. Louis aldermen will hold another hearing today on city funding for a new NFL stadium. It's the third in a series of public hearings. The Ways and Means Committee is seeking public input about whether to extend bond payments on the Edward Jones Dome to help pay for the new stadium.
The hearing will begin at 6p.m. at the O'Fallon Park Recreation Complex on West Florissant Avenue.


Unfortunately "sweeping generalisations" have been made without availing avenues for redress, he said.
A day after three Doordarshan employees alleged that they were sexually harassed by their superiors, CEO Prasar Bharati Shashi Shekhar said on Saturday that the public broadcaster takes all such cases "extremely seriously" and action is taken strictly in accordance with disciplinary rules.
The women claimed at a press conference in Delhi that they were sexually harassed on the pretext of getting their contracts renewed. The women, all of them contractual employees, did not get into details of the harassment incidents.
"Doordarshan is led by a highly capable @DG_Doordarshan. We take all cases of this nature extremely seriously, action is taken strictly in accordance with law/applicable disciplinary rules," Mr Shekhar tweeted.
Varuna Bhandari, a lawyer, who is advising the victims, had on Friday said she has been approached by seven other women employees also from Doordarshan who have alleged sexual harassment at their work place.
"In nine out of 10 cases, the ICC (Internal Complaints Committee) did not pay attention to the sexual harassment complaints," Mr Bhandari claimed at the press conference.


Switzerland was the country with the largest number of permanent immigrants per capita in 2012, according to the 2014 International Migration Outlookexternal link compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The foreigners who settled permanently in Switzerland in 2012 comprised 1.6% of Switzerland’s population in that year. Switzerland is followed by Norway with 1.2% and Australia with 1.1%. In comparison, the largest OECD immigration country, the United States, had a share of permanent immigrants of 0.3% in 2012.
Most of the immigrants to Switzerland came from European Union countries such as Germany, Portugal, Italy and France.
According to preliminary figures, the number of people who moved their residence to Switzerland increased to 136,200 in 2013.
In absolute numbers, Switzerland, with 125,600 immigrants, is below the OECD average. The list is topped by the US with one million, followed by Germany with about 400,000 and Britain with 285,000.
In another ranking of the OECD – the percentage of the population that is foreign born – Switzerland placed second, with 27.7%, topped by Luxemburg with 42.6% and followed by Australia with 27.3%.
The increasing number of people moving within the European Union as well as high skilled migration and humanitarian movements are driving the rise in migration registered in OECD countries, the organisation said in its report. It warned that migration policies need to keep pace with these changes.
“Migration policies should be a priority for OECD countries, and integration policies should be seen as the best possible investment in terms of growth, social cohesion and well-being,” said OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría when the report was released on Monday.
The number of immigrants to western industrialised nations is little changed, at 4 million. Almost one in ten came from China, followed by 5.6% from Romania and 5.4% from Poland.
There are more than 115 million immigrants in the OECD countries today, about 10% of the total population. One in ten new migrants is from China, and one in five from Asia.
The OECD said that countries should also take into account the long-term advantages of immigration. “Countries would benefit more from immigration if they consider migrants as a resource rather than a problem, and integration policies as an investment,” Gurría said.
Germany was the top immigration destination in Europe in 2012, and according to preliminary estimates, it probably remained in second place in 2013, with about 465,000 permanent immigrants. “Germany is the engine of migration in Europe,” said OECD expert Thomas Liebig.
Three-quarters of all immigrants received by Germany are coming from other EU countries, making the country the second destination in the OECD, after the US. Several major immigration countries saw declines, including the US, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Switzerland has highest number of immigrants Dec 1, 2014 - 15:38 Switzerland was the country with the largest number of permanent immigrants per capita in 2012, according to the 2014 International Migration Outlook compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The foreigners who settled permanently in Switzerland in 2012 comprised 1.6% of Switzerland’s population in that year. Switzerland is followed by Norway with 1.2% and Australia with 1.1%. In comparison, the largest OECD immigration country, the United States, had a share of permanent immigrants of 0.3% in 2012. Most of the immigrants to Switzerland came from European Union countries such as Germany, Portugal, Italy and France. According to preliminary figures, the number of people who moved their residence to Switzerland increased to 136,200 in 2013. In absolute numbers, Switzerland, with 125,600 immigrants, is below the OECD average. The list is topped by the US with one million, followed by Germany with about 400,000 and Britain with 285,000. Foreign born In another ranking of the OECD – the percentage of the population that is foreign born – Switzerland placed second, with 27.7%, topped by Luxemburg with 42.6% and followed by Australia with 27.3%. The increasing number of people moving within the European Union as well as high skilled migration and humanitarian movements are driving the rise in migration registered in OECD countries, the organisation said in its report. It warned that migration policies need to keep pace with these changes. “Migration policies should be a priority for OECD countries, and integration policies should be seen as the best possible investment in terms of growth, social cohesion and well-being,” said OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría when the report was released on Monday. “The short- and long-term costs of standing still in the face of rapidly changing needs are high,” Gurría stated. “Policy makers need to lead an open and informed debate to build confidence and ensure everyone benefits.” Asian immigrants The number of immigrants to western industrialised nations is little changed, at 4 million. Almost one in ten came from China, followed by 5.6% from Romania and 5.4% from Poland. There are more than 115 million immigrants in the OECD countries today, about 10% of the total population. One in ten new migrants is from China, and one in five from Asia. The OECD said that countries should also take into account the long-term advantages of immigration. “Countries would benefit more from immigration if they consider migrants as a resource rather than a problem, and integration policies as an investment,” Gurría said. Germany was the top immigration destination in Europe in 2012, and according to preliminary estimates, it probably remained in second place in 2013, with about 465,000 permanent immigrants. “Germany is the engine of migration in Europe,” said OECD expert Thomas Liebig. Three-quarters of all immigrants received by Germany are coming from other EU countries, making the country the second destination in the OECD, after the US. Several major immigration countries saw declines, including the US, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Voters have dismissed a proposal to reduce Switzerland’s ecological footprint by introducing strict immigration rules and family planning measures.


For the upcoming F1 season, beginning this weekend, Marriott International is revving up and expanding its marketing partnership with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport.
The big winners will be the members of Marriott’s newly renamed travel program Marriott Bonvoy.
“Our marketing partnership with Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport team will give Marriott Bonvoy members, many of whom are fans of the team, the opportunity to pursue their passion for the sport,” said Karin Timpone, global marketing officer, Marriott International.
Marriott International and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport expand partnership giving Marriott Bonvoy members VIP experiences throughout the F1 racing season this year.
These Marriott Bonvoy Moments will be in addition to other member experiences, including behind the scenes access with the team over Grands Prix weekends for the ultimate fan selfie, where drivers, media and celebrities hang out, visits to the team garage, and prime viewing venues and other experiences at races throughout the season.
“We are delighted to expand our marketing partnership with Marriott International”, said Toto Wolff, team principal, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport.
“We can already look back on a very successful seven years together, but now we’re taking our marketing partnership to a whole new level.
“The extension proves that Formula One keeps growing as a marketing platform for leading global brands who want to further strengthen their brand awareness and value.
The new agreement not only extends the marketing partnership of seven years, but also significantly expands it.
For example, going beyond typical meet and greets to creating opportunities for members to spend time with the drivers in relaxed and luxurious environments.


Shrimp, fish pills and pet food all use an ingredient notorious for forced labor abuses.
Heads up: reason #5 is your fault.
A look into Thailand’s multi-billion dollar wild-caught seafood industry and the darkest links in its supply chain.
In the wild-caught seafood industry, forced labor persists because the first crucial supply-chain steps take place in a lawless, saltwater abyss.
The years grind away at young lives. Some slaves don't step on land for a full six years.
Did these ex-slaves catch your lunch?
Thailand, a major source of fish imported to the US, depends on slave labor.
A researcher urges action in response to an investigation revealing forced labor in the seafood industry.
Is your seafood harvested by slaves?
Man tells of torture, murder on the high seas.


Archives|1VIRS.'COLGATEHOYT g/ED TO C,' P. PERIN; Marriage Is at the Home of the Bridegroom's Sister,. in Washington. BOTH WED TWICE BEFORE Couple Leave for White Sulphur Springs and Later Will Return Here to Live.
1VIRS.'COLGATEHOYT g/ED TO C,' P. PERIN; Marriage Is at the Home of the Bridegroom's Sister,. in Washington. BOTH WED TWICE BEFORE Couple Leave for White Sulphur Springs and Later Will Return Here to Live.


The decision to include Binny in the Test squad for India's tour of England looks like a huge leap of faith.
On new year’s eve, all-rounder Stuart Binny had been named in the One-day International squad for the series against the Black Caps. With the 50-over World Cup to be played in seamer-friendly conditions in Australia and New Zealand in 2015, Binny’s inclusion was seen as an internship opportunity handed out to the allrounder.
Since then, Binny has bowled one over for eight runs — his international debut — in the only ODI (Hamilton) he played on the tour of New Zealand. He was dismissed for a duck before conceding 22 in four overs against Sri Lanka at the Asia Cup, his second and last match till date for India.
Impressed with his 2013 IPL exploits, the selectors had also included him in the squad for the World T20 in Bangladesh, a tournament where he warmed the bench.
It is too early to judge Binny, the son of former India cricketer and current South Zone selector Roger Binny, because he has had too few opportunities in the shorter formats of the game. But so far, captain MS Dhoni, even though he desperately needs a medium-pace all-rounder, has not been prepared to place his faith in Binny.
In this context, the decision to include Binny in the 18-member Test squad for the tour of England looks like a huge leap of faith as well as an odd promotion. As he is not even a regular in the playing XI in ODIs or even T20 Internationals, there are bound to be questions over Binny’s place in the Test side.
But there is a logical explanation to Binny being picked for the Test squad. He fits into a slot India have found hard to fill over the years. In the absence of a batsman who can double-up as a medium pacer, Dhoni has struggled to field a balanced team in overseas conditions — where spinners have a limited role and adding a fifth bowler means a frontline batsman has to be sacrificed.
This is a role that Irfan Pathan performed before he faded away because of a combination of a drop in form and frequent injuries. Sourav Ganguly, Ajit Agarkar and Sanjay Bangar have added balance to the Test side by performing dual roles with mixed success.
Over the past couple of seasons, Binny has been consistent in First-Class cricket when representing Karnataka but Test cricket away from home may prove to be a completely different ball game should the bits-and-pieces all-rounder get a look-in.
Nihal is a senior assistant editor based in Delhi.


Beckie, 24, joined the English club last August on a one-year deal from New Jersey-based Sky Blue FC of the National Women’s Soccer League.
In February, Beckie proved to be the difference in a 4-2 penalty shootout win over Arsenal in the final of the FA Women’s Continental League Cup.
The Man City women are after the treble this year. They currently stand second in the FA Women’s Super League at 13-0-5, one point behind Arsenal (15-2-0).
Beckie’s team is also still in contention for the SSE Women’s FA Cup with a semifinal matchup against defending champion Chelsea on Sunday. West Ham, whose roster includes Canadian striker Adriana Leon, faces Reading in the other semifinal.
A star at Texas Tech, where she became the Red Raiders’ all-time leading scorer with 57 goals, Beckie was taken by the Houston Dash in the first round (eighth overall) in the 2016 NWSL college draft. Sky Blue acquired her in a trade in January 2018.


Amazon today announced the launch of its cloud services out of datacentres in Singapore following strong demand to open a hub in the region.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provides a platform where customers can pay for computing power and storage on pay per use, has been operating out of the US since 2006. This has meant heavy traffic charges for those companies based in Australia making use of its services.
The company has now decided to follow requests to house its offerings closer to home.
"One of the most frequent and resounding requests over the last year has been for AWS to launch an Asia-Pacific presence," Andy Jassy said. "That's because they have lower latency for their end users and also there are companies where it's important for them for their data to be in the Asia-Pacific."
He acknowledged that Australian companies might still not want to bring their data out of the country and said that it was "very likely that [Amazon] would have a presence in Australia in the future". The company is constantly in conversation with datacentre providers in different countries, he said, but he couldn't comment on whether Amazon would build its own datacentre or enter a partnership if the decision was made to move into Australia.
Even if an Australian datacentre didn't eventuate, Jassy believed there was already enough benefit from having datacentres in Singapore to tempt Australian companies. "A lot of workloads are going to be very useful running out of Asia-Pacific," he said.
The other aspect to the regional launch, apart from data location and latency, is that the company has been building up a regional support and sales team. "Because we haven't had a physical datacentre presence [in the Asia-Pacific], there hasn't been as much awareness," he said, adding that having sales people in similar time zones would make it easier for companies to get information on the service.
Jassy said that thousands of Australian companies were already using the service in the US. Examples included Altium and crowdsourced graphic design firm 99designs.
Microsoft also launched its cloud offering, Azure, in Australia this month, which also has its datacentres based in Singapore.
When asked if he saw Microsoft as a threat, Jassy pointed to how recently many companies had launched their offerings, whereas Amazon has years of experience from offering web services (since 2006). "We are much better at it today than we were four years ago," he said.
He also believed that being able to choose different operating systems was an advantage, and questioned whether a company like Microsoft could get used to the high volume, low margin business case of cloud computing.


Does it Matter if Bowe Bergdahl Was a Deserter?
For the sake of Washington, this story is about Guantanamo, the power of the White House versus Congress, and the drawdown of the Afghanistan War.
There is no shortage of people who will speak out against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American prisoner of the Afghanistan war, just released from five years of capture.
A year later, there's still no consensus on the question: is Snowden a hero or a traitor? Expect a similar path for Bergdahl.
One is Justin Gerleve, Bergdahl's former squad leader, who appeared on CNN on Wednesday. "I believe that he totally deserted — not only his fellow soldiers — but his leadership that wanted the best for him and for our country," Gerleve said. He also implied that Bergdahl's capture led to an increase in targeted attacks against their units. (There are disputed claims over whether several died as a direct result of Bergdahl's actions.) "I can't say for sure the leakage was from Bergdahl, but it's kind of that suspicion that it did happen," Gerleve continued.
But when CNN's Jake Tapper asked him whether Bergdahl should have been rescued, Gerleve responded. "My opinion is yes; no American needs to be left behind."
This exchange seems to encapsulate the media coverage of Bowe Bergdahl — questioning his character while admitting, ultimately, that those details don't matter much.
Broad swaths of Capitol Hill that agree. Even the lawmakers who have expressed the most ardent outrage at the deal the White House cut to secure Bergdahl's release, such as Republican Sen. John McCain, himself a former POW, say it's irrelevant whether he was a deserter or not.
"There's too much emphasis on Bergdahl. That is not that important," Inhofe said. "What is important is what the president did."
The Bergdahl media story is following a familiar arc. Consider that in the beginning of the Snowden leaks, the media swarmed on all the details of his life — researching his girlfriends, his family, his activity on Internet forums, and so on. As that story evolved, it became clear it wasn't about Snowden as a person. It was a story about the state of global espionage, and a national reckoning of the power of U.S. government's signals intelligence apparatus. A year later, there's still no consensus on the question: Is Snowden a hero or a traitor? Expect a similar path for Bergdahl.
For sure, there are lawmakers who want to know Bergdahl's history and "whether this man was a deserter or not," as Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein puts it. And a number of lawmakers do think it's relevant whether he deserted.
"For the American people, they would be willing to pay a pretty high price if somebody was a combat veteran," Republican Sen. Mark Kirk or Illinois argued. "If a guy was just a deserter they would not be into paying a very high price for getting him back."
The Army has pledged to complete a "comprehensive" review on the circumstances around Bergdahl's case, but the results may not come for some time. And in the meantime, lawmakers concerned about a myriad of other issues not related to Bergdahl don't want to distract from their critiques.
Part of what's at issue is that there is still so much not known about Bergdahl, with reports streaming out about the circumstances surrounding his capture by the Taliban. Basing your criticism around the prisoner swap on Bergdahl's background could end up backfiring. "The policy that [we are] making sure we get left-behind soldiers, prisoners of war — in this case, a captured prisoner — is the first priority,"Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska said.
Another part of the issue is that there is such little precedent for this scenario — an AWOL soldier-turned POW (reader-historians, feel free to email us when this has happened before). In that vacuum, what we're seeing is a clash of long-held U.S. values that serve more as maxims than iron-clad policy: "We don't negotiate with terrorists" (what the Republicans are saying) versus "Leave no one behind" (what the White House is saying). According to an Army spokesperson speaking to the International Business Times, "there are no set regulations governing when or whether a soldier can be left behind — that it is left to the discretion of the commanding officer." And the U.S. does negotiate with terrorists, just not publicly.
According to a 2005, Congressional Research Service Report, the official U.S. policy regarding alive prisoners of war (from Vietnam, at least) reads as follows: "Should any report prove true [that an American is still being held captive in Vietnam], we will take appropriate action to ensure the return of those involved." Although there is a precedent for charging American POWs after they return home. In 1979, Pfc. Robert R. Garwood returned to the U.S. after 14 years in Vietnam (he was prisoner for at least four of those years). Upon arriving home, he was court-martialed and convicted of collaborating with the enemy. All that considered,the Bergdahl scenario is still unique.
The story of his possible desertion and capture will keep making headlines and will draw attention. But, for the sake of Washington, this story isn't about a solider. It is about Guantanamo, the power of the White House versus Congress, and the drawdown of the Afghanistan war.


On "This Week," ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl challenged White House Press Secretary Jay Carney over the knee-jerk excuse that administration officials give when they are asked about the bad economic numbers.
During the interview, Karl showed a clip of Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., reminding his audience that seven million more Americans are living in poverty today who were not in poverty when Bush was leaving office.
"I assume Senator Scott didn't notice that, you know, a lot of people were thrown into poverty by the worst recession since the Great Depression, which was in full bloom when President Obama was sworn into office," Carney replied, after Karl asked him to react.
"But the president has had five years, Jay," Karl replied. "Five years. And the -- the economic crisis is in the rear-view mirror. The Bush years are in the rear-view mirror. And he hasn't been able to turn this around. Doesn't the president bear some responsibility -- his policies -- for the fact that the poverty rate in America has gone up and the gap between rich and poor is only greater?"


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While in law school, Anna was a member of the Berkeley Business Law Journaland an editor of the Berkeley Journal of International Law.


In Malawi, pregnant women and new mothers who live in remote villages are getting medical help thanks to a toll-free hotline and text messaging service known as "Chipatala cha pa Foni" or Heath Center by Phone. Run by the nonprofit VillageReach, the program connects expecting mothers in rural areas with health workers. More pregnant women are receiving prenatal care and birth planning thanks to the medical hotline, as Lameck Masina reports for VOA from Lilongwe.


Beautiful 3/2 single family home with vaulted ceilings and a spacious layout. Relax out back in your tropical oasis with lush landscape that surrounds the pool. Perfect for entertaining. Garage has been converted into a 4th room with central A/C but can easily be converted back into garage. No HOA. All ages welcomed.


DOWN FOR THE COUNT: Police cruisers block a portion of East Street in Dedham morning after strong wind gusts knocked over a tree.
A storm brought the first snow of the season to parts of Massachusetts yesterday, as high-intensity winds whipped up waters along the coast and caused mild flooding—conditions that could continue today, according to meteorologist William Babcock of the National Weather Service.
Light snow dusted parts of Cape Cod, as well as Bristol and Worcester counties. In Taunton, residents woke yesterday morning to about a quarter inch of snow. Authorities blame sudden icing conditions for a rash of overnight highway accidents in Massachusetts, including two crashes that left a Falmouth police officer and a state trooper injured. It was unclear if weather was a factor in a fatal crash on I-495 in Raynham. A 57-year-old Brockton man died when his car went out of control at about 4:30 a.m., struck a guardrail and then was hit by a tractor-trailer.


Surface rail along busy streets will be too slow for suburban commuters. This idea cannot compete with the speed of the Transitways despite downtown congestion on Albert and Slater.
The biggest problem we face is the fact that rail infrastructure was totally removed from downtown in the 1950s and 1960s and we lost many critical rail right of ways to roadways, parks and housing. This makes it hard to deliver passengers quickly to downtown by a rail system.
I do believe that the only way that streetcars can be re-introduced on Bank, Rideau and other streets is to create exclusive streetcar lanes so that traffic does not hold back streetcars. With this, on-street parking will have to go, and turning across the streetcar lane will have to be restricted. This may be hard to sell to car drivers and retailers.
Expansion of the O-Train network can only be done with the understanding that it really cannot effectively deliver passengers downtown. Just as the current O-Train line serves mainly Carleton University and few other locations, we should understand that O-Train links to Barrhaven and across town to Kanata using existing rail lines will mainly serve passengers wanting to travel to locations on those corridors. I believe that extension of the O-Train to the airport is of very limited value. A rail link that does not deliver visitors to downtown hotels will not be attractive.


ELON, N.C. (AP) Tyler Seibring scored 21 points, Steven Santa Ana had 16 points and nine rebounds and Elon beat James Madison 68-65 on Sunday.
Santa Ana missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 18 seconds left. Matt Lewis missed a long 3-pointer at the other end, but Stuckey Mosley grabbed the offensive rebound. After a timeout, James Madison was called for an over-and-back violation with four seconds left. Santa Ana again was off the mark on a free throw and JMU's half-court heave didn't hit the rim at the buzzer.
Kris Wooten made four 3-pointers and scored 14 points for Elon (5-10, 1-1 Colonial Athletics Association).
Elon led by as many as 17 points with 9:11 remaining and had its last double-digit lead at 5:22 as JMU went on a 13-3 run to pull to 64-62.
Dwight Wilson made 11 of 12 shots and had 22 points and 10 rebounds for James Madison (7-8, 0-2). Lewis added 16 points.


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VANCOUVER -- Vancouver Canucks forward Alexandre Burrows will finish the season against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday reunited with Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin on the Canucks' top line.
Burrows is aware it also could be his final game in a Canucks uniform.
Burrows, who averaged almost 30 goals during four seasons playing with the Sedins through 2011-12, has one more season left on his contract. But with the Canucks pushing to get younger and faster, and a 35th birthday to celebrate on Monday, Burrows realizes he might not be around to as the rebuild continues in Vancouver.
Burrows, who has nine goals and 13 assists in 78 games as a bottom-six forward this season, insisted his focus is on finishing a "frustrating, disappointing" season on a positive note.
"It's a little tougher than usual," said Burrows, who is looking forward to playing with the Sedins again. "It's fun to be back with them; they have been a big part of my career."
Canucks forward Michael Zalewski is on the second line after being called up from Utica of the American Hockey League on Friday.
"We don't want injuries, but they have made us better for the future," coach Willie Desjardins said regarding Zalewski's opportunity. "Lots of guys are better because of it."
Edmonton defenseman Darnell Nurse is expected to play after leaving the game against Vancouver on Wednesday after taking a puck to the throat. The Oilers are trying to build on their win over the Canucks, which ended a three-game losing streak.
Edmonton has missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs 10 straight seasons but can avoid finishing last in the NHL this season with another win against Vancouver. The Oilers are tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs with 69 points, but have the non-shootout wins tiebreaker.
"Last game, and a game that statistically may not mean anything but it means a lot to our group; I believe that," coach Todd McLellan said. "We have a chance to end up not in the basement, which is I think really important for us to go after."
Status Report: Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who is from the Vancouver area, will move up to play with Hall and Pakarinen, while Draisaitl will play with Korpikoski and Yakupov.
Who's Hot: McDavid had a goal and two assists against the Canucks on Wednesday and has 13 points (two goals, 11 assists) in his past 10 games.


The advent of the iPhone has brought about touchscreen capability in mobile devices to an even broader level of appeal among the masses, and in this day and age, we more or less expect relevant gadgets to come with a touchscreen display right from the get go. New York subway riders have touchscreen subway maps to look forward to, where the first batch has gone live over in Grand Central Station.
Over the course of the past one month, the first of 18 MTA On the Go kiosks (as they are called) were installed in the Grand Central subway station. Out of the 18, eight of them have been distributed between the uptown and downtown segments of the major 4/5/6 north-south arteries, while the remaining 10 would be placed all over the mezzanine above which will connect the subway to the commuter rail station.
These touchscreen displays happen to be large interactive navigation centers, where they will offer users real-time up information about your destination as well as any possible service disruptions that might happen. Of course, there is nothing quite like a paper map whenever there is a power cut and no backup power is available, and if vandalism rates are not high, then touchscreen subway map kiosks would make perfect sense at stations, not to mention having it facilitate a more efficient way of dispensing information to commuters.
Filed in Gadgets. Read more about Touchscreen.


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As its name implies, GoodReader (download for iOS) is an excellent PDF reader app that lets you quickly read, mark up, edit and, in three taps, sign PDF documents -- big and small for $4.99. The text-to-speech feature that reads files out loud to you is a great bonus.
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Approval for the extension of a Co Tyrone goldmine was based on inaccurate maps, it was claimed yesterday.
Local man William Donnelly alleged that more than 20 hectares of the site at Cavanacaw, near Omagh, were never properly assessed.
Mr Donnelly is seeking to overturn a failed legal bid to stop underground work at the operation.
Judgment was reserved following submissions at the Court of Appeal in Belfast.
Mining has been carried out at the site by Omagh Minerals, a subsidiary of Canadian firm Galantas Gold Corporation.
In 2015 the then Environment Minister Mark H Durkan gave the green light to the extended project. Planning permission was granted for underground work at the existing mine on the basis of compliance with strict environmental conditions.
At the time Mr Durkan said these would include progressive restoration of the above-ground site to ensure the protection and enhancement of habitat over time.
But Mr Donnelly claimed there was an unauthorised removal of large quantities of rock from the site.
Part of his case centred on the environmental impact and possible acidity of this waste rock.
Points were also raised about the size of the site being either 60 hectares or 81 hectares.
According to Mr Donnelly, that raised the possibility that the minister was "misinformed or even confused as to the scale of the project being approved".
Lawyers for the department countered by insisting work was already covered by previous planning approval obtained more than 20 years ago.
No regulations were breached during the decision-making process, they argued.
In September last year a High Court judge dismissed Mr Donnelly's challenge against the minister's decision.
He appealed that verdict in a fresh attempt to have the approval quashed and a new planning process undertaken.
Issues were raised about the application being for 60 hectares, while maps and drawings submitted as part of the process allegedly covered an 81-hectare area.
Following arguments, Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan pledged to deliver judgment as soon as possible.


You don't have to look far to find someone who has suffered identity theft. New York state's attorney general said current state law does little to protect you. He wants to change that.
Clay Gronemeyer and his wife Heather were victims of a hacker last spring. Heather was in the hospital after giving birth to a little boy. She sent her husband on an errand.
"I asked him to go get me a chicken bowl from Chipotle,” said Heather.
Days later, the couple got a phone call from their bank.
"They gave me a call and let me know that my card had been compromised," said Clay.
Clay was one of thousands of consumers across the country whose credit or debit card was compromised when thieves hacked into point of sale terminals at Chipotle during the spring of 2017.
"Chipotle was breached all over the place. It just so happens that four were in Rochester," New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman explained.
The Chipotle breach was just one of 1,583 reported to the attorney general's office last year exposing the personal records of more than 9.2 million New Yorkers. In fact, the number of data breaches reported to the state attorney general's office in 2017 increased 23 percent in one year. The attorney general’s office prepared a report that also showed thieves most often stole New Yorkers’ social security numbers followed closely by financial information. The most common reason for identity theft was hacking.
Hackers operating anywhere in the world can steal your personal information. That's what makes a data breach so potentially damaging. But Schneiderman says right now New York has few weapons in the war against identity thieves.
"We have no requirement now that companies provide reasonable safeguards," said Schneiderman. "Other states do. We don't. So the SHIELD law would impose that."
The SHIELD Act stands for Stop Hacks and Improve Electronic Data Security Act. It would require companies to safeguard sensitive data, and it would expand the types of data breaches that businesses have to report.
"So if a company will comply with that, they would get a safe harbor from any litigation from our office,” said Schneiderman.
But if a company does not, it could face stiff fines. Schneiderman is traveling the state, pushing for passage of the act that he believes will protect you - the consumer. Now it's in the hands of New York state legislators.
The attorney general stresses that thieves are busy, and consumers must work hard to protect our data. With the help of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Rochester, here's Deanna's Do List.
Create strong passwords, and change them often.
Only make purchases on websites that begin with https. Some may also have a padlock sign.
Never give personal information over the phone unless you contacted them.
Protect you social security number. If a business asks for it, ask them why they need it. Often a social security number isn’t actually required.


Former President Bill Clinton believes Trump voters were particularly vulnerable to false claims, or fake news, because they felt economically trapped in their rural communities.
“In the last election, in the counties that Hillary carried, you find 64 percent of America’s GDP. In the more numerous, rural counties carried by President Trump, you find 36 percent of the GDP, even though the median income of a Trump voter was higher. What does that tell you?” Clinton told a crowd gathered at Georgetown University Monday afternoon.
Clinton said he believes President Donald Trump rose to power by feeding off the American people’s anger and resentment towards those in Washington, but that the same strategy might not play well in the 2020 election cycle.
“Which works better in economics, politics, and social policy: addition or subtraction, multiplication or division? You can win more elections in the short run when people are mad with subtraction and division, but it’s a lousy way to run a railroad,” Clinton said in explaining his thinking.


Former U.S. arms control official Stephen Rademaker says the Iran nuclear agreement is a Faustian bargain that will end up empowering rather than weakening Iran in the end. He joins Gwen Ifill to discuss his objections and how he would amend the deal.
Over the weekend, Oregon Democrat Jeff Merkley became the 31st senator to announce his support for the Iran nuclear agreement. His backing puts President Obama three votes away from winning a veto-proof majority in the Senate. That would derail any resolutions disapproving the agreement.
Tonight, we continue our series of conversations on the Iran nuclear deal. Last time, we heard from a former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency who supports the agreement.
Tonight, we hear from an opponent. Stephen Rademaker was an assistant secretary of state for the Bureaus of Arms Control and International Security and Nonproliferation under President George W. Bush. He's now a principal at the Podesta Group in Washington and an adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
In a nutshell, what is your opposition to this deal as it is written now?
I believe there are number of major flaws with the agreement.
But the single most important one is that it basically locks in that Iran will be a threshold nuclear weapons state. That means that Iran is going to be able, in very short order, to produce nuclear weapons.
Explain to people the difference between threshold, just a little definitional question, and actually having the weapons?
Well, being on the threshold means a country can be very, very close to actually having a nuclear weapon, but hasn't actually produced one. The term is often used that they can be a screwdriver's turn away from actually putting together a nuclear weapon.
And experts have said for years, for decades that if Iran is allowed to become a threshold nuclear weapon state, that will stimulate a cascade of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, which of course is a very dangerous region of the world. And there are other countries there that, if Iran was allowed to have that capability, they are going to want exactly that same capability.
And so your reading of this agreement is that by doing this, we are empowering Iran, instead of weakening it?
You need to distinguish between the short-term and the long term. The president in his effort to sell this agreement has focused on the short term. And his argument, his main argument in favor of the agreement is that it will reduce Iran's nuclear breakout time from two or three months today to a year, or I guess I should say it will extend their nuclear break — it will take longer for them to produce a nuclear weapon, to produce the material, the fissile material, the highly enriched uranium they would need for a nuclear weapon.
And that is true in the short term.
But in the long term, President Obama conceded that starting in about 13 years, the breakout time will reduce to almost zero.
And when you testified about this to Congress, you described it as a Faustian bargain.
Exactly. Faust was this mythological figure who sold his soul for the — to the devil in exchange for magical powers for — I think it was 26 years.
For 26 years, he had magical powers. At the end of 26 years, the devil came to claim his soul. And I think that is a pretty good analogy to what this deal provides. For 10 years, it's not a bad deal. After 10 years, it becomes a horrible deal and it gives Iran everything they have always wanted. After — President Obama concedes, after 13 years, the breakout time is almost zero.
When you were a congressional aide, you were party to the conversation about the agreed framework involving North Korea. Is this different or the same, or are they apples and oranges?
I think they were similar, in the sense they were both Faustian bargains.
The agreed framework with North Korea was a good deal for us in the short term, and a very bad deal in the long term. The difference, however, was that, in the case of North Korea, there was a reason to believe that, when the devil came to claim our soul, when the deal — the benefits of the deal reversed and went to the other side, that there would be a very different government in North Korea.
But, remember, this was in 1994, when communist regimes were collapsing all over the world. And so it wasn't unreasonable to believe in 1994 that, in 15 years or whenever the bargain had to be delivered to North Korea, that it would be a very different regime, that communism would be gone from North Korea, just as it was gone from Russia and all of Eastern Europe.
Of course, we know today communism is still there, so in fact would have been a bad deal. I think the difference with the Iran deal is, there's absolutely no reason to think that in 10 or 15 years, we will have a fundamentally different regime in Iran. Quite the contrary. This agreement is going to result in the almost immediate transfer to Iran of somewhere between $100 billion and $150 dollars, which for Iran is an enormous amount of money, relative to the size of their economy and their budget.
But let's talk about the economic problem here, because part of the argument is — part of the stick and the carrot involved in this deal was that the sanctions would eventually be lifted, that Iran would be able basically to feed their people again.
And you're saying that's exactly the incentive, perverse incentive, that would empower Iran, part of the empowering.
Well, I'm saying Iran will be empowered because of the restrictions on nuclear activities will go away. That's why they're going to be empowered in the security sense.
In an economic sense, yes, they will be empowered economically as a result of the — in the first instance, they get a huge cash transfer, because there's money, pursuant to the U.S. sanctions, that is being segregated — it was being held in foreign banks.
They will get that money.
Then they will get increased trade, increased ability to export their oil, increased foreign investment in their economy. So, over the longer term, there will be many other economic benefits.
And I'm not saying it would be a bad bargain to trade that for meaningful long-term permanent restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. The problem I have is, we have traded those benefits to Iran in exchange for very short-term — imagine, if 13 years ago, 15 years ago, President Bush had cut a deal with Iran that said, OK, for 15 years, you behave, but at the end of 15 years, you can pretty much do whatever you want. You can be a screwdriver's turn away from having a nuclear weapon.
Had President Bush cut that deal 15 years ago, we'd be cursing him today.
So, do you also think that this deal in some way, because of those economic incentives, because — are propping up the current regime, that they do not provide a disincentive for this regime or for the political environment to change?
I think ending U.S. sanctions, and delivering these significant economic benefits to the Iranian regime, will tend to support the regime, which is why I said this is not at all like North Korea, where there was a reason in 1994 to believe that the tide of history was running against communist regimes in Asia.
There's no reason to think — there's no objective reason, looking at the situation in the Middle East, to think that the Iranian regime is going to be in big trouble after this deal.
So, as we reported, the president seems to be rolling up support one by one by one. He's now at 31. And there's some distinctions about whether he — where he needs to get to make sure that he wins this deal in Congress.
What — assuming this passes for a moment, assuming that you can't quite make your case strongly enough to members of Congress before the vote happens, what can be done, if anything, to make this a less harmful deal in your — through your perspective?
Well, I don't think I'm alone is saying the biggest problem is with what is referred to as the sunset clause, the fact that, beginning in 10 years and in the years thereafter, the restrictions go away.
Everyone who studies this who is sort of an expert on the subject says that, yes, that's the biggest weakness. And there was a group of experts convened by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that included many of President Obama's former advisers on Iran, his nuclear nonproliferation experts.
And they agreed that this was a big problem. And they said the United States should unilaterally tell the Iranians that, notwithstanding what is in this deal, as a matter of our national policy, we're not going to allow them to produce fissile material in the quantity that they could use to produce a weapon.
If the U.S. could just say that and have it happen, wouldn't that have happened?
You know, I have had this conversation with some of these — these are very — former national security advisers, very senior people who signed on to this policy statement.
And I think the signers should be held to it.
And I think, if we're trying to make the best of a very, very bad deal, which is what I think we may be forced to do if the votes are not there in Congress to disapprove this, then the advice we got from this group is probably pretty good. We ought to tell the Iranians that, notwithstanding what you think you won in the negotiation, you will be in a world of hurt if you try to produce a nuclear weapon.
Stephen Rademaker of the Bipartisan Policy Center, among other things, thank you very much.


Despite the heightened police presence at AT&T Park, a regular measure since Bryan Stow was beaten into a coma in Los Angeles last year, there was another incident over the weekend. Christopher Torii Smith, 26, was arrested after assaulting a fan in the bathroom during Sunday's game against the Dodgers.
He allegedly approached the 21-year-old victim on Sunday in a ballpark bathroom and began hitting him. The victim fell to the ground and Smith continued attacking him, Esparza said.
Smith then fled but officers spotted him and took him into custody in Lefty O'Doul Plaza. He was booked into jail on suspicion of battery, vandalism and public intoxication, Esparza said.
The victim suffered only ("Only." Leave it to LA-SF to bring out the moral relativism) a lacerated lip in the attack. Police haven't announced a motive, nor what everyone will care about: who was a fan of which team.


Still, one would think Hemsworth would remember if one of those lines was, “I can’t believe I, Thor, am dying right now and will never again appear in a Marvel film,” but he claims to be just as ignorant as anyone else when it comes to his character’s fate. “I feel like a fan of this whole thing as much as anyone and am interested to see if I live or die,” he tells Ellen. Regardless of where his character stands at the end of Endgame, Hemsworth admits he’d love to continue portraying the hammer-wielding Asgardian in some fashion, so that Ragnarok sequel isn’t totally out of the question. With his contract expiring, though, it’s going to cost Marvel a pretty penny.
Chadwick Boseman when asked about Endgame, Black Panther 2: "I'm dead"


Monday night, after picking up his son Lukas from the NHL Scouting Combine, Rich Sutter brought his family over to the Southern Alberta home of his twin brother Ron. That night, the twins who played a combined 32 NHL seasons watched their older brother Darryl Sutter and his Los Angeles Kings take a commanding 3-0 series lead in the 2012 Stanley Cup Final.
It's the latest chapter for one of hockey's most famous families, one that has seen six brothers combine to play over 5,000 NHL games and four of them serve as NHL coaches.
"Darryl and I are pretty close. We've gone through a lot together," said Brian, the eldest of the six Sutters who played in the NHL. "[We] played against each other for years, were captains of our teams, and coached against each other for years. It's exciting for him. Darryl has pushed the right buttons to get them to do the job."
Among the brothers, there's a special regard held for Darryl, who began the season out of hockey before becoming the Kings' head coach in December.
Four of the Sutter brothers (Duane, Brent, Rich, and Ron) were selected in the opening round of the NHL Draft while Brian was selected in the second round. Darryl, on the other hand, was taken in the 11th round, the 179th pick in the 1978 NHL Draft, only to enjoy a stellar playing and coaching career that could be within hours of a Stanley Cup win.
And with Darryl on the verge of glory eight years after coming so close as coach of a Calgary Flames team that lost in seven games to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2004 Final, the whole family is excited.
"We're a close family. We want to see us all do well," said Ron, who is currently a Flames scout and was coached by Darryl in San Jose. "It's his second kick at the can as a coach. I know we're all rooting him on and hopefully they can win. Our kids are eating it up and enjoying it. Probably more than us adults."
Almost 30 years after Duane and Brent won the Stanley Cup together with the Islanders, the Kings' Cup run has been especially exciting for the next generation of Sutters, including Brent's son Brandon, Darryl's son Brett, and Duane's son Brody, all of whom are in the Hurricanes organization.
"That's the most gratifying thing, to see how the kids get behind it," Rich told NHL.com. "Some of the kids will text him. Darryl's not great at replying, but you know darn well he's reading them."
Through their divergent NHL careers, the Sutters remain incredibly close and talk frequently about everything from hockey to family. But those talks took on a different tone when Darryl was offered the Kings job in December. After spending the previous months tending to his Alberta farm following his resignation as general manager of the Flames a year earlier, Darryl sought counsel from each of his brothers.
"We did talk shortly after L.A. contacted him. When there is an important decision made among all us brothers, we've always been able to rely on one another and bounce questions off each other," Ron told NHL.com. "I remember telling him, 'If you're going to take a coaching job again, make sure it's a team that has a chance to win. Don't go to a team where you're in a rebuilding mode.'"
That advice was prophetic, but in the Kings' dominating run toward the franchise's first Stanley Cup, communication between brothers has been limited -- due more to Darryl's superstitions than anything else.
"Darryl can be a bit of a superstitious guy, so we just try to keep the same pattern as when the playoffs started. Just have a good talk before a series starts and leave him alone," Rich said. "That's kind of how we've left it. We tend to be superstitious at times. The way they were going earlier, why switch it up?"
None of the brothers expect to travel to Los Angeles if Darryl's Kings capture the Cup. But as each of them has maintained his roots in Alberta, it's more than likely they'll find a way to celebrate together and add another chapter to one of hockey's great legacies.
"We're as proud of him being a coach and [possibly] winning it as when our other brothers won it as players. These opportunities don't come up that often," Ron said. "When you have someone you know [win the Cup] it's special. When it's a brother, it's extra special."


Harry Moseley's mum Georgie from Birmingham's carried the Olympic torch today on behalf of her son.
The 11 year old schoolboy was well-known after selling hand-made bracelets raising over 700 thousand pounds for charity. He got many celebrities onboard including Chelsea Captain John Terry who nominated Harry back in 2010 to carry the torch from the Chelsea ground.
But sadly Harry died from a brain tumour in October 2011 which is why his mum is carrying it for him.
Heart's Rob Mayor spoke to Georgie on the way down to London.


NEW YORK • Three diseases, leading killers of Americans, often involve long periods of decline before death. Two of them - heart disease and cancer - usually require expensive drugs, operations and hospitalisations. The third, dementia, has no effective treatments to slow its course.
So when a group of United States researchers asked which of these diseases involved the greatest healthcare costs in the last five years of life, the answer they found might seem surprising. The most expensive, by far, was dementia.
The study looked at patients on the US' federally administered social insurance system Medicare. The average total cost of care for a person with dementia during those five years was US$287,038 (S$399,000).
For a patient who died of heart disease, it was US$175,136. For a cancer patient, it was US$173,383. Medicare paid almost the same amount for patients with each of those diseases - close to US$100,000 - but dementia patients had many more expenses that were not covered.
On average, the out-of-pocket cost for a patient with dementia was more than 80 per cent higher than the cost for someone with heart disease or cancer.
The reason is that dementia patients need caregivers to watch them, help with basic activities like eating, dressing and bathing, and provide constant supervision to make sure they do not wander off or harm themselves. None of those costs was covered by Medicare.
For many families, caring for a dementia patient often "consumed almost their entire household wealth", said Dr Amy Kelley, a geriatrician at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York and the lead author of the paper published on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
"It's stunning that people who start out with the least end up with even less. It's scary," said Dr Kenneth Covinsky, a geriatrician at the University of California in San Francisco. "And they haven't even counted some of the costs, like the daughter who gave up time from work and is losing part of her retirement and her children's college fund."
Everything gets complicated when a person has dementia, noted Dr Christine Cassel, a geriatrician and CEO of the National Quality Forum. She described a familiar situation: If a dementia patient in a nursing home gets a fever, he lands in hospital. There, such patients tend to have complications - they get delirious and confused, fall out of bed and break a bone, or choke on their food. Medical costs soar.
The reason for the big disparities in out-of-pocket costs between the three diseases, Dr Kelley said, is that Medicare covers discrete medical services like office visits and acute care such as hospitalisation and surgery. Expenses for cancer and heart patients tend to be of that sort. They often do not need full-time home or nursing home care until the very end of their life, if at all.
Dementia patients, in contrast, need constant care for years. They may not be sick enough for a nursing home, but cannot be left alone. When they need a nursing home, that cost is not covered by health insurance. More than half of patients with dementia use savings to pay until nothing is left. Then Medicaid, the federal-state programme for low-income people, takes over.
"It's a terribly expensive disease," said Ms Virginia Benson, whose husband, George, 91, has Alzheimer's. Yet Mr Benson has almost no medical expenses. "It's exclusively care costs," his wife said.


View full sizeBenjamin Brink / The OregonianGov. John Kitzhaber on Monday announced formal approval of a federal waiver including $1.9 billion in federal funding over five years.
The federal government has formally approved reforms to the Oregon Health Plan as well as $1.9 billion to support them, meaning changes to the Medicaid-funded program in Portland and around the state.
, intended to cut costs while improving care to the Medicaid-funded OHP. The waiver includes the first formal approval of a tentative agreement for federal funding that made national headlines in May.
to support the reforms. In return, state officials promise to curb cost increases for state and federal programs.
The approval comes in time for startup of the state plan next month, when coordinated care organizations will begin providing integrated care in certain areas of the state, including Portland and Bend.


The report by European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) MEP Mark Demesmaeker largely welcomed the Commission’s January strategy but called for a ban on micro-plastics in cosmetic and cleaning products by the end of the decade.
Demesmaeker referred to recent bans on micro-beads, introduced in countries like the United Kingdom, which show it is possible to cut out “intentionally added” micro-plastics, where viable alternatives exist.
The Netherlands, Austria, Belgium and Sweden have issued a joint call to ban the microplastics used in detergents and cosmetics, saying the measure will protect marine life – and seafood – from contamination.
Like the Commission’s original roadmap, the report also says that plastic should be designed with the circular economy is mind, so that Europe can establish a profitable single market for recycled material.
“Together we can turn plastic wastelands into fields of gold,” Demesmaeker said before the plenary session of the European Parliament backed him by 597 votes in favour and just 15 against.
His report also called on the Commission to set minimum requirements on micro-plastics in product legislation, with an emphasis on textiles, tyres, paint and cigarette butts.
So far, the most significant piece of legislation to come out of the strategy is the EU executive’s proposal on single-use plastics, which contains a short list of products that should be banned, including cotton buds, cutlery, drinks stirrers and balloon sticks.
But the report also tuned up the strategy by insisting that the Commission should ensure so-called oxo-degradable plastics, a source of micro-plastics, are completely banned by 2020.
It also says that the EU executive should draw up a list of “useful” biodegradable plastics products and applications, as they “should not be seen as a universal remedy against marine litter”.
“The Parliament today has acknowledged that biodegradable plastics are not a silver bullet to our plastic pollution crisis, but merely a distraction from real solutions,” said Rethink Plastic alliance campaigner Ioana Popescu.
The Flemish MEP’s report supports the Commission’s strategy but also insists that boosting collection and recycling rates should be prioritised, particularly through deposit-refund schemes and so-called extended producer responsibility schemes or EPRs.
EPRs essentially make manufacturers and importers bear responsibility for their products throughout their life-cycle, including the environmental impact caused by their use and disposal.
Several member states use deposit-refund schemes to boost collection rates for items like bottles, while EPRs continue to be rolled out in different sectors. The Netherlands is considering launching one for the textile sector.
But the Commission’s approach has been criticised for adopting a self-regulatory approach for the industry, relying largely on pledges and voluntary commitments to bring plastic waste down.
That has not stopped big European players from making admittedly impressive promises.
On Thursday, UNESDA Soft Drinks Europe said all bottles would be recycled EU-wide by 2025 and that all PET plastic containers would contain an average minimum of 25% recycled content.


DEAR ABBY: I have been divorced for eight years. My ex and I are on civil terms and text each other a few times a week regarding our kids, mutual friends and general chitchat.
A few months ago, during a rough patch in my relationship with my girlfriend of three years, “Lily,” I expressed my frustration in one of these texts. It was nothing horrible or unkind, just venting a bit.
A week or so later, Lily was spending the night and I awoke at 2 a.m. to find an empty bed. I discovered her in the living room with my phone, surfing through my texts. She was livid about the communications with my ex, particularly the one in which I commented about our relationship, and stormed out.
I have no password on my phone and nothing to hide from Lily and told her so. I admitted that my ex was not an appropriate person to discuss our relationship with and apologized.
This has caused a permanent shift in our relationship on two levels: She is angry and suspicious regarding my communication with my ex, and I am having trust issues with her. I feel my privacy was invaded and wonder what else Lily has searched to satisfy her curiosity. She has yet to apologize and feels justified in what she did. I contend that if she hadn’t read the texts, especially in such an underhanded way, there would be no ill feelings.
DEAR DAZED: You’re not wrong, and you are not the one trying to shift blame. Lily is. I don’t know what your marriage was like, but it appears you have replaced your ex with a suspicious and controlling woman. Red flag!
A few men live here also. One of the men sits on his living room couch with only his jockey shorts on. He leaves his door wide open when he does this. He seems not to care who sees him while walking by his apartment.
Some folks here believe it should be ignored and no one should look in while passing by. They say whatever he does in his own apartment is his own business. I believe that’s true, but only when the door is closed.
DEAR BEFUDDLED: What people do in the PRIVACY of their own apartment is no one’s business. When the front door is open, it is no longer private. If the man’s state of undress bothers some of the residents, they should bring it to the manager of the senior housing complex.


With top-line growth acceleration, the online marketplace company just beat expectations and raised guidance.
These results were significantly above what eBay admitted last quarter was potentially conservative guidance, which called for revenue of $2.14 billion to $2.19 billion, and adjusted earnings per share of $0.40 to $0.42.
Revenue climbed 7% on a currency-neutral basis.
Gross merchandise volume (GMV) increased 4% year over year as reported, to $20.9 billion, and would have grown 6% excluding currencies.
A 1% increase (3% at constant currency) in marketplaces GMV, to $19.8 billion, which resulted in revenue of $1.8 billion.
An accelerated 35% increase in StubHub GMV, to $1.1 billion, which resulted in revenue of $225 million, driven by broad strength across genres and continued product innovation.
Classifieds platforms grew revenue 15%, to $207 million, thanks to strength in automotive and real estate verticals, with particular strength in Germany and Canada.
eBay's active buyers increased 4% year over year, to 164 million, up from 162 million last quarter.
eBay repurchased 20.8 million shares during the quarter for $500 million, leaving $0.3 billion remaining under its current repurchase authorization. However, eBay's board also approved an additional $2.5 billion stock-repurchase program with no expiration.
The company generated $764 million in operating cash flow, and $617 million in free cash flow from continuing operations.
It ended the quarter with $10.4 billion in cash, equivalents, and non-equity investments, and just over $9 billion in long-term debt.
Q2 was another good quarter where we delivered strong results and had acceleration in growth. We are now one year into executing our strategy to provide the best choice, the most relevance, and the most powerful selling platform, and there are signs of momentum in our business. We continue to invest in our platforms to ensure eBay is a global commerce leader for years to come.
For the current quarter, eBay expects revenue between $2.16 billion and $2.19 billion, good for year-over-year currency-neutral growth of 6% to 7%. That should translate to adjusted earnings per share in the range of $0.42 to $0.44. For perspective, while we don't pay close attention to Wall Street's near-term demands, analysts' consensus estimates called for third-quarter revenue of just $2.14 billion, but also earnings per share near the high end of eBay's expected range.
For the full year of 2016, eBay now expects revenue between $8.85 billion and $8.95 billion (up from previous guidance for between $8.6 billion and $8.8 billion), or currency-neutral growth of 5% to 6% over 2015. eBay also anticipates full-year earnings per diluted share from continuing operations of $1.85 to $1.90. Thanks in part to eBay's outperformance in Q2, Wall Street was modeling lower full-year earnings of $1.86 per share, and revenue of $8.82 billion.
To be fair, this is the fourth consecutive quarter eBay has beaten its own guidance since it split from PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) exactly one year ago. So few will be shocked if it's underpromising with the intention of once again overdelivering when next quarter's report rolls around. But considering its Q2 results and forward guidance are already more than enough to appease the market as it stands, it's no surprise to see shares of eBay flirting with a fresh 52-week high right now.
Editor's note: This article has been corrected to state that the company has approved an additional $2.5 billion stock-repurchase program.


On November 15, Ahrar al-Sham officially declared a start of the operation to capture the Armored Vehicle Base and the nearby area from the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) in Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.
Ahrar al-Sham, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda) and Faylaq al-Rahman launched their advance on November 14. Since then, an intense fighting has been ongoing in the area.
However, the official Ahrar al-Sham offensive declaration means that this is not a limited effort. The ceasefire region in Eastern Ghouta collapsed.
On November 15, the SAA and its allies captured the villages of Hazm, Kikiyah, al-Arfa and Rabdah from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in northern Hama.
Meanwhile, the HTS-linked news agency Iba’a announced that HTS recaptured Sarha village and Sarha hill in the nearby area. According to Iba’a, the SAA lost at least 3 soldiers and a battle tank in the clashes.
On the same day, six Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bombers carried out a massive strike on ISIS targets near the border city of al-Bukamal.
According to the Russian and Syrian defense ministries, al-Bukamal should be in hands of pro-government forces and only few ISIS members remained in the city. However, according to photos and videos from the area, clashes are still ongoing there.
The Hezbollah media wing in Syria claimed that the US-led coalition is hindering the SAA efforts to establish control over al-Bukamal. The coalition is reportedly jamming the SAA communications and even blocking some part of the airspace over al-Bukamal.
The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq, claimed that ISIS members killed 7 SAA members, destroyed a bulldozer, a battle tank and damaged another battle tank in the al-Bukamal area.
Featured image is from South Front.


A woman turned her car into the path of three motorcycles carrying family members out for a midday ride in central Minnesota, causing a collision that killed two of the riders, authorities said.
The wreck occurred about 11:20 a.m. Saturday along Hwy. 23 in Roseville Township, roughly 20 miles northeast of Willmar, the State Patrol said.
The couple operating the first two motorcycles, both from St. Cloud, were dead at the scene. The patrol identified them as James L. Young Jr., 42, and Michelle L. Young, 44. They were married in October.
His father, James L. Young, 61, was driving the third motorcycle and was in critical but stable condition at St. Cloud Hospital. The older Young's passenger was his daughter, Melissa A. Mayo, 38, who suffered noncritical injuries. Both are from Sauk Rapids.
They were taken to a hospital in Paynesville. He was transferred to St. Cloud Hospital via air ambulance.
The father and son "were just heading home from riding together like they loved to do," said Steph Young, Mayo's sister.
An online fundraising page set up to cover funeral and other expenses says James Young Jr. and Michelle Young have five children ranging in age from 12 to 22.
Family member Kaysie Worm, who started the GoFundMe page, pleaded on Facebook for drivers to slow down and pay attention when they're behind the wheel, and to be extra watchful for motorcycles.
It's not known why the driver turned in front of the motorcycles.
Christina M. Knutson, 21, of Bricelyn, Minn., driving her car westbound on Hwy. 23, was turning left onto 160th Street near Hawick when she was struck by two of the three eastbound motorcycles.
The third motorcycle "lay down on the roadway" to avoid hitting the car, a patrol statement read.
None of the motorcyclists was wearing a helmet, according to the State Patrol.
Knutson and her passenger, Youssef Abdul-Nour Chamma, 24, were not injured. They both had on seat belts.