The single biggest cause of homelessness today is loss of tenancy – in other words, an eviction. An increasing number of these are “no-fault evictions” – meaning the landlord need not give any reason why they are turfing someone out of their home.
This year, a study for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research found that 80% of private-sector evictions in 2015 occurred under these provisions, which fall under section 21 of the Housing Act 1988.
A tenant can’t appeal against a section 21 eviction unless they can demonstrate it was retaliation for complaints made about problems in their home and that their home was unsafe to live in. The Guardian has reported on people being evicted under section 21 for reasons as minor as asking for hot water.
The rise in this type of eviction has accompanied an out-of-control housing market that increasingly works in favour of the landlord. In the last eight years, loss of a tenancy has increased threefold. According to the English Housing Survey, a branch of the Department for Communities and Local Government that collects data on people’s housing circumstances, 63% of evictions happen when a landlord wants to sell up or use the property for a different purpose.
After a certain period, enshrined in short-term tenancy agreements, residents can be given just two months’ notice. What happens after that depends largely on luck. Because it is technically an eviction, the tenant may not be looked upon kindly by their local authority – they may even be seen as having made themselves “intentionally homeless”, in which case they won’t be entitled to support from the council and so might find themselves sleeping on sofas or the streets.
Pauline is living in temporary accommodation, a redbrick house in a north Wales resort, with nine children aged between three and 17. She moved to the area from the north-west of England when a relationship broke down. “It was move or risk losing the kids,” she says.
The family has lived in nine houses in six years. Over that period, some of the children have been in six different schools; one has missed three years of education. “It’s not fair on them,” she says. The family was evicted from one private house on a section 21 notice and had just a fortnight to get out.
Her present house, which the council found for them in June, has five bedrooms and the three youngest have to share a room, sleeping on mattresses on the floor. “It’s hard. I can be fighting with them until 11.30pm to get them to sleep. I have never been able to get them into a proper routine. You get into one and then you’re moving. Everything goes back to square one, over and over again.
Pauline’s three youngest have to share a room, sleeping on mattresses on the floor.
Kelsie’s second child, Cory, arrived three months early and she and her husband, Shaun, put that down to stress. “I’m on edge; I don’t feel happy,” says Kelsie, who has depression and anxiety. A double bed almost fills the chalet’s living area. Beside it is Cory’s moses basket, while Phoebe sleeps in the bedroom. The family lives on microwave meals and what they can rustle up on a portable electric hob in the galley kitchen.
‘It could be months, perhaps years, before we get a place …’ Shaun outside the chalet complex where his family is housed.
They try to create a sense of normality for Phoebe, sitting her at the table for meals while the adults perch on the double bed. There is no bath, only a small shower room crammed with piles of washing. They work desperately hard to keep the place tidy, fearing they could be thrown out if a spot check finds they are neglecting the chalet. They do not know their neighbours and feel isolated. When there is an event at the Pontins holiday park behind the chalet they hear the sound of people partying and arguing in the car park.
The couple were put into emergency B&B accommodation before being moved to the chalet. Shaun has since found work as a labourer and is employed building student apartments in Chester. The couple have worked hard to pay off the rent arrears and are on the housing list. “But we have been told it could be months, perhaps years, before we get a place,” says Shaun. They have been advised to go back to the private sector, but believe their problems at their last place will count against them.
As a young man, Tim worked in a coalmine in Staffordshire and managed to buy a house in Shropshire. But then he and his wife split up and he moved to north Wales so that his family could help him bring up his young son.
Tim was living with his father, but after his death he was told he had to leave as the tenancy agreement was in his father’s name. He had been working as a labourer at a quarry and as a security guard, but he was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. He had his big toes amputated and underwent vein bypass surgery.
Tim moved into a private flat, but when he had to cut his hours because of his ill health, he could not afford the rent. Facing a section 21 notice, he moved out. He briefly lived with a relative until they moved out of the area and ended up sleeping in a car lent to him by his boss at the cleaning company where he now works part-time.
Tim is now living in B&B accommodation. He can only work around 11 hours a week because of his ill health. “It’s frustrating. I’ve worked all my life. I used to work more than 80 hours a week. To have to cut it down to just 11 is soul-destroying. I won’t live on the dole. I might be better off if I did, but it’s so boring.
“I’m applying for jobs every day. The GP has said I shouldn’t work because my feet aren’t healed properly. I can’t do it – I’ve got to work. Sitting down all day does my head in.
Siaron putting her belongings into storage before moving into temporary accommodation with her 10 year old daughter, Caitlin, late last year.
Siaron and her daughter had to leave their home in July 2015 after a relationship broke down. They found a private two-bedroom bungalow in a north Wales resort, where they enjoyed some sort of stability. On the day her section 21 notice arrived, Siaron had been to a job club to discuss her dream of setting up a company hiring out vintage props. “I was buzzing; then I opened the letter and was deflated,” she says.
Thanks to the charity Shelter Cymru – which has worked with all the people in this article – eviction day was delayed and Siaron managed to get into band one of the housing list, meaning their need was judged urgent. A housing association home was found, but there was a delay and Siaron and her daughter had to move into B&B accommodation.
“It was on the seafront. The blinds were blowing in with the wind and an 8ft-tall wardrobe almost fell on Caitlin. It didn’t feel safe at all.” The rules were stringent – the doors were shut at 11pm and not opened again until the morning. They were separated from their pets – guinea pigs, rabbits and cats – and had to share a toilet and shower with two other families.


Some thorough acting skills and eye catching costumes had friends and family captivated across two evenings.
Headteacher Cath Sinclair said: “The show ran for two nights in Long Clawson Village Hall and was a great success.
“Deep in the forest Papa Bear and his goat gangsters were planning on taking over the fast food industry with their stolen secret porridge recipe.


The United Steelworkers union announced a new contract between Appalachian Regional Healthcare and hospital workers in Kentucky and West Virginia.
HARLAN, Ky. (AP) — A union says hospital workers in Kentucky and West Virginia have approved a three-year contract.
WYMT-TV reports the United Steelworkers union announced the ratification of the contract with Appalachian Regional Healthcare.
The contract covers 2,200 workers at nine nonprofit hospitals in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia.
The agreement reached last week is effective Monday. It covers a variety of occupations, including licensed practical nurses, certified nurse aides, housekeeping, maintenance, clerical, dietary and some technical employees.
Details of the contract weren’t immediately released.
April 2, 2019, 9:20 a.m.
April 1, 2019, 7:42 p.m.
April 1, 2019, 5:58 p.m.
April 1, 2019, 9:02 a.m.


Foxy Brown’s lawyer has responded to allegations by a book publishing company that’s suing her client over non-delivery of a book, for which she received an advance.
As previously reported, Simon and Schuster are suing Brown to retrieve a $75,000 advance they say she was given in 2004 to write a book entitled ‘Broken Silence’.
They say Brown, whose real name is Inga Marchand, did not write the book and they want their money back.
But Brown’s attorney, Laura Dilimetin, says the company had reached an agreement with Brown to put the project on hold after she suffered severe hearing loss.
“With Simon and Schuster‘s blessings, Foxy Brown underwent extensive surgical procedures and a lengthy recovery time, fighting to restore her hearing,” Dilimetin told AllHipHop.com.
She then went on to say that “Simon and Schuster decided not to go forward with the project,” and that Brown’s attempts to push ahead with the deal were unsuccessful.
“I find it suspect that after all of these years of silence, Simon and Shuster pick now to bring this meritless action when they were the ones to halt the project,” Dilimetin said.
As previously reported, Simon and Schuster are also suing Lil’ Kim whom they say also failed to write a book for which she was paid an advance.


Pack these up for school or work.
Whether you're making lunch for work or for your kid's lunch box, it can feel like a real hassle. But packing a homemade lunch doesn't have to be difficult. Here are some affordable and easy recipes, all of which are made with five ingredients or fewer.
This easy pasta salad is a perfect meal prep recipe. Just leave the pesto on the side until you're ready to eat so the arugula doesn't get soggy. Get the recipe.
Turn canned cannellini beans, bacon, and whatever veggies you have on hand into this satisfying soup. Get the recipe.
Thanks to protein-packed chickpeas and avocado, this seemingly simple salad will fill you right up. Get the recipe.
Make the chicken filling at the beginning of the week and keep the tortillas separate. When you need lunch in a hurry, just roll up your taquitos and pop them in the microwave. Get the recipe.
The base of this vegetarian soup is made with onion, sweet potatoes, salsa, black beans, and vegetable stock. You can dress it up with whatever is in your kitchen like avocado or tortilla chips. Get the recipe.
These lettuce wraps are perfect for a low-carb lunch, or grab two slices of bread and turn it into a sandwich. Get the recipe.
Turn leftover or rotisserie chicken into a delicious chicken salad with the help of walnuts, dried cherries, celery, and mayonnaise or Greek yogurt. Get the recipe.
Frittatas are a great way to use up whatever veggies are left in your fridge. Plus, you can make a bunch and freeze the individual slices for an easy lunch on the go. Get the recipe.
This comforting pasta in a cheesy broth will bring you back to your childhood days. Get the recipe.
Sometimes the best salads are made from simple ingredients. Take this recipe made with roasted sweet potatoes, quinoa, and spinach, topped in a simple dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Get the recipe.
Make a big skillet of this Mexican-inspired chicken and rice on Sunday. You'll have lunch prepared for the rest of the week, and you can always jazz the bowls up with more vegetables. Get the recipe.
This cauliflower soup is delicious on its own, but you can always add some crumbled bacon, croutons, or pesto on top to take things to the next level. Get the recipe.
Simply cook your favorite kind of pasta and toss it with cherry tomatoes, which are sautéed with olive oil, butter, and garlic. It's that easy. Get the recipe.
Can't choose between a sandwich and salad? Luckily, you don't have to. Get the recipe.
Before you crack open a can of tomato soup, make this version from scratch. All you need are whole plum tomatoes, butter, garlic, chicken stock, and basil. You won't believe such an easy recipe can be so tasty. Get the recipe.
Get creative and add your favorite ingredients to this hearty kale and quinoa base. Throw in some grilled chicken, shrimp, or avocado for extra protein. Get the recipe.
Toss asparagus, cherry tomatoes, and shrimp in olive oil, salt, and pepper. Cook everything on a single sheet pan, and voilà: Lunch for days. Get the recipe.
Start with rice and whatever vegetables are in your fridge. Add a scrambled egg or two and toss everything in soy sauce. Get the recipe.
A generous dollop of pesto is all you need to give traditional chicken soup an exciting flavor boost. Get the recipe.


Those who hoped that the change promised by candidate Barack Obama would include repeal of the various acts that have stripped Americans of their constitutional rights should be disappointed. Benjamin Franklin supposedly wrote, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." The citation is likely apocryphal, at least in terms of its attribution to Franklin, but it is useful shorthand for the unfortunate abandonment of many of the liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution as a consequence of 9/11. The trauma of 9/11 created an opportunity for those seeking to centralize executive power, an objective of recent presidents from both political parties. Many Americans initially accepted that there had to be some abridgment of fundamental liberties while fighting a multi-faceted and unconventional war against terrorism, but few realize just how much the constitutional rights that all citizens take for granted have been eroded. History also teaches us that once a right is suspended, in all likelihood it is gone forever.
The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 might well be described as one of history’s more spectacular euphemisms employed to gut a constitution, somewhat akin to Hitler’s “emergency act” in the wake of the Reichstag fire of 1933. It is better known as PATRIOT Act I. PATRIOT Act I became law six weeks after the fall of the Twin Towers and was followed by PATRIOT Act II in 2006. The two laws together diminish constitutional guarantees of free speech, freedom of association, freedom from illegal search, the right to habeas corpus, prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, and prohibition of the illegal seizure of private property. The First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments in the Bill of Rights have all been discarded or abridged in the rush to make it easier to investigate, torture, and jail both foreigners and American citizens. The PATRIOT Act also incorporates the Financial Anti-Terrorism Act of Oct. 17, 2001, which permits the freezing of assets and investigation of individuals suspected of being financial supporters of terrorism. “Suspected” is the key word, as there is no oversight or appeal in the process.
The Military Commission Act of 2006 (MCA) followed the PATRIOT Acts, creating military tribunals for the trying of “unlawful enemy combatants,” including American citizens. Unlike a civil or criminal court, the accused needs only a two-thirds vote by the commission members present to be convicted. The act permits the indefinite jailing of suspects in a military prison without being charged with a crime or given access to a lawyer. The government is not required to produce any normally admissible evidence at a commission hearing and can rely on hearsay or even information obtained overseas during torture to make its case. Detainees do not have access to any classified information used against them and cannot cross-examine or even know the identity of witnesses. The MCA suspends habeas corpus for anyone charged and forbids the application of the Geneva Conventions to mitigate conditions of confinement or to challenge the judicial process or verdict. The Geneva Conventions also cannot be invoked if the accused subsequently claims he was tortured or otherwise abused, protecting overly zealous interrogators from later charges of “war crimes.” The act was also designed to cover all cases that were pending, meaning that it was retroactive.
An executive order issued on July 17, 2007, which is still in effect, authorized the president to seize the property of anyone who “threatens stabilization efforts in Iraq.” As the administration’s own Justice Department decides what constitutes "threatening stabilization efforts," the order can be used to go after any critic of the government. Most disturbing, the order does not permit a challenge to the information the seizure is based on, and it also permits the confiscation of the property of anyone who comes to the assistance of the suspected de-stabilizer.
The threat to civil liberties is real. Under the authority of the PATRIOT Act, the FBI requested more than 30,000 national security letters in 2007, and the number was surely higher in 2008. The letters enable the FBI to look at anyone’s personal information without any judicial oversight or showing of cause. Anyone who is presented with a letter and compelled to cooperate to provide information on a suspect cannot reveal that the letter has been received. Are there 30,000 terrorists roaming the United States? If there were, the country would surely be a bombed-out ruin by now. The government is instead using the security letters and the other tools provided by the PATRIOT Act legislation to look at people who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing, because it is convenient to be able to do so without the bother of having to go to a judge for a search warrant.
Sen. Barack Obama opposed the MCA and voted against it. He was not in the Senate when the first PATRIOT Act was passed, but he criticized the second version for its abuse of civil liberties before voting for an amended version. Candidate Obama ran on his record of opposition to the various pieces of legislation, noting consistently that they had authorized the abuse of authority by law enforcement and had abridged the rights of every American. Unfortunately, President Obama appears to have forgotten the principled positions he took as a senator and presidential candidate. After his inauguration, he moved quickly to publicly ban the CIA’s use of torture, a meaningless gesture in that the Agency had already abandoned the practice, but it now appears that he will do nothing to revoke Bush-era legislation like the MCA that he once strongly criticized. There is every indication that he will also endorse renewal of the PATRIOT Act when it expires at the end of the year, afraid that if he does not do so and there is a terrorist attack he will pay a significant political price. The Obama administration has also been silent about the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretaps and has invoked the "state-secrets privilege" in connection with a lawsuit by the Islamic charity al-Haramain in an apparent bid to prevent disclosure of the warrantless wiretap procedure.
President Obama is not just contradicting his progressive campaign promises and betraying many of the people who voted for him. As a lawyer, he surely understands that protecting the government’s questionably legal "rights" to monitor citizens completely subverts the rule of law, because it guarantees that there will be no accountability. Currently, judges who rule on the state-secrets issue are not themselves allowed to see the alleged classified information, meaning that there is absolutely no transparency to the process in which the government is asserting an extralegal privilege that is surely unconstitutional.
If the Obama administration is beginning to sound like the Bush White House, it should. To be sure, the new president is relying on the advice of many Bush administration holdovers like FBI Director Robert Mueller. Mueller asserts, without providing any evidence, that the tools provided by the PATRIOT Act have been effective in preventing terrorism, just as Bush-era intelligence chiefs claimed that torture and extraordinary rendition were essential to meet the terrorist threat. All such claims should be viewed with extreme skepticism, particularly as they are rarely backed up by any evidence. The government also often lies when it wants to make a case for some illegal action. Claims made in 2008 that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaida produced a flood of information that frustrated terrorist plots are now revealed to have been false. Zubaida confused his interrogators and sent them off on wild goose chases with information that was either deliberately deceptive or flat-out wrong. In reality, the government cannot cite a single instance where the use of draconian new legislation or illegal procedures like torture has either prevented a terrorist incident or led to the arrest of anyone who was ready, willing, and able to carry out a violent act.
Obama would have been wiser to ignore the experts and sit back and consider the broader picture. Does the creation of a monstrous Department of Homeland Security supported by a bloated defense and intelligence establishment really make sense in light of the threat that the U.S. actually faces? How did we arrive at a 400,000-name no-fly list and an NSA that has conducted hundreds of millions of interceptions of telephone calls without any oversight? That a small group of terrorists holed up in an isolated and backward part of the world got lucky against an unsuspecting America on 9/11 is clear, but the odds of them repeating that spectacular success are minimal. More than seven years later, the actual vulnerability of international terrorism should be completely clear and the government should be telling the people the good news, that al-Qaeda is on its last legs and that the other Salafist terrorist groups that have a similar philosophy have been hounded and contained all around the world. There has been no successful terrorist action within the United States, and the appeal of jihadist terrorism is on the wane everywhere else. Its moment has passed.
In spite of the reduced threat, under Obama the business of fighting terrorism goes on with a change in the rhetoric but not in the policy, buttressed by an enlarged military budget to spread the cheer to Afghanistan and increased spending on intelligence. And there is no sign that the liberties that Americans have bartered away are about to be returned. Having an amorphous foreign threat hanging around is always good politics, as it can be used to divert attention from more serious problems at home. Having the mechanisms at hand to investigate an American citizen can also be useful when the critics become too loud. Those who feared that George W. Bush would give his successors unconstitutional tools that they would be reluctant to relinquish have apparently been vindicated.


Coventry's top cop says the ability to move people on who could cause trouble is a "very useful tool" in the fight against violence in the city.
One such dispersal order was put in place following the stabbing of a 15-year-old boy in the city centre on Sunday, February 2.
This meant officers could move on any groups hanging around in the city centre if it’s suspected they could be a crime or anti-social behaviour threat.
If those moved along came back, then they faced possibly being arrested.
Coventry stabbing reaction: "Where are the parents?"
The teenager was found with knife injuries to his leg and lower torso in Trinity Street shortly before 6pm and was taken to hospital.
His injuries were not life-changing and he was released from hospital just hours later.
Dispersal orders are not a new action that police can take, however they aren't always used.
So we asked the Commander of Coventry Police, Chief Superintendent Mike O'Hara, why one was used on Sunday and what came of it.
Q: Why was this stabbing deemed serious enough to put the dispersal order in place?
A: The stabbing was deemed serious enough by the duty Inspector on the evening to put the order in place, due to the fact that groups were congregating in the area.
The groups soon dispersed following increased police presence in the area.
Q: Was the order actually used by officers on Sunday or Monday to move anyone along or did it result in any arrests?
A: I cannot confirm at this stage the specific details of the use of the order, however, previous use of the dispersal power has proven very effective in removing problematic individuals from the city centre and preventing potential issues.
Officers have utilised search powers on numerous individuals in the area resulting in a drugs arrest.
Q: Is the use of dispersal orders something you are now considering using more often in the wake of incidents like this?
A: The use of the dispersal power is a very useful tool for officers in dealing with groups of youths when they feel that the criteria apply and the St Michaels team use this power relatively regularly.
To join in the debate on crime, join our Crime Group on Facebook here.
City centre officers could soon get even more powers to move tackle rising gang and knife violence thanks to a new Public Space Protection Order (PSPO).
The PSPO has been proposed by Coventry City Council and would allow police to move on groups of two or more who are behaving in an anti-social manner.
There would then be a fixed penalty of £100 for anyone who breaches the order, reduced to £60 if paid within 14 days.
Anyone with information on the Trinity Street stabbing is asked to call West Midlands Police om 101, quoting incident 1972 of February 2, or use the force's Live Chat between 8am and midnight at www.west-midlands.police.uk.
Details can also be given anonymously via the charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit www.crimestoppers-uk.org.


Michael Torpey wants to raise awareness about student debt.
Michael Torpey, an accomplished actor and writer, is hosting a trivia show where contestants compete to pay off their student loans.
The show hopes to bring light to the student debt crisis in the US.
The show premieres tonight at 10 p.m. EST on TruTV.
With the student loan debt crisis at an all-time high, Michael Torpey has a plan to help borrowers pay off their lofty debt.
In his new game show "Paid Off" on TruTV, Torpey gives three contestants a chance to pay off their student loan debt by answering "Family Feud" style and other trivia questions.
Torpey is an actor and writer who is best known for his work in "Orange is the New Black," "Veep," and "Inside Amy Schumer."
According to Forbes, the amount of student loan debt in the US has totaled $1.3 trillion, with the average 2016 graduate leaving with $37,172 in debt. These numbers are highest in the world and this is not lost on Torpey.
"The show stands as this kind of exercise in lunacy," Torpey told Paste Magazine. "I'm going to stand here and be as dumb as possible until you make me stop. So, [they can] get together and say, 'Torpey's over there making us look like a bunch of idiots … We gotta figure this out so he'll go away.'"
The goal of the show is to bring awareness to the student debt crisis. In a video clip from TruTV's website, Torpey says he and his wife struggled with student debt and could only pay it off when he booked an underwear commercial.
"A game show feels really apt because this is the state of things right now," he told the Washington Post.
Right now in the US, 44.2 million people have some amount of student loan debt. Pennsylvania, New York, and Michigan have the nation's highest student loan debt per capita, all at over $5,000 respectively, according to Forbes.
Responses on Twitter to the show have been overwhelmingly positive, with most users asking how they can get the chance to be a contestant.
"Paid Off" will air the first of 16 episodes Tuesday at 10 p.m. EST on TruTV.


A large group of Republicans pray before a Republican Party of Fort Bend County candidate meet-and-greet at the Pecan Grove Plantation Country Club in Richmond.
Portrait of Rick Miller Fort Bend County Republican Party Chairman, at Republican Party headquarters in Sugar Land.
Considered to be the longest-serving mayor, Hilmar Moore, 90, walks into the Richmond City Hall Annex past a picture of himself when he was first took office in 1949 in Richmond.


Oklahoma’s Cameron Clark didn’t score.
Wesley Iwundu hit a three in the corner to start a game-altering run that led to a K-State victory.
Oklahoma missed 10 of 12 shots from the outside.
• Nino Williams has been known for many things during his K-State career. Now he can add clutch free throws to the list. Williams, a junior forward, went four for four from the foul line when it mattered most. K-State players showed confidence in him and tried to get him the ball late.
• Marcus Foster played with bandages on his left ankle and his right index finger on Tuesday. The injuries didn’t appear to affect his shot, as he scored a team-high 18 points, but he struggled holding onto the ball. He lost five turnovers.


RIO DE JANEIRO - Several Australian Olympic athletes were taken for questioning by Brazilian police late on Friday for entering the basketball arena without proper accreditation to watch a semi-final game between Australia and Serbia, an Australian team official said.
Fiona de Jong, chief executive of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), told reporters outside the police station that the athletes did not have the correct accreditation to be at the venue."The Brazil authorities and our officials are working through issues," she said. "No one has been arrested and we will provide you with a more detailed statement when these discussions have advanced."
Officials for the International Olympic Committee and the Rio 2016 organizing committee were not available for comment.


Two retail businesses were burglarized hours apart Thursday in the Noble Square and Ukrainian Village neighborhoods, police said.
The burglar broke into both businesses by damaging the door locks, according to a community alert from Chicago Police.
The first burglary happened at 2:28 a.m. in the 1400 block of West Chicago Avenue, and the other incident happened between 4:02 a.m. and 4:09 a.m. in the 1800 block of West Chicago Avenue, police said.
The suspect is described as a black man, between 35 and 45 years old, standing between 5-feet-9 and 6-foot, weighing between 170 and 180 pounds, with a light complexion, short hair and a small mustache, police said. He has been seen wearing a dark baseball cap with white writing, a black jacket, light shirt, light-colored pants, black boots and gloves.


Marcia Goldberg is co-president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland.
CLEVELAND -- On May 8, Ohioans will have the chance to vote on Issue 1, a bipartisan proposal to reform the way Ohio draws its U.S. congressional districts. The League of Women Voters urges you to vote yes.
As many Ohioans know, our state is one of the most severely gerrymandered in the country. For decades, politicians have drawn political maps that allow them to choose their voters (and have not allowed voters to choose their representatives). Rather than bringing a lawsuit to protest our state's gerrymandered districts, the League of Women Voters of Ohio chose to promote measures for reform.
Transparency: There must be at least two hearings on any plan and the public can submit proposed maps. These transparency and voter-participation provisions offer particularly strong protection against biased map-making.
Susan Murnane is co-president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland.
This proposal is the result of a rare bipartisan agreement in the state legislature, negotiated by lawmakers from both parties with the Fair Districts=Fair Elections Coalition, of which the League of Women Voters of Ohio is a founding member. And both the Ohio Republican Party and the Ohio Democratic Party have endorsed Issue 1.
Cleveland.com's Rich Exner conducted a detailed analysis of "best maps" and "worst maps" using the Issue 1 standards. He concluded that even the worst-case maps are better than what we have now.
We believe that "worst-case" maps will be avoided by two key safeguards in Issue 1: It requires at least two public hearings on any map, and it gives Ohioans the tools to submit their own maps. These transparency requirements offer strong protections for the public.
Compact districts, with a limit on splitting communities and counties. Sixty-five counties cannot be split, 18 can be split once, five (including Cuyahoga County) can be split twice, none can be split more than twice. Right now, Cuyahoga County is split three times -- into four different districts that cross county lines.
Transparency: There must be at least two hearings on any plan and the public can submit proposed maps.
You do not need to declare a political party to vote for Issue 1 in May; you can request a nonpartisan "issues-only" ballot.
The League of Women Voters of Ohio and local Leagues across the state, including the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland, have been working to reform our broken congressional districting process for more than 30 years. Issue 1 presents our best chance at real reform. Vote yes on Issue 1, to put congressional district reform in the Ohio constitution.
Marcia Goldberg and Susan Murnane are co-presidents of the League of Women Voters of Greater Cleveland.


A plan to create the world’s largest marine sanctuary in Antarctic waters was shot down when a key conservation summit failed to reach a consensus, with environmentalists on Saturday decrying a lack of scientific foresight.
The proposed sanctuary – some five times the size of Germany – would ban fishing in a vast area in the Weddell sea, protecting key species including seals, penguins and whales.
But environmental groups say Russia and China – whose concerns over compliance issues and fishing rights have proved key stumbling blocks in the past – along with Norway, played a part in rejecting the plan.
"This was an historic opportunity to create the largest protected area on Earth in the Antarctic: safeguarding wildlife, tackling climate change and improving the health of our global oceans," Greenpeace’s Frida Bengtsson said in a statement on Saturday.
Andrea Kavanagh, head of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Antarctic and Southern Ocean work, described the failure to achieve an MPA designation as "discouraging".
The CCAMLR released a statement saying the new MPAs were the "subject of much discussion" and would be considered again at next year’s meeting.


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South Sudan's conflicting parties to sign comprehensive deal next week.
Current round of talks discussed issues that were not resolved in the framework and the power-sharing and security arrangements agreements.
Earlier, the South Sudanese opposition alliance demanded revision of the administrative division of South Sudan and reconsideration of the number of the 32 states.
South Sudan's conflicting parties have reached consensus on a final peace deal draft expected to be signed in Khartoum on August 27, South Sudan's Information Minister said Wednesday.
"We are expected to sign with initial letters on a comprehensive peace agreement next Monday," South Sudan's Information Minister and government spokesman Michael Makuei told Xinhua Wednesday.
"The parties have overcome most of the issues of differences which we discussed during the third round of South Sudan's peace talks starting in Khartoum on August 13," he noted.
He said the current round of talks discussed issues that were not resolved in the framework and the power-sharing and security arrangements agreements.
"We have discussed issues relating to powers of the vice presidents, formation of the committees responsible for formulating the constitution, the judiciary committee and the number of the states and their borders," said Makuei.
Next week's comprehensive deal will be complementary to the previous two agreements and include resolutions of outstanding issues that had not been resolved before.
Last June, the parties signed Khartoum Peace Agreement on South Sudan.
Also, on August 5, the parties signed a deal on power-sharing and security arrangements.
The third round of peace talks started on August 13 to discuss the outstanding issues relating to powers of the president and vice presidents, representation in the judicial authority, revision of the number of the states and naming new ministries.
In October 2015, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir issued a decree dissolving the Council of the States, which operated under the administrative division of ten states, and establishing 28 states.
In January 2017, Kiir issued a separate decree establishing an additional four states.
Still awaiting discussion is the security arrangements to create one national army.


Rapper LIL’ KIM, who plays her first solo live dates in the UK in June, has been filming the final scenes to her latest video.
But in a break from her outrageous norm, Kim‘s latest track is a cover of Phil Collins‘ ‘In The Air Tonight’, the second release from the ‘Urban Renewal’ covers album, in which popular R&B and rap stars – including Kelis, Montell Jordan, Joe and Changing Faces, among others, tackle “popular” Collins songs.
The first cover to be taken from the album, ‘Another Day In Paradise’ – a duet featuring siblings Brandy and Ray J – has already shifted a quarter of a million copies, despite the album itself only being released in Germany.
Lil’ Kim also makes a guest appearance on the forthcoming ‘Lady Marmalade’ single.
For tickets to Lil’ Kim‘s UK dates, [url=]click here…, or ring the NME 24-hour Ticketline on 0870 1 663663. Calls are charged at national standard rate.


Director of Climate Change, Federal Ministry of Environment Dr Pete Tarfa has urged youths to see climate change as an opportunity for growth and national economic advancement.
Tarfa made the call at the Accra International Conference Centre in Ghana, when he met some Nigerian youths’ delegates attending the ongoing International Climate Change Development Initiative (ICCDI) in commemoration of the Africa Climate Week. The theme was: ‘Africa climate week is a race we can win’.
Six youth delegates from Nigeria attended the event. They are: Babatunde Enitan, Abiodun Adekoya, Rukayat Odebiyi, Moses Eboigbe, Prosper Egeonu and ‘Seyifunmi Adebote.
“One thing I want Nigerian youths working in the area of climate change to do is to open their eyes to the many opportunities that surround climate change,” Tarfa began.
He continued, “Before now, we used to see climate change as a tragedy, a woe, and something to be scared about. Today, there are a lot of opportunities that climate change has brought.
“As young people, you should begin to see how you can create jobs from climate change – in the area of renewable energy, solid waste management, writing, advocacy, creative expressions like literature, poem or music, just to push out the message of climate change.


After two years of imprisonment on terror charges, American pastor Andrew Brunson was released Oct. 12, 2018, by a Turkish court. Now home with his family, how does Pastor Brunson view his time in prison? VOA Turkish Service's Mehmet Toroglu sat down with Pastor Brunson and his wife, Norine Brunson, and filed this report.


Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it was unacceptable to make "groundless" accusations over this week's suspected chemical weapons attack in a Syrian province.
The Kremlin said in a statement that Putin "highlighted that it was unacceptable to make groundless accusations against anyone without conducting a detailed and unbiased investigation."
According to the Prime Minister's Office, it was Netanyahu who initiated the phone call in order to convey his condolences over the St. Petersburg attack. Netanyahu also told Putin that he was "deeply shaken by the chemical weapons attack in Idlib. The international community must complete the effort to clean Syria of chemical weapons as was agreed in 2013."
Scores were reported killed by a suspected Syrian government chemical attack in Idlib province and the U.S. government has suggested forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad were responsible. Russia has said it was too early to accuse the Syrian government and called for an investigation.
The call came several hours after Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Assad ordered the chemical attack. Lieberman told Yedioth Ahronoth that Syrian planes carried out the two chemical attacks, which were “directly ordered and planned by Syrian President Bashar Assad.” He stressed he was “100 percent certain.” The defense minister said he did not know if Russia was involved in the attack.
Netanyahu, who severely condemned the usage of chemical weapons against innocent civilians in a statement on Tuesday, didn't point a finger at the Syrian president. "The horrible images in Syria should shock any human," Netanyahu said on Tuesday.
After the attack, Israeli security sources told Haaretz that reports of the responsibility for the deadly chemical attack by the Assad regime are highly probable.
Sources in Israel said that the assault was approved by the highest levels of the Syrian regime, but at this point it is unclear whether Assad’s patrons, Russia and Iran, were involved.


DEFENDING champion Jean-Eric Vergne won his first race of the season in Sanya.
The Frenchman overtook pole-sitter Oliver Rowland with a crisp move after the Brit’s aggressive defending.
Rowland finished second as the Nissan star celebrated on the podium for the first win in Formula E after also securing his maiden pole in China.
Vergne had gone five races without a win after sealing his first victory since last season's finale in New York.
He said: "I was never gone, I guess I had a bit of bad luck lately, but I have always had the same motivation.
"I guess talent doesn't go away in a few months, so that is the thing I told myself, not to lose the confidence or the hope.
"The moment you lose hope you lose everything, you need to trust your team and especially yourself."
Vergne also dedicated his victory to Charlie Whiting after the former Formula One race director tragically passed away earlier this month.
Vergne added: "He (Charlie Whiting) was a great man, more than just a race director.
"Losing him was a massive loss to the whole of motorsport."
Vergne is now level on points with Sam Bird in the drivers championship as they sit third in the standings behind Jerome D'Ambrosio in second.
Bird did not finish the race after former F1 star Stoffel Vandoorne drove into the back of the Brit as the field slowed down for a full course yellow.
Antonio Felix Da Costa is now leading the championship after finishing third.
It was a tense final ten minutes to the race after the restart following a red flag, which was called as stewards cleared Alex Sims’ car.
Sims’ rear-right tyre hit the wall as he ran out of road as he raced alongside fellow Brit Rowland, which left his car immobile on the track.
But Vergne recovered his comfortable lead with a fast restart while a pack of five cars battled for a place on the podium in the final stages.
The Techeetah driver was under investigation for his restart after the safety car - but has since been reprimanded.
There was a big collision between Sebastien Buemi, Robin Frijns and Lucas Di Grassi in closing moments which meant the race finished on a full course yellow.
Buemi bumped into the back of Frijns who then hit Di Grassi who spun out of the race.
Formula E's next stop is Rome as the championship embarks on the European leg of the season before the season finale in New York.
Bird will to replicate last season's victory in Rome as the Championship hots up, after having six different winners from as many races.


Old Glory features 50 American flag design proposals from citizens during the Eisenhower administration.
The late Robert G. Heft—the man credited with designing the 50-star American flag—was a 17-year-old boy fulfilling a class assignment when he came up with the winning design. The Illustrated America: Old Glory is a new book that features 50 American flag designs submitted by U.S. citizens to President Dwight D. Eisenhower that incorporated Hawaii and Alaska as the 49th and 50th states.
“Old Glory excavates a long-forgotten, yet fascinating chapter from America’s vexillographic history,” said Los Angeles–based publisher Atelier Éditions. The book’s updated renderings of original submitted designs, drawn from plates held in the Eisenhower Presidential Library’s archive, used a lithographic four-color process that represents the era’s printing methods.
“From the first year of the Eisenhower administration the public had anticipated that Alaska and Hawaii might be added as new states and that a new flag design would be needed,” the library explained in a history of the bureaucratic design selection process on its website.


Miranda Lambert brought home the big win in country at the 2015 Grammy Awards.
She beat out Dierks Bentley, Eric Church, Brandy Clark and Lee Ann Womack for the awards.
"I love every album in this category," an emotional Lambert said from the stage as her husband, Blake Shelton, beamed from the audience. "I am so thankful for this. I poured my heart and soul into this record ... Thank you so much for this amazing night. I love y'all."
Lambert was a multiple nominee this year; she was also up for Best Country Song, Solo Performance and Duo/Group Performance.


We know that there's no such thing as a completely secure computer system. Is the NSA spy system the largest security risk of them all?
Many are concerned about the National Security Agency (NSA) collection of data on US companies and individuals and the very real possibility that it has a way of directly accessing the servers of the world's largest computing platforms: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, etc.
It's certainly a situation that deserves attention and concern. But what's missing in this discussion is this: how secure is the NSA's spying system?
If a foreign entity wanted to spy on US companies or individuals, would it try to tackle the problem directly by targeting the specific company or individual in its electronic spying attempts? It might, but that's a lot of work for an uncertain payoff.
A much more efficient approach would be to hack into a surveillance system that already has access to the information. Far better to hack into the NSA spying system at Google, or at Facebook, or at Microsoft (if such an NSA system exists, of course).
This puzzled me tremendously, why would Google, with its enormous brain trust of the world's top computer experts call on the NSA? Why didn't Google have the means, the expertise, to deal with this problem directly and solely?
It makes sense if it was the NSA's spying system that got hacked within Google.
The search giant knows its own systems and how they can be protected but it doesn't know the NSA's computer systems and how they protect themselves. It makes perfect sense to call in the NSA to help plug this hole because it's a hole created for the NSA which the NSA might have left vulnerable in some way.
The NSA also employs the world's top computer experts but it's not infallible. Everyone knows that there's no such thing as a completely secure system. The greater danger in the NSA's spying activities is not from the NSA itself, but from the many nefarious foreign national, and international criminal enterprises, that find a way to exploit the existing spy systems so thoroughly crafted, and so thoroughly extensive, that have been built by the NSA.
The danger from allowing the NSA to have deep access into the data systems of US companies is that that very system creates an enormous vulnerability that would not have existed. Hack into part of the NSA spy network and you have access to a mass of private data that would be near impossible to collect in any other way.
It's ironic that the NSA's activities to improve the security of the US have created the nation's largest security risk of them all.


We’ll be seeing Arrested Development season 5 sooner than expected. A lot sooner – as in this month. Netflix just released an Arrested Development season 5 trailer which reveals a May 29 release date.
Netflix dropped a surprise Arrested Development season 4 remix over the weekend, but that’s not the last we’ll see of the Bluths this month. The official Arrested Development season 5 trailer is here, and it reveals a May 29, 2018 premiere date.
This trailer starts off like a greatest hits compliation, taking us through some of the best moments of previous seasons before launching into new material. That new material hints at a plotline involving the Bluths giving themselves an award. There’s also a quick shot revealing Portia de Rossi‘s character Lindsay is running for Congress.
The question now is: are you still excited for a new season of Arrested Development? Personally speaking, I’m not entirely optimistic about more misadventures with the Bluths. While the original run of the series will always be a classic, and the cast remains very talented and very funny, I found Netflix’s Arrested Development season 4 to be severely lacking. This was primarily due to how the season was constructed: in order to accommodate the busy schedules of the cast, storylines were broken up in such a way that rather than having the ensemble bounce off each other, the characters were stuck in their own stand-alone episodes. Despite everyone’s best efforts, this really didn’t work that well, because the magic of Arrested Development revolved around seeing the cast work together.
Perhaps season 5 will remedy this. In a previous interview, co-star Will Arnett said season 5 would be structured more like the original run of the series. Arnett also said that the cast would be spending “more time” together. We shall see!


DONAL DONNELLY, who became one of the most respected Irish actors of his generation, has died in Chicago on Monday after a long battle with cancer. He was 78.
He was best known for his role as the scheming Archbishop Gilday in The Godfather: Part III and as good-natured drunk Freddy Malins in John Huston’s masterful adaptation of James Joyce’s The Dead,but he saw the stage as his natural home. He was described by Minister for Arts, Sports and Tourism Martin Cullen as “one of the first of the Irish success stories”.
Donnelly was nominated for a Tony Award for his role as Private Gar in the original staging of Brian Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come! in 1964. He also appeared in the original Broadway version of Friel’s play Dancing at Lughnasa, which won a Tony.
Born in Bradford in 1931 to an Irish doctor, Donnelly moved to Ireland with his family at a young age. He went to Synge Street CBS where his contemporaries included Milo O’Shea and Eamonn Andrews.
Donnelly toured with Anew McMaster’s Irish repertory company before moving to England, where he appeared in the movie The Knack . . . and How to Get It, and alongside Peter Sellers in the satirical I’m Alright Jack.
He also appeared in two John Ford films, The Rising of The Moon and Gideon’s Day. His last performance on the stage was in George Bernard Shaw’s Don Juan in Hell on Broadway in 2006. He is survived by his wife Patsy and two sons Damien and Jonathan.


The morning before I attended the screening of the new X-Men movie, I was cleaning out an old box of mementos and came across an odd flyer. It read “Mutants Are People Too!” on the cover. On the inner fold were details of how this country was full of Mutant Oppression and lacking Mutant Equality. I was given this flyer at the first screening of the original X-Men in 2000, when the studio staged a mock protest outside the theater. Actors made up as mutants handed out pamphlets and spoke out against the Senator Kelly character, played in the movie by Bruce Davison.
It’s amazing (and maybe a little depressing) that there have been seven X-Men movies made in the past 14 years, and only a few of them are really good. The first two, directed by Bryan Singer, were made before the saturation of comic book movie adaptations we have today and remain impressive, thrilling and a lot of fun. The disappointing X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine were the underwhelming series lows, while the pretty good X-Men: First Class and the underrated The Wolverine mostly succeeded in capturing the gruff, imaginative essence of the series. Now, with Singer returning to direct a series installment for the first time since 2003, the franchise mostly escapes superhero movie fatigue by finding a brilliantly clever new angle to explore.
The complex plot opens with the world we know becoming a dark, dreary place in the near future. All mutants are hunted and killed by man-made machines called Sentinels and the X-Men crew is sparse and holed up in China, awaiting possible extinction. By a means too convoluted to explain, Logan (Hugh Jackman) is sent back in time to change the past. His mission: in order to save the future and change the past, he must recruit younger versions of his mentor, Professor X and his adversary, Magneto; not only must he convince them of his quest but also get the two longtime enemies to work together.
All of the scenes set in the future, with the familiar crew of mutants fighting off the Sentinels and taking part in effects-heavy mayhem, are tired and feel overly familiar. Once the story settles into the 1970s and becomes a delightful, engaging time travel action/comedy, the movie takes off. I won’t describe it, but there is an incredible scene, set to Jim Croce’s “Time in Bottle,” that astonishes by blending state of the art CGI, crafty cinematography and a wicked sense of humor. While the movie never tops this sequence, there are other set-pieces that deliver on the excitement and spectacle promised by the series.
Uninitiated audiences should see the first two entries, in order to get up to speed. But the story often helps the newcomers by offering flashbacks and exposition, making this feel almost like a stand-alone installment. Because the time travel aspect re-introduces characters and allows playful twists to our expectations and the series’ lore, it also feels like we’re seeing the first X-Men adventure.
Jackman carries the film perfectly, reliably applying grit and a wry sense of humor to Wolverine. Michael Fassbender’s Magneto, Evan Peters’ Quicksilver and James McAvoy’s Professor X are the acting standouts. It seems to say more about the change in movie star popularity than the screenplay that Halle Berry’s role as Storm barely registers, while Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique is now a central character (Lawrence has more to do in the part than Rebecca Romjin ever did).
With the closing scenes especially satisfying and the mix of the new and old cast creating a pleasant ensemble, I’m admittedly eager for the forthcoming X-Men Apocalypse. The closing moments reminded me why I loved the first movie: because I adored these characters. After all, mutants are people, too.


Elin Nordegren is a human wrecking machine ... who just LEVELED her brand new $12 MILLION Florida mansion ... because, well, she can afford it.
Elin bought the 9,000 square foot North Palm Beach home in March ... right after she struck a $100 million divorce settlement with Tiger Woods.
Apparently, Elin felt the modest 6 bedroom, 8 bathroom pad wasn't quite up to her standards ... so she did the only reasonable thing -- KNOCKED THE WHOLE PLACE DOWN!
We're told Nordegren has hired a high-priced architect to build her dream home ... and sources say every single worker is required to sign a confidentiality agreement.
No word on how long the project is expected to take -- but we're told Elin is living in a nearby mansion inside the private community while the new place is under construction.
It's good to be rich.


Greetings, programs. You can now wear a bit of Tron: Legacy on your head, as Monster reveals headphones based on the forthcoming film.
Greetings, programs. You can now wear a part of Tron: Legacy on your head, as Monster reveals headphones based on the forthcoming film. Branded with a Daft Punk logo, they light up and everything.
Monster's line of Tron-tastic light-up products include the T1 over-the-ear cans, T3 in-ear headphones and Identity iPod dock, which is modelled on the film's data disc. Get the Tron app on your iPhone or iPod touch and you can unlock a film-themed alarm clock for use with the dock.
The T1 Tronphones offer noise-isolating technology and an adjustable LED Light Drive system -- in other words, they light up. They also come with a removable boom mic, which attaches to either ear to turn it into a gaming headset -- perfect for playing Tron: Evolution. The headphones all support Monster ControlTalk voice-activated hands-free phone calls.
Daft Punk's excellent Tron: Legacy soundtrack is also included with the headphones, which come in black or white.
Monster has a whole entourage in the music-star VIP area. Hip-hop medic Dr Dre signs his name to the Monster Beats range of headphones, while meat-wearing discomannequin Lady Gaga sprinkles fairy glitter all over the Heartbeats range.
Tron: Legacy is in cinemas on 17 December, although if you're planning to remind yourself of the original you can't do it online. The T1 headphones cost $350 (£222) and the ID dock costs $250 (£160), while prices for the T3s are TBC.


The flood prevention council can still do in-kind work on the 500-year upgrades and let the Army Corps of Engineers do its share of the work later – if the Corps can get any money allocated then. But why go that cumbersome, uncertain route when the Corps had millions of dollars ready to spend?
This decision has the fingerprints of St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern and Madison County Board Chairman Alan Dunstan all over it. They would rather stick up for their union supporters than act for the overall good of the region.
The irony is that most work done in this area on Corps projects is done by union labor. The low bid might have included a PLA. This standoff means fewer jobs in the metro-east, union or otherwise, and less flood protection.


LOVELAND, Colo. -- A man is dead after being found shot on a Loveland sidewalk late Wednesday night and the Loveland Police Department said a task force is investigating whether it's connected to two other random shootings in northern Colorado in the past six weeks.
"There are enough likenesses in this case that we reached out to the task force," Loveland Police Chief Luke Hecker said during a Thursday afternoon news conference.
Loveland police responded to East First Street and St. Louis Avenue just before 11 p.m. on a report of a man on the sidewalk who was bleeding.
Life-saving measures on the 65-year-old William Roger Connole Jr. of Loveland were unsuccessful. The Larimer County coroner said Connole died of a gunshot wound to the chest. The manner of death was homicide.
Police do not have a description of the suspect. Police said they are consulting with members of the task force to determine if there is a link to the shootings of a Milliken woman on Interstate 25 in April and a Windsor cyclist last month. Cori Romero was shot in the neck and she is recovering. John Jacoby was shot and killed while he rode his bike near Windsor.
Loveland police said during the news conference late Thursday afternoon that while Wednesday night's shooting has not been officially connected to the other two shootings, there were enough similarities for the possibility to be investigated.
Hecker reiterated that the FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect or suspects in this and the other two cases. He urged anyone with information to call Larimer County Crime Stoppers at 970--221-6868.
Hecker said there is an unprecedented amount of law enforcement resources being devoted to the investigation and apprehension of an apparent random shooter on the loose in northern Colorado. He was flanked by representatives from the FBI, and several other law enforcement agencies in northern Colorado. David Moore from the Larimer County Sheriff's Office has been assigned as lead public information for this task force.
The task force's investigation is headquartered in Windsor and it's operating 24 hours a day. Hecker warned that everyone in the community needs to be alert and vigilant.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Loveland Police Department at 970-962-2032.


...who has shared two boyfriends with Olivia Wilde.
And Jenny McCarthy is three boyfriends removed from Jennifer Love Hewitt.
...and Jennifer Garner was and still is a member of Bennifer II.
Jennifer Connelly hasn't accidentally swapped residual spit with any other Jennifers.
Neither has Jennifer Grey... but she did date Johnny Depp.
All dating info was taken from Zimbio.
Ed. note (7/31/13): This post has been updated to reflect that having multiple partners is not an indicator of one's level of classiness.


One week later, estimates are still coming in.
The tornado and strong storms that tore through last week will cost Brideport more than $3.2 million, and damage and cleanup cost estimates continue to go up.
Damage to city property alone exceeds $2.2 million, Bridgeport officials said, and police estimate they have spent about $150,000 in overtime.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency set $1.19 million as the statewide threshold to be eligible to apply for federal funds, which could reimburse municipalities up to 75 percent, according to the Connecticut Post.
Bridgeport was the hardest hit community and was the site of the only confirmed tornado. City officials said that, because the city has met the Small Business Administration's threshold of 25 homes and businesses impacted by the tornado, help from the SBA could be available soon.
Stratford and Trumbull were also severely affected and the communities are still tallying how much damage the storms caused and what it will cost to recover.
John Marsilio, Trumbull’s public works director told the Post he does not yet have a figure, but said labor costs already amount to a little less than $10,000, including overtime.
Today, Thursday, is the day when Stratford’s Department of Public Works begins collecting storm debris and yard waste across the town, the Post reports.
Work progresses on a street-by-street basis, from north to south, and is expected to last about one week, the newspaper reports.


Although Yahoo managed to defuse Carl Icahn's proxy fight this week, a rare victory in its months-long, tumultuous sparring match with shareholders and suitor Microsoft, its results for the quarter ended June 30, 2008, will probably do little to dispel doubts over its ability to survive as an independent company.
"We believe it is more efficient for Yahoo to be acquired. Scale is a competitive advantage. As a result, a combined Yahoo and Microsoft makes a great deal of sense," Financial analyst Clayton Moran from Stanford Group Company said in an e-mail interview after the results were released.
Asked whether he sees Yahoo as being on the right track or not, Moran, who has a "Hold" recommendation on the stock and a 12-month target of $24 per share, said: "Yahoo is struggling with no clear solution to reignite growth."
Still, Yahoo's top executives repeatedly said, during a conference call to discuss the results, that they were pleased with Yahoo's performance considering the challenges it has faced, including adverse economic conditions and the distractions of the Microsoft acquisition bid and the strident controversies it has generated.
"We're executing and delivering against the strategy we laid out, even under extraordinary conditions," said CEO Jerry Yang.
CFO Blake Jorgensen said the conversion of joint broadband deals with AT&T and Rogers Communications to a revenue-sharing format, in late 2007 and early 2008, have hurt Yahoo's revenue growth this year.
Yahoo also said it saw economic conditions affect advertising revenue, especially in categories such as finance, travel and retail.
Yahoo this week managed to reach an agreement with Icahn, who had proposed an alternate slate of director candidates for the Aug. 1 shareholder meeting in order to unseat the entire board. By expanding the board and granting Icahn three seats, Yahoo convinced the billionaire investor to call off the plan. Icahn had indicated previously that his intention was to unseat Yang as Yahoo CEO and attempt to lure Microsoft back to the negotiating table, a possibility that now seems remote.
The proxy-contest settlement "eliminates the distractions and allows us to move forward," Yang said.
The deal with Google raised eyebrows, since Google's dominance in search advertising is a big reason why Yahoo has struggled financially. Search advertising makes up about 40 percent of all online ad spending, and Google has a stranglehold on that segment of the market.
By comparison to Yahoo, Google last week reported second-quarter revenue of US$5.37 billion, up 39 percent over the same quarter last year. Almost all of Google's revenue comes from search advertising. It earned $4.63 per share.
The Yahoo/Google search ad outsourcing deal is being reviewed by U.S. regulators and hasn't been implemented yet.
Yahoo has said the deal with Google will give it a revenue boost while allowing Yahoo to continue honing its search advertising business, a key component of a broad advertising strategy that also includes the display ad formats, an area where Yahoo traditionally has been strong.
President Sue Decker said Yahoo is focusing on innovating in search technology, as opposed to trying to replicate the current models, because the company believes the search experience can be greatly improved.
For the third quarter, Yahoo expects revenue in the range of $1.78 billion to $1.98 billion, and for the full year between $7.35 billion and $7.85 billion. For the full-year forecast, Yahoo raised its minimum outlook from $7.20 billion and dropped its maximum outlook from $8 billion. That full-year forecast excludes the impact of certain items, such as a round of layoffs in the first quarter and costs associated with the Microsoft acquisition bid.
Yang said during the call that his management team and the board are focused on increasing shareholder value and are open to any alternative that advances that goal.
Judging by Yahoo's stock performance lately, it has its work cut out for it. Yahoo's stock closed at $21.40 on Tuesday, down 1.25 percent. During the time of Microsoft's bid, Yahoo's stock once closed at nearly $30. Microsoft's last offer for Yahoo was for $33 per share, but Yahoo wanted $37 per share, at which point Microsoft walked away in early May.


PicPlz, the Instagram-like photo app for iPhone and Android, has just announced the latest version of its Android app.
The 2.0 version features an upgraded UI, a new Activity feed, an option to post pics already in your phone's gallery and a slew of bug fixes.
Perhaps most exciting, especially given the variety of hardware available to Android users, is the addition of native camera support. This particular news is great for more advanced smartphones with cameras that allow for zoom, flash, white balance and focus adjustments.
The company also released a new version of its iPhone app a couple weeks ago, bringing better design, navigation and speed.
If you use the app, you can go to the Android Market now to download the update. Let us know in the comments how it's working for you.


By CNN'S JIM ACOSTA AND JEREMY DIAMOND CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.
A triumphant President Donald Trump emerged Sunday to claim "complete and total exoneration" after special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation did not establish that Trump or his campaign associates conspired with Russia to win the presidential election.
But the absence of clear evidence of wrongdoing was enough for Trump to boast of vindication after the nearly two-year cloud of the probe has lifted. His remarks foreshadow what advisers say will be an unsparing effort to cast the entire Mueller probe as a pointless and expensive folly.
"It was just announced there was no collusion with Russia, the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction, none whatsoever," Trump said, calling Mueller's investigation "an illegal takedown that failed."
"It's a shame that our country had to go through this. To be honest, it's a shame your President had to go through since before I was even elected," he said.
"It began illegally, and hopefully somebody's going to look at the other side," he said implying the formation of Mueller's special investigation could now be subject to scrutiny.
People close to the President told CNN he has remained singularly fixated in the last several weeks — that he and his allies were harassed by investigators and that nothing similar should ever happen to another president. These people believe Trump could potentially push for an investigation into how the Russia investigation began now that it has ended.
Whether that happens or not remains an open question; a spokesman said Sunday there aren't currently any plans for Trump to ask the attorney general to investigate Democrats. But for now, the President appears content to use Mueller's conclusion that neither he nor his aides cooperated with Russia as a political bludgeon.
Until a tweet moments before his planeside comments, Trump had remained entirely silent this weekend -- at least in public -- about the conclusion of Mueller's report. While he was cheered by news on Friday that Mueller would not issue any further indictments, he spent the weekend expressing cautious optimism while surrounded by his attorneys.
He tweeted only twice, and privately told people he did not know what Barr's next move was.
His caution turned to cheerfulness after he was briefed by his legal team Sunday that the attorney general was set to release findings from the special counsel's investigation, which said it did not find that his campaign colluded with Russia, sources told CNN.
When Barr's chief-of-staff phoned Trump lawyer Emmet Flood to provide a readout of the report, the mood at Mar-a-Lago improved immediately.
"This is very good," Trump said upon hearing the news inside his private quarters, according to a spokesman. He was in high spirits at his Florida club the rest of Sunday afternoon, people familiar with the matter said.
"Everyone was -- is -- thrilled," a senior administration official said.
The White House has not yet seen Mueller's full confidential report, the White House said Sunday evening.
Much of Trump's legal team -- including Flood and White House counsel Pat Cipollone -- traveled with the President to Florida, as did a large coterie of senior aides. A person familiar with the matter said the group hoped to help shape Trump's response to the investigation's conclusion, conscious the moment would become an inflection point of Trump's presidency.
That is part of the reason Trump avoided any mention of the report on Twitter for much of the weekend, sending only two tweets between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening. One wished his followers: "Have a great day!"
The mood on Air Force One back to Washington was jovial, one person told CNN. The President spent the flight watching television, making telephone calls and conversing with staff members.
"I just want to tell you that America is the greatest place on Earth," he told reporters as he walked inside the White House.
Still, even as Trump's rode high on perceived victory, some of his associates who were ensnared in the investigation fumed Sunday as they reflected on how much they spent on legal fees, two people told CNN.
Several current and former Trump officials from his campaign and administration retained personal lawyers to help them respond to questions throughout the probe.
It is those expenses, along with the tarnished reputations of several one-time Trump allies, which the President has cast as the unintended victims of the Mueller investigation.
"So many people have been so badly hurt," Trump said Sunday.
As the messaging wars over the special counsel investigation begin, some of Trump's advisers have expressed private concerns the President could overreach during the upcoming victory lap, making an extreme case when, for now, simply pointing to the no collusion finding would suffice.
But those concerns were minor Sunday as Trump's associates celebrated.
"This is like Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's vault all over again," one said, a reference to Rivera's ill-fated live television event unveiling the discovery of the notorious gangster's vault -- which ended up being empty.
CLARIFICATION: This story was updated to more precisely reflect Attorney General Bill Barr's letter to Congress. Specifically, Barr quoted from special counsel Robert Mueller's report to say the "investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."


A few new skills are HIPAA compliant, which is nice, but probably not enough to protect user privacy overall.
Multiple healthcare companies have announced HIPAA-compliant Alexa skills, promising adequate protection for consumers who use Echo devices for health and wellness.
These new voice skills include the ability to manage prescriptions, find clinics, schedule or cancel appointments and get blood glucose readings and health tips.
HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, protects personal information that is stored or transferred electronically by health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and healthcare providers. It covers an individual’s physical or mental health or condition, medical services provided, payment for services rendered and anything that identifies the individual or could be used to identify the individual.
These healthcare providers say Alexa skills make them more accessible and make it easier for consumers to manage their health, which, in turn, may eliminate costly problems that arise from not complying with doctor’s orders. They also align with Amazon’s rumored plans for the healthcare industry, from its acquisition of online pharmacy PillPack last year to reports that it is building a health and wellness team within Alexa and has hired doctors to support healthcare projects.
And yet these new skills are three of a reported 56,750 in the U.S. overall, or .005%. So what about the other 56,747 and the data they access? Should they be subject to higher security standards, too?
A Google rep said its policies don’t allow “actions” that involve the transmission of information that could be considered protected health information.
Both Amazon and Google have dedicated pages that detail the data their devices and assistants collect and how users can manage it. They say the devices are not always recording but rather waiting to be summoned via wake words, and they light up when recording and/or sending data to the cloud. Alexa users can also configure “certain Echo devices” to play a specific tone whenever audio is sent to the cloud and review their voice recordings and delete them in Alexa privacy settings in the app or online.
Meanwhile, Google says it collects data that is “meant to make our services faster, smarter, more relevant and more useful,” including search history for users who opt-in. It saves conversations on Google servers until users delete them, but notes third parties may share information with Google Home based on their own privacy policies.
And mistakes happen. Like, say, when Amazon accidentally sent 1,700 recordings to the wrong user. Or when Amazon sent a recording of a Portland family to a contact in one of their phones without authorization to do so. Or when Google Home Mini recorded everything in a user’s home and sent those recordings to Google without the user’s knowledge.
When President Clinton signed HIPAA into law on August 21, 1996, state-of-the-art technology included digital cameras, home computers and DVD players. Flatscreen TVs were still a year away.
Of course, HIPAA has been updated since then. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance on cloud computing in 2016. And in December 2018, it asked for public input on how HIPAA could be modified.
But these new skills indicate that another broader update may be in order, as gaps remain in healthcare and beyond.
Dan Linton, data privacy practice lead at marketing company W2O Group, agreed there seems to be little thought into controlling smart speaker access.
“It’s well known that similar voices can access Alexa, and while I don’t mind if a roommate turns off the lights or plays music, I’d rather them not have access to my health data or doctors’ appointments,” he said.
Linton also noted that Amazon puts the responsibility for compliance and security on the independent developers behind its skills.
And in the healthcare industry specifically, Fouad Khalil, vice president of compliance at cybersecurity company SecurityScorecard, said there was a record number of reported breaches in 2018, nearly half of which were a result of uncontrolled third-party access.
“Business associates [like developers] are contractually held accountable for HIPAA compliance, yet they are the major cause of data breaches,” he added.
And, according to Khalil, questions remain about how Amazon and its developers will ensure privacy and security of protected health information in this new format.
Sloan Gaon, CEO of programmatic health company PulsePoint, said federal regulation is needed to address how consumer data is and will be treated moving forward.
A 2018 story in the Berkeley Technology Law Journal made a similar argument, saying policymakers can’t assume market forces will curb abuses of consumer privacy with digital assistants. It also noted that the potential for abuse increases exponentially when the digital assistant is connected to other devices, such as televisions, computers, appliances, security cameras, phones and cars.
As a result, the story said that regulators and legislators “must take steps to minimize the risks and protect consumers’ interests and freedom” with a balanced policy that promotes competition and innovation along with social welfare.


Washington officials believe 8,000 people would die as a result of an earthquake-driven tsunami after a magnitude 9 quake hits off the coast.
The reason is many low-lying communities are without easy access to bluffs and higher ground and would not have time to outrun the waves in the mere 15 to 20 minutes it would take between the shaking to stop and first tsunami waves to hit the beach.
Maximilian Dixon, the earthquake program manager for Washington State Emergency Management, says that’s 8,000 people in the offseason. The number is expected to be higher during the warmer tourist season.
Officials say there is a solution that could drop those frightening numbers to near zero. The answer is tsunami vertical evacuation structures.
There is also the threat of tsunami waves coming from the other side of the Pacific Ocean, or Alaska. There, the warning time would be much longer.
Washington is ahead of other tsunami-vulnerable states like Oregon, California, Alaska, and Hawaii.
The state already has one vertical evacuation structure. It doubles as part of the Ocosta School south of Westport on the coast. Residents approved a bond issue to upgrade the new school’s construction in height and strength to serve as a place for not only students and staff, but also the community to run to and take shelter. A safe place to try and reach ahead of impending disaster.
It is the only vertical evacuation structure in North America. But the shelter is not going to be alone for long.
This summer, the Shoalwater Bay tribe, which has a small reservation next to Tokeland, competed for and won $2.2 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help build a tsunami evacuation tower that tribal and non-tribal members can run to in an emergency.
The Shoalwater tribe’s experience is providing a template for the future for more vertical evacuation structures.
Tim Cook, the state hazard mitigation officer of the Shoalwater Bay experience, says the tribe’s experience and tsunami evacuation tower changed everything.
Cook works heavily in the realm of grants and financing for his agency which has now created a manual for how other communities can get on board to build their own structures.
The state is now in discussions with Westport, Ocean Shores, Aberdeen, and some others to help local communities to get those structures built. Places that people could reach in that 15-minute window and focused on long flat peninsulas such as Long Beach, Ocean Shores and other low lying lands.
The manual would help mayors, county executives, county emergency managers, council people, and other officials to streamline the planning process.
Eventually, there would be standardized plans for towers, earthen berms, and other structures that would be adaptable to local situations as the coastline and local conditions vary widely.
The manual lays out seven phases, from involving emergency management partners, assessment of tsunami risk and current evacuation options, to community engagement, identification of potential sites, funding plans, and finally construction and operation.
Click here if you want to obtain a copy of the manual, executive summary, and other documents.


At this time a year ago congress passed a one-year extension of the Farm Bill mainly to avoid a dramatic hike in milk prices. Congress failed to pass a new five-year Farm Bill in 2013, but U.S. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack has assured congress there won’t be an immediate spike in dairy prices in January — as it will take several weeks for his agency to draft the rules that would put 1949-era dairy prices in place.
“But it’s not an indefinite amount of time and it’s not a long period of time,” Vilsack says.
Negotiators in congress hope to pass a new five-year Farm Bill when the U.S. House and Senate reconvene in mid-January.
If that January deadline isn’t met, however, Vilsack warns his agency will start enforcing the dairy program devised in 1949, as all subsequent Farm Bills have been a temporary, five-year updates of that original 1949 law.
“When it becomes quite obvious that there is no agreement, then it is our responsibility under the law to institute those programs,” Vilsack says.
If congress fails to pass a new Farm Bill in January — or at least a temporary extension of the 2008 Farm Bill — milk prices could rise to $7 a gallon.


In this week’s article we wanted to talk about a subject that many people find hard to talk about – the end of our lives, dying.
Talking about death and dying can be hard because we don’t want to think about a time when we may no longer be around.
But to plan ahead and to talk about it with loved ones can make a huge difference when the time comes.
This week is Dying Matters Awareness Week, a national campaign, which wants to get as many people as possible thinking, talking, and taking action about death, dying and bereavement.
The theme for the annual week campaign is ‘What Can You Do?’ and it aims to get people more active in planning for dying and death, and helping support those who may need it in times of grief and bereavement, be they friends, family or in your wider community.
What is crucial is that talking about our wishes now doesn’t mean that it is going to happen, and talking about the end of our lives isn’t going to bring it on, we can still live, and importantly, live well, in the knowledge that our loved ones know our wishes.
Too often in health services we see the impact of people not having talked about what their wishes are, and this can be upsetting, distressing and frustrating for loved ones trying to make decisions in what is already a very stressful time.
Talking about these things early, and actually when they are not relevant or necessary, doesn’t have to be sad or depressing.
Everyone can know exactly what your wishes are which is so important, especially if you become unable to communicate them for yourself.
It can also be reassuring and comforting for your loved ones that they are confident in knowing what you want.
There are five simple steps to make our end of life experience better for both for us and for our loved ones.
• Record your funeral wishes.
• Plan your future care and support.
• Consider registering as an organ donor.
• Tell your loved ones your wishes.
So, this week take the time to have think about ‘What Can You Do’ and talk with your family and friends so they can get it right for you and for them.


A new Yale study may help save the tigers.
Researchers from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies have come up with a form of spatial modeling to identify the areas of the Kanha Tiger Reserve National Park where the risk of tiger attacks on livestock is highest, in the hopes of reducing farmer-tiger conflict. The study holds potential for mitigating farmers’ economic losses, but could also prove an important part of the conservation puzzle for the dwindling tiger population.
“If we can understand what kind of landscape features these cats target when they’re attacking livestock, then we can better predict where to graze, and predict where the high risk areas are,” said Jennie Miller FES ’15, the study’s lead author who conducted the research for her dissertation.
Similar statistical models have been used in past research with wolves in the United States. Though Miller’s model is based off of these, it is distinct because of the differences in large cats’ hunting patterns.
The team studied the area within 20 square meters of each kill site. Though past models have focused on larger areas, tigers are more limited in their movements, and therefore, the wider radius is unnecessary.
Wild prey is available to the tigers, but so too is livestock, which the tigers may only attack when the opportunity arises — if a cow, for instance, had strayed into a densely forested area that the tiger already frequented. Thus, Miller said the model is likely to reduce attacks for many years to come because tigers are unlikely to shift behavior patterns in order to continue feeding on no-longer-easily-available cows.
The team worked in central India in the Kanha Tiger Reserve, where the large tiger population had produced more than 400 instances of attack on livestock within that year. The researchers partnered with the local livestock compensation program, through which farmers can report livestock lost to tiger predation to the forest department for reimbursement. This helped provide the team with the data they needed and began to elucidate the relationship between land features and risk.
Though much of what the model predicted was relatively straightforward — attacks, for instance, were more frequent in areas farther away from villages and were less frequent in areas with less vegetation — it did help identify riskier areas in seemingly uniform landscapes.
Professor at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and Miller’s advisor Oswald Schmitz said that though policy to protect tigers already exists, Miller’s work will prove that it really is possible for humans and tigers to coexist peacefully.
Miller said some changes based on the study, especially fencing in higher-risk areas of the park, are already going into effect. However, there is still a long way to go, and the study is just one important piece of a larger puzzle.
“Tigers are on the brink of going extinct,” Miller said, noting the importance of protecting habitats and reducing illegal poaching. In fact, she identified poaching as the number one challenge tigers face, adding that if it were scaled back, the population would have a solid chance at recovery.
Miller’s next study will look at farmers’ perception of risk. Identifying the disparities between perceived and actual risk could help reduce tiger attacks even further, Miller said.
There are fewer than 3,500 wild tigers left in the world.
A previous version of this article misstated the class year of Jennie Miller. She graduated in 2015, not 2012..


Sister Ursula continues to reign with an iron fist and the midwives at Nonnatus House struggle to toe the line, especially when she insists they must not be emotionally involved with their patients. This unpopular new edict is immediately put to the test when new father George Marsh is badly burnt in an explosion at the docks and is unable to support his new family, and when expectant mother Penny Reed and her anxious husband Derek are brought to the attention of Nonnatus House.
Penny and Derek both have achondroplasia (colloquially known as dwarfism) and problems with the pregnancy are anticipated, including their baby being stillborn or only living for a short time. As the midwives prepare the Reeds for an infant that may not live, their unconditional devotion to one another and to their unborn child makes a deep impact, especially on Patsy, who is facing one of her toughest decisions yet.
Elsewhere, barmaid Valerie Dyer's quick thinking catches Shelagh's attention when they are first on hand to deal with the casualties at the dock fire. Shelagh is appalled by the general lack of basic health and safety in the docks and strives to make a difference to the men that work there. Dr. Turner and Shelagh also share the happy news of Shelagh's pregnancy with their children.
Catch up on Season 6, Episode 2 of Call the Midwife. Warning: spoilers ahead.
Nonnatus house midwives are struggling with being able to meet the needs of the community.
Andrea Altomaro explains why midwifery care is so much more than collecting vital signs.
Deborah McBain recalls the early inspirations that led a dear friend into midwifery.


It was announced at the July 13 school board meeting that Culpepper/Gray has been selected by the Hamilton County School Board to be the construction managers of the new Hamilton County Elementary School. Chuck Roberts, president of Culpepper (in Tallahassee) and Todd Gray, president of Gray Construction (in Trenton) were in attendance at the meeting.
Superintendent Tom Moffses said he is hoping to break ground on the project in January, 2016 and be open for business by August, 2017, if all goes as planned.
Roberts said he is ready to work on a budget and schedule that works with the school district.
“We understand the need for the facility and we want you to know that this will be a team effort,” said Roberts.
The board then voted unanimously to approve Culpepper/Gray as construction managers for Hamilton County Elementary School.


The Barnes & Noble Nook Simple Touch is the best eReader on the market. The new Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is the same device, with an improvement. (Can you guess what it is?) If you're thinking of getting your first eReader, start here.
An eInk reader with a built-in lighted display to enable reading in the dark.
Readers who sometimes finds themselves hungry for literature in low-light environments.
The GlowLight adds a new scratch-resistant screen coating, and the Simple Touch's rubberized matte design is far tougher than the easy-to-chip silver paint on the current Kindles. Those are improvements. But the garish new gray ring around the outside is an eyesore.
If there's one thing that makes me vomit in my mouth, it's plastic gadgets painted silver.
Simply hold down the home button for a few seconds to turn the front light on and off, and tap the home button to adjust its brightness. The light degrades the clarity of the text a bit, but overall, it improves the reading experience.
Read in bed. Read at night. Read anywhere inconsistent shadows make you angle a book this way or that. Read without turning on overhead lights on a plane, bus, or the back seat of a car.
That stupid gray ring. It adds ugly to a good design, and its stark contrast to the black pulls your eye away from the page.
Eye strain from the front light actually gets worse at very low brightness settings. You're better off with the brightness set somewhere in the middle.
• The GlowLight model feels significantly lighter than the old Simple Touch.
• Older eReaders flashed—or, reloaded the display—every time a page turned. To load pages more quickly, the new generation only flashes every five page turns. The text quality degrades prior to a flash—and the light amplifies it. It's not terrible, but it's noticeable.
• This name is just idiotic.
Yes. As a gadget to use daily, this is the best eReader you can buy. The choice comes down to content. The Nook is a product by Barnes & Noble, and the company's breadth of selection compares well against Amazon's selection for its Kindle. But Amazon might have already sunk its teeth into your library. If that's the case, you'll read this and say: "I'd totally buy this...if it were a Kindle!" That's too bad. The latest Nook is the new king of the eReaders.
• Dimensions: 6.5" x 5.0" x 0.47"