Will the Africa Investment Forum position SA as the ‘next frontier’?
South Africa and Ghana have sign biggest deal of the first day, sign $2.6bn deal.
The Africa Investment Forum, which follows on from the Brics and investment summits earlier this year, opened on Thursday. There is much activity that is currently working towards improving SA’s future investment position.
Muzi Mathema, group executive at the Gauteng Growth and Development Agency, talks to Classic Business Breakfast with Moneyweb about how the latest effort has worked out for the country so far.


Rolling Stones fans around the world got a fright Monday after reports that their idol Mick Jagger was to have heart surgery later this week.
The iconic British band put back the North American leg of their "No Filter" tour Saturday saying the 75-year-old rocker was to receive unspecified medical treatment.
There has been no official information about the veteran frontman's condition other than the group's declaration on Twitter that "Mick has been advised by doctors that he cannot go on tour as he needs medical treatment."
With fans taking to social media to say they were praying for Jagger, the band tried to dampen fears by adding that "Mick is expected to make a complete recovery so that he can get back on stage as soon as possible."
Rolling Stone magazine reported Monday that the singer is to have heart valve surgery. Drudge Report said the operation would take place on Friday in New York.
Jagger himself tweeted that he was "devastated" to delay the tour of 17 shows in the US and Canada that were due to start later this month and run until June.
"I will be working very hard to be back on stage as soon as I can," he added. "I really hate letting you down like this."
Doctors said that if the surgery goes well, Jagger could be back on his feet relatively rapidly.
Heart surgeon and US television presenter Dr Mehmet Oz said "about about 10 percent of people at his age have problem with their aortic valve which can lead to chest pain and dizziness.
"About 50 percent of people who have the problem will die in a couple of years if they don't have the surgery," he added in a video posted on Twitter.
He said traditionally the operation has been done with open heart surgery but "new techniques allow us to do these procedures with minimal invasion with a catheter (tube). You can sneak your way up there and replace the old value with a new one.
"This allows the person to be back home in a day or two. (It also) halves the time of recovery going back to full exercise and activity."
Oz said the other valve which also frequently requires surgery is the mitral value, which is further into the heart.
He said the procedures to repair or replace it were similar.
Heart valve problems had until recent years meant serious open heart surgery. But surgeons can now introduce a new artificial valve inside a stent by making a small incision in the groin and passing it through the femoral artery.
David Tillier, head of the Stones' fan club Sympathy for the Devils, told AFP that the way the news leaked out had given fans a fright.
"Clearly the medical check up (before the tour) revealed something. But if what we are reading now is true, that is quite reassuring, because heart valve surgery is now rather commonplace."
Jagger's fellow Rolling Stones Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, who have had their share of health problems, took to Twitter to calm fears.
"A big disappointment for everyone but things need to be taken care of and we will see you soon. Mick, we are always there for you!" Richards said.
Wood wrote, "Here's to Mick," adding a muscle emoji, and thanked fans for "your supportive messages. It means so much to us."


Hoot's Cloudifier is broken! It's ok, Dino Fixer Giggleosaurus arrives to fix it!
This episode was published 4 weeks ago, available until 8:00am on 25 Apr 2019.


Amid declining budgets and increasing priorities, Yale’s library system has begun to deepen partnerships with peer institutions to address upcoming challenges.
As the University prepares for the arrival of 800 more students over the next four years, ensuring that students continue to have positive experiences at Yale’s libraries is an immediate concern for University Librarian Susan Gibbons.
“With the new colleges coming on line, we are going to need new staffing to support 800 additional students,” Gibbons said, adding that more librarians will be needed to help with undergraduate outreach programs and in majors where students have senior theses. Gibbons also estimated that with the coming increase in the University’s undergraduate student body, the library will need to spend an additional $1.2 million for electronic content licenses annually.
The challenges are exacerbated by the library’s funding structure. According to Gibbons, about three-quarters of the libraries’ budget comes from the return on over 600 library-specific endowments that are managed by the University Investments Office, with the rest coming from general appropriations provided by the Office of the Provost.
Since the money coming from the endowment is designated for purposes that can be fairly narrow — such as a gift specifically for adding books written in shorthand or adding materials related to seafaring adventures — many of the library’s new initiatives can only be funded by what amounts to a quarter of its budget, Gibbons said.
As a result of its reliance on returns from the endowment, the library is more susceptible to fluctuations in market performance than the University at large, whose overall spending from the endowment accounts for a third of its total annual revenue.
Consequently, the library is especially hurt by cases of major disruptions such as the 2008 financial crisis. Data submitted to the Association of Research Libraries indicates that Yale’s total annual library expenditure had decreased by over $10 million — nearly 15 percent of its total budget — between 2005 and 2015.
Gibbons also noted that between fiscal 2009 and fiscal 2011, the general appropriations portion of the library’s budget was reduced by about 30 percent. ARL statistics show a decrease in the library’s staffing by nearly 100 members between 2009 and 2010.
For Gibbons and other librarians, collaboration nowadays has become a much more active process beyond the adoption of best practices at other libraries. In fact, librarians across different universities interviewed said collaboration is now an integral part of how research libraries operate today.
Harvard University Librarian Sarah Thomas expressed a similar sentiment, noting that while the 2008 crisis has created challenges, the downturn motivated libraries to pursue innovative approaches to accessing and using information.
Librarians interviewed cited the significant expansion of the BorrowDirect service — an intercollegiate system that allows students from participating schools to borrow library resources from other institutions — as an example of the increase in collaboration among research libraries.
The idea of a service like BorrowDirect was first discussed in the early 1990s with support from senior librarians at Yale, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, according to BorrowDirect’s website. Since its initial launch in 1999, the service has expanded to encompass the entire Ivy League and four other institutions: MIT, Duke, Johns Hopkins and the University of Chicago.
Data from the BorrowDirect website indicated that about 2.5 million requests had been fulfilled through the program by fiscal 2015, a near doubling from the late 2000s. Today, the program annually supplies 250,000 library items from a catalogue of almost 70 million volumes and has reduced the average turnaround times for borrowing from other universities from 29 days to four.
Another major breakthrough in intercollegiate exchange is arXiv, a server founded at Cornell in 1991 that allows scientists to quickly share research and stake intellectual claim on new findings even before officially publishing their articles. Yale is one of the member institutions of the server, which now hosts almost 1.2 million research studies with 139 million downloads.
According to Duke University Librarian Deborah Jakubs, the idea of cooperative collection development has been around for decades. While the school is a relatively recent addition to the BorrowDirect system, it has long maintained partnerships with three neighboring schools within 25 miles.


The Alberta politics merry-go-round continued to spin Wednesday as a Calgary MLA announced she would leave the NDP government caucus to sit as an Independent.
“Albertans need political choices that inspire them, not scare them,” she said on Facebook.
In an interview, McPherson said she has great regard for her former NDP colleagues but acknowledged she felt the government was not taking the steps needed to transform the health and education systems for the 21st century.
She said she had raised her concerns in the past but Premier Rachel Notley’s government is focused on fulfilling what it sees as its electoral mandate.
McPherson said she will consult with her constituents about her future path. She said it’s way too early to contemplate moving to another party — both the Liberals and Alberta Party hold a single seat in the legislature — but laughed at the notion of joining the right-wing United Conservative Party, newly formed by the merger of the Wildrose and Progressive Conservatives.
Her concerns about polarization echoed those of Calgary-South East MLA Rick Fraser, a former PC who announced in September he was leaving the UCP to sit as an Independent. McPherson said she was inspired in part by Fraser’s move and had reached out to him last month to show her support.
“I knew that what he did took a great deal of gumption,” she said.
Fraser was the second Tory MLA to remove himself from the UCP since its creation this summer, with Vermilion-Lloydminster’s Richard Starke choosing to continue on under the PC brand.
While the Alberta Party and Liberals remain at odds with each other, the shifts of the various MLAs has fuelled talk about centrists coalescing around a single party.
Both Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark and Liberal Leader David Khan said they had no inkling of McPherson’s departure from the NDP but hoped to talk to the MLA about her plans.
“I do think there is a realignment happening,” said Clark, the MLA for Calgary-Elbow.
“On the right, I think they’re becoming quite radicalized . . . and with the left there is some deep concerns with the competency of the NDP and their commitment to southern Alberta,” said the Calgary lawyer.
McPherson’s departure drew a muted response from the NDP government, with the offices of both Notley and house leader Brian Mason declining to comment.
A spokesperson for the premier pointed to comments by Justice Minister Kathleen Ganley, who was asked about McPherson’s move at a Calgary news conference.
The move means the NDP holds 54 seats to the UCP’s 27, with one Alberta Party, one Liberal, one PC and three Independents.
Strathmore-Brooks MLA Derek Fildebrandt is also sitting as an Independent after resigning from the United Conservative caucus in August after questions arose over his expenses and it was revealed he rented out his taxpayer-subsidized apartment. However, he has expressed his desire to rejoin the UCP.


Fifty tons of depleted uranium — a radioactive metal popular among weapons makers — has been quietly dumped in scrap piles across the United Kingdom, according to the GUARDIAN (UK). Detritus left over from decommissioned aircraft and hospital equipment, the depleted uranium may pose serious risks to the environment and human health.
UK environmentalists only learned of the dumping through the US Freedom of Information Act; British authorities have declared it confidential.
An American firm has offered to salvage the radioactive waste — possibly for reuse by weapons manufacturers. The rest would be buried in a licensed dump in Texas.
The MoJo Wire revealed that depleted uranium was used extensively in anti-tank weapons by NATO forces in Kosovo.


Google's self-driving car team just lost one of its long-time engineers.
Chief technology officer Chris Urmson, who has been with the project since it began in 2009, announced his departure Friday afternoon in a Medium post. Urmson did not give a reason for leaving and didn't say where he would would head next.
"After leading our cars through the human equivalent of 150 years of driving and helping our project make the leap from pure research to developing a product that we hope someday anyone will be able to use, I am ready for a fresh challenge," Urmson said in the post.
When Google first launched its then-secret project to build self-driving cars, it hired a core team of 15 engineers, including Urmson. Led by Sebastian Thrun, the group went from driving modified Prius cars on closed courses, to testing custom-built Google vehicles on public roads in states like California and Nevada.
The self-driving car group is part of X, a stand-alone division under parent company Alphabet (GOOG).
When Thrun left the group in 2013, Urmson took over as the project lead. Last year, the group brought on former Hyundai America CEO John Krafcik to lead the self-driving car project.
Urmson is the latest long-time engineer to leave X. Anthony Levandowski and three other ex-Google engineers started self-driving truck company Otto earlier this year.
All parties painted the latest departure as amicable, though the New York Times reported that Urmson had been unhappy with the direction the group was taking.
"Chris has been a vital force for the project, helping the team move from a research phase to a point where this life-saving technology will soon become a reality. He departs with our warmest wishes," said Google spokesperson Johnny Luu in a statement.
Krafick tweeted a link to the Medium post on Friday and said, "Chris is an incredible colleague & leader. Thank you for your passion & humility. Good luck on your new adventures!"
Urmson was experimenting self-driving technology years before Google. As a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, he was part of a team that competed in the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The technology has came a long way since those first competitions, and engineers like Urmson are sought after at startups and large car companies alike.


Allan McNish completes BBC’s F1 team for 2014 along with Suzi Perry, David Coulthard, Eddie Jordan, Ben Edwards, James Allen, Lee McKenzie, Tom Clarkson and Jennie Gow.
Following a very successful debut for the BBC last season, Allan McNish has signed up to the BBC’s F1 team for 2014 as co-commentator for Radio 5 live and expert analyst across TV, radio and online.
Allan will be live from the radio commentary box for 15 of the 19 races and will also feature across the BBC’s F1 output. He’ll be using his extensive experience from across all areas of motorsport to steer audiences through the intricacies of the forthcoming season, which promises to be a fascinating one with all the technical changes ahead.
Eddie Jordan, chief analyst and David Coulthard, co-commentator and expert pundit both return and, after her first season at the helm in 2013, Suzi Perry resumes her duties as TV anchor for 2014.
Ben Edwards once again leads the commentary on TV with Lee McKenzie and Tom Clarkson bringing all the news from the pit lane.
On Radio 5 live, James Allen leads the coverage as F1 correspondent and commentator with Jennie Gow as F1 presenter and pit lane reporter.
With a highly successful career spanning karting to F1, including three victories at the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans, Allan McNish is one of the most respected names in the world of motorsport. During 2013, he worked as F1 co-commentator alongside James Allen for Radio 5 live, alongside his driving, where he won his third Le Mans 24 Hours and rounded off the year by winning the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Allan McNish says: "Now that I have hung up my racing helmet, I am really looking forward to joining the BBC team again for what I am sure is going to be a fantastic new F1 season. With so many technical rule changes, as well as team and driver movements, there will be lots of things happening on and off track for the BBC team to bring to you."
BBC One and BBC One HD will show nine races live on TV, including Silverstone, Canada, Monza and Spa, as well as the season finale from Abu Dhabi, with extended highlights programmes of the remaining races. This goes the same for practice and qualifying.
Every Grand Prix of the season will be live on Radio 5 live or 5 live sports extra with live coverage of practice and qualifying - plus all the action, news, reviews via the BBC Sport App and the BBC Sport Website, with Andrew Benson as Chief F1 writer.
Full details of the BBC’s 2014 season coverage will be announced in due course.


Home » Entertainment»TV» Behind-the-scene: Catch the candid moments of ‘Suryaputra Karna’ actors!
Behind-the-scene: Catch the candid moments of ‘Suryaputra Karna’ actors!
Lights, Camera and Action! The actors are all set to get into the skin of their characters. But as soon as the director says, ‘cut’, these actors are totally in a different mood.
Yes, we are on the sets of Siddharth Tewary’s newly launched mythological show, ‘Suryaputra Karn’ in Umbergaon, Gujarat where the star casts are shooting an important sequence of the ongoing track. And guess what, when you meet them, all of these actors present them as a small family. They love having fun by giving interviews together.
Child actors VIshesh Bansal (Young Karna) and Uzair Basar (Young Shona) are shown as brothers in the show. Both of these actors are leaving no stone unturned to impress the audience.


The Blaze founder Glenn Beck has filed a countersuit against Tomi Lahren, claiming that her recent suspension had nothing to do with her being pro-choice. Instead, the suit alleges that Tomi's employment "remains in full force and effect," adding that her punishment was due to “divisive” employment conduct. In response to the latest development in this ongoing soap opera, Lahren had an interesting choice of words on Twitter.
In the song, "Smile," Wale mentioned Lahren, butchering her name and referring to her as "Tammy" Lahren.
And a little name-calling back-and-forth ensued.
Even though she knew that her tweet could potentially start something all over again with Wale, Lahren still hit that "Send" button. Wale, though, didn't give into the bait.


OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — Kevin Durant is confident Golden State's struggles down the stretch might be just what makes the defending champions dominant on the postseason stage again.
Maybe not quite 16-1 this time around, sure, yet plenty capable of another remarkable run.
"I always knew everybody on our team had a good spirit, a good energy for the game," said Durant, the reigning NBA Finals MVP. "We might have lost some games and had some tough stretches but that doesn't define everybody here as an individual player. I'm kind of positive on, optimistic on each of these guys and how we approach the game no matter what the score of some of those games. I'm glad we can kind of learn from those tough times and continue to move forward."
The Warriors have been hurt and humbled. Beaten handily and beat up hard. Two-time MVP Stephen Curry is expected to be sidelined the entire first round with a knee injury. Four All-Stars — Curry, Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson — were out together at times, too.
On Saturday afternoon, Golden State begins its championship quest with Game 1 of the best-of-seven first round against the San Antonio Spurs at Oracle Arena.
"We learned a lot," coach Steve Kerr said. "Every experience that you gain you can learn from. This has been such a chaotic month with all the injuries and the meaningless games. We've been frustrated. We haven't performed very well. The good news is we have performed well for four years, so we know who we are. We know what we're about. We know this team well, we know the Spurs well, so we know what we have to do. We've got to go do it. The last month is meaningless now. Everything starts over."
Some of that is what Kerr gained from Spurs coach Gregg Popovich: "You take whatever is in front of you and you embrace it."
Kerr hardly played during four seasons with San Antonio late in his career.
Still, Popovich is one of his favorite people — even if he wants nothing more than to eliminate his dear friend.
"Pop doesn't like to see me lose. I like to see him lose. He's had way too much success already," Kerr cracked. "I think sometimes Pop needs to be humbled a little bit. So I'm looking to really rub it in and enjoy if we're able to beat them."
Kerr added: "I want Pop to win against anybody else. We're that close. He's my mentor and he's somebody I feel incredibly strongly about in terms of who he is and what he did for me in my life, and what he's doing for my son right now."
Golden State has gone without Curry for 16 of the last 17 games as he worked back from another injury to his troublesome right ankle only to sprain the medial collateral ligament in his left knee in his return March 23.
Curry is scheduled to be re-evaluated Saturday yet Kerr noted that "he's not close to playing."
The Warriors also aren't expecting to see Spurs star Kawhi Leonard. He played in only nine regular-season games because of a lingering right quadriceps injury.
Durant and Green insist it's time to start taking defense more seriously.
"Now we can focus in on what we always do good here, it's flying around on defense, moving the basketball," Durant said.
The Spurs realize the challenges.
"They are smart, they are long," Manu Ginobili said. "They are very quick to switch back to the matchups they want. They've got a lot of long wings that recover very quick. ... There's a reason why they've been winning so many games."
While the Warriors endured a stretch of seven losses in 10 games, the Spurs dealt with their own eight-game skid down the stretch.
And San Antonio went just 14-27 on the road.
Even if the Spurs' 2017 series with the Warriors was swift, this is a fresh chance.
"It's a new year," LaMarcus Aldridge said. "This team has fought and put ourselves in a position to be here. Last year is last year."
It might be Zaza Pachulia. Maybe JaVale McGee. Or Kevon Looney. David West will get his minutes, too.
Each offers something uniquely different as the Warriors go with a center-by-committee approach.
Kerr isn't saying which big man he will start — he's not giving Popovich any early clues. And Kerr said he and Spurs staffer and son, Nick, are cutting off communication for a couple of weeks.


The head of the liberal Yabloko party, Sergey Mitrokhin has asked the head of the presidential administration for assistance in registering candidates in regional elections.
Mitrokhin has forwarded an official complaint to the President’s Chief of Staff, Sergey Naryshkin. Lacking representatives in parliament, the Yabloko leader listed a number of violations relating to the process of registering candidates. Local legislative elections will be held in 12 regions on March 13.
Yabloko’s leader requested that Naryshkin take measures so that the regional election commissions, which did not register candidates, changed their decisions.
The Central Election Commission has received about 200 complaints from parties about alleged violations during the election campaign. However, Mitrokhin decided to send a letter to the presidential administration’s head as well, on the advice of the president.
During his meeting with heads of four parties represented in the State Duma on February 19, Dmitry Medvedev noted that complaints could be sent directly to the presidential administration. This was in response to Communist Party chief, Gennady Zyuganov and the head of the Liberal Democratic Party Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who also complained about violations.
In most cases, candidates were not registered because the signatures they collected to participate in the elections were invalid. Yabloko said that of its total 66 candidates, 43 had not been registered for this reason. With more than 45 percent of unregistered candidates, the liberal party came out as the leader in this category.
“Currently, regional and municipal authorities have turned the system of the collection of signatures into an instrument for disqualifying candidates and party lists they dislike,” Mitrokhin said in the letter to Naryshkin. Yabloko’s leader believes that such an approach violates citizens’ electoral rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
Only four parties represented in the lower house of the parliament – United Russia, Fair Russia, the Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party – have managed to register their candidates in all 12 regions. The Patriots of Russia will take part in elections in six regions.
Critics say that Yabloko itself is to blame as it failed to garner enough voters’ signatures to register candidates. It will participate in only two regions, where elections are being held based on party’s lists. Yabloko’s leadership cites the reluctance of potential voters to put down their signatures and “bureaucratic motives” of election commissions that label many signatures invalid.
Yabloko lost its representation in the Russian parliament in 2007, gaining support of only 1.6 percent of the voters.


President Dmitry Medvedev has said that the recent Global Policy Forum in Russia’s city of Yaroslavl was a success.
“In my opinion, the forum worked out well; it was interesting,” he said during a Saturday meeting with the leaders of the political parties and factions represented in the State Duma, the parliamentary lower house.
“And most importantly, the proceedings are conducted in a completely open mode,” Medvedev added.
This year’s forum – entitled “The Modern State: Standards of Democracy and Criteria of Efficiency”- was held in Yaroslavl on September 9-10. It gathered politicians, businessmen and political analysts from about 35 countries who discussed issues of democracy, security, international law and modernization.
During Saturday’s meeting with the Duma factions’ leaders, Medvedev also touched upon the single voting day scheduled for October 10 this year when regional parliaments’ deputies , heads of municipal entities and towns will be elected in some regions. The Russian president said he hopes that all the changes in election legislation will be approved and that they will resolve the existing concerns about elections.
“I guess the doubts that you have will be removed and we will enter the elections more lined up,” he said.
According to State Duma Deputy Speaker Ivan Melnikov, first deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, it was also agreed to further improve the legislation on voting in Russia.
“We noted that a package of proposals that the president submitted a year ago in his nationwide address to the Federal Assembly in order to improve election legislation was approved by the State Duma and supported by all factions,” he said, cited Itar-Tass. However, he added, the commission that was established to work on the issue and which involved representatives of all parties stopped its work.
“We succeeded in insisting the commission continue its activities. The opposition has its proposals on further reform of election legislation and they should be aimed at searching for a compromise," Melnikov said. According to the opposition representative, Medvedev has agreed that the commission should continue its work.
The modernization – in particular, the innovation center in Skolkovo – became yet another topic of discussion at the meeting with parties’ leaders. Dmitry Medvedev stressed that is it time to complete the work on the project of Russia’s analog of the “Silicon Valley”.
“I believe this issue unites all of us. I hope we will work on it together,” he said.
Medvedev also stressed that it is necessary to support agricultural producers and not to lose the recent achievements.
“Our task is not to waste all that has been done in agriculture over the past few years,” he said.
As for the food market, the president said the current situation is under control, but there are some problems. For example, he appealed to the parties’ leaders to control the prices in this market.


There's never a bad time to dive back into the archives and watch some good movies.
And if you have some time on your hands, this might be a good time to binge some modern-day classics.
With that in mind, I've come up with 20 essential titles from the past 15 years that you should reexamine or, if you've never seen them, delve into.
Jake Gyllenhaal was just starting to get on everyone's radar when he scored one of his first lead roles, playing a troubled teen who is tormented by visions of the future and a disturbing-looking bunny. "Donnie Darko" has become a cult classic, as it captured the angst of youth who, at the time the movie was in theaters, were coping with the confusion of a post-9/11 world.
Michael Moore's fourth feature film, which won an Oscar for best documentary, might be his best. The controversial director uses the events of the Columbine High School massacre to address the US's addiction to guns. Sadly, 14 years later the issues explored in this movie are still relevant.
This incredibly stylish look at the slums of Rio de Janeiro charts the lives of two boys as they grow up among guns and drugs. The cast is made up mostly of nonprofessional actors, which gives an authenticity to the movie. But what's most surprising about this extremely violent film is how much comedy is layered into it.
What do you get when you combine director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman? One of the most original love stories of the past 15 years. In one of Jim Carrey's best performances, he plays Joel, who, after breaking up with his girlfriend (Kate Winslet), goes to a special doctor who specializes in erasing someone from your memory. What then unfolds, thanks to the visuals of Gondry and words of Kaufman, is near perfect.
Morgan Spurlock used his outgoing personality and a hot-button topic to create a film that has defined his career. Examining the US's issue with obesity, Spurlock turned his camera to McDonald's and in the process changed the way we look at fast food. (In the movie he eats only from the McDonald's menu for one month.) This movie is a big part of why you see more healthy choices and no more "super size" option at McDonald's.
The Coen brothers create a classic modern-day Western thanks to the adaptation of this Cormac McCarthy novel. Starring Josh Brolin as a man who stumbles upon a large suitcase of cash and Javier Bardem as a psychotic hit man, the movie gets better every time you see it.
"Ratatouille" tells a compelling story through animation that isn't just for kids. Set in the posh Paris cooking world, "Ratatouille" follows a rat who fancies himself a chef. The movie could have been a disaster, but instead it showed that stories with lots of layers could be told well through cartoons and computer graphics.
Paul Thomas Anderson delivers a film that is epic in so many ways, including its story, its music, and its photography. Daniel Day-Lewis delivers a performance that withstands the test of time as a maniacal oil baron.
David Fincher, who is known for his attraction to dark material, was perfect for bringing the story of the Zodiac Killer to the big screen. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a cartoonist for a newspaper who becomes obsessed with the case and takes over the detective work when the cops' leads dry up. Perhaps the best trick Fincher pulls off is building constant suspense, so that by the end, anyone could be the Zodiac.
Before "The Walk," we got the story about the daring high-wire walk across the Twin Towers from the real people who did it in James Marsh's "Man on Wire." The Oscar-winning documentary is elevated thanks to the man who did the walking, Philippe Petit, as our narrator. Though the reenactments show viewers how incredible the feat was, it's Petit's masterful storytelling that keeps it engaging.
Arguably Pixar's greatest work, "WALL-E" explores so many different issues that you can watch it a dozen times and enjoy focusing on each one. From a love story to commentaries on obesity and climate change, the movie is much more than the mere travels of a lovable robot (but that part is great, too).
Quentin Tarantino's long-awaited Nazi-killing movie was worth the wait. Brad Pitt plays the leader of a group of Jewish US soldiers whose mission is to kill as many Nazis as possible in France. But along with great characters like "The Bear Jew" and incredible action sequences, the film is also a love letter to cinema.
Christopher Nolan always likes to mess with us, but "Inception" is one of his biggest mind tricks. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the leader of a group who enters people's dreams to steal information. For his latest job, however, he's hired to plant a memory. This leads to a dizzying chase through the deepest subconscious that you can't turn away from.
Featuring some of the funniest women in the business, "Bridesmaids" showed that the girls could be as funny and raunchy as the guys. Along with finally giving Kristen Wiig the lead in a movie, it also turned Melissa McCarthy into a movie star and Paul Feig into the go-to director for female comedies.
Director Nicolas Winding Refn takes his love of violence and combines it with Ryan Gosling and the music of Cliff Martinez to create a slick thriller that's in the vein of '80s movies like "Thief" or "To Live and Die In LA."
Before Spike Lee looked at gun violence in Chicago with "Chi-Raq," documentary filmmaker Steve James showed the people who are trying to stop the violence in "The Interrupters." Following a group of former gang members who are trying to talk some sense into the youth, James' camera captures incredible interactions in which words do much more than any gun can.
This is one of those docs that feels too horrific to be true. Documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer puts a spotlight on the genocide in Indonesia by befriending the leaders who were responsible for mass killings. He had them reenact their murders by filming them in the movie genre of their choosing.
Some of the best acting you'll ever see is in the exchanges between Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix in Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master." The movie follows a Navy veteran who befriends the leader of an organization. The mental gymnastics the two play with each other over the course of the film is thrilling to watch.
Made on a shoestring budget and self-distributed, "Upstream Color" is an inspiring tale that shows us that there's more to life than our everyday existence. Seek out this movie.
Shot from 2002 to 2013, Richard Linklater's look at a young boy's life from adolescence to young adulthood is a special work that has rarely been attempted. The dedication by everyone involved is commendable, but the story itself is so powerful it rivals some documentaries in how realistic it is.


A superstore whose advertising upset people living nearby has been allowed to keep most of its signage.
Camping superstore Go Outdoors moved into the old MFI site in Canley last year.
The company had applied to the council to keep nine large signs and banners which it had posted around the store.
But planning bosses granted permission for only seven.
One of the residents opposing the application, Pete Prady, presented a petition of 25 signatures at a planning meeting.
Mr Prady, who lives in Canley Road, also showed the committee some photographs he had taken which showed the view from his front room where one of the large signs was visible.
He said: "It seems to me that Go Outdoors have a bombastic attitude towards their signage."
Go Outdoors is located on the old MFI site, near to Coventry Business Park. Although the store is not part of this development, existing businesses there have to adhere to strict signage and environmental rules.
Cllr Catherine Harper, of Earl-sdon ward, accused Go Outdoors of "making a mockery" of the council's planning application process.
In October 2004, a similar application was refused by the council when the company wanted to erect 21 signs to go around the circumference of the store.
Cllr Ken Charley, for Whoberley, said: "I understand that you have to attract business but these signs jump out at you like a set of traffic lights."
It was agreed two signs direct-ly facing the houses be removed.
A spokesman for Go Outdoors said: "We're obviously delighted that the planning committee has approved the vast majority of the signage for our Coventry store because the signs help to route people to the site to generate benefits for ourselves and the local economy.
"But we do propose to follow the relevant processes to appeal against the refusal of permission for the other two signs."
Mr Prady, after the meeting, said: "I'm disappointed with the decision. If Go Outdoors were refused planning permission in 2004, how can the same department turn everything on its head?
"The news that they're appealing has not come as a surprise. The company said the other day that they would respect any decision made by the council at the meeting, now by saying they are going to appeal they have contradicted themselves."


The distributors of powerful prescription opioids and the Drug Enforcement Administration failed to stop the flow of millions of pills into rural West Virginia despite rampant warning signs that the pills were being diverted for abuse, inertia that contributed to the nation’s opioid epidemic, a congressional report has found.
A report from the majority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee found that distributors, which fulfill orders for prescription drugs to pharmacies, failed to conduct proper oversight of their customers by not questioning suspicious activity and not properly monitoring the quantity of painkillers that were being shipped to individual pharmacies.
The committee also found that the DEA did not properly use a database that aims to monitor the flow of powerful prescription painkillers from manufacturers to sellers, something that could have allowed federal agents — in real time — to notice that millions of pills were being sent to pharmacies in West Virginia. The agency also curtailed enforcement of distributors, the report found, and infighting inside the agency affected the way cases were handled.
The 324-page report, the culmination of an 18-month investigation of alleged pill dumping in West Virginia, shows how mistakes and lack of oversight led to a massive influx of pills there, much of which ultimately fueled the black market sale and illegal abuse of opioids, including oxycodone.
The Controlled Substances Act requires distributors and the DEA to diligently report and track data about such drugs, and the report found that neither did. West Virginia has been the epicenter of the opioid crisis; the state has the highest overdose death rate in the country.
The committee investigated the nation’s three largest drug distributors: Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson Corp. The report said the companies combined sent more than 900 million doses of hydrocodone and oxycodone to West Virginia from 2005 to 2016. It also looked at two regional distributors: Miami-Luken and H.D. Smith. The report said those companies made “inordinate shipments” of opioids to pharmacies in the state during the same time frame.
Cardinal Health said in a statement that it commends the committee for “examining this complex national public health issue.” The company said it will “continue to implement rigorous anti-diversion controls” and continue to raise awareness about the dangers of overprescribing painkillers.
Richard H. Blake, outside counsel for Miami-Luken, declined to comment, saying he was reviewing the report ahead of its slated public release Wednesday.
McKesson did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
On Wednesday, after the report was released, DEA spokesman Melvin Patterson said the agency has upgraded its software program so it can more proactively investigate suspicious opioid orders. He said the changes have led to an increase in investigations into, and prosecutions of, manufacturers, distributors and providers during the past three years.
Starting in 2005, the DEA held one-on-one meetings with distributors to remind them of their legal obligation to prevent pills from being diverted to the black market, and the agency sent letters to all distributors in 2006 and 2007 to reiterate that obligation, according to the report.
Those letters did not work, the report concluded. Cardinal Health was fined $34 million in 2008 to resolve allegations that it failed to report suspicious orders, and McKesson was fined a little more than $13 million.
Despite paying the fines, the report alleges that the distributors continued to look the other way, allowing pills to flood into West Virginia. The report said that many of the distributors shipped pills to pharmacies with no regard for how many pills a store should need to have in stock based on the population it serves; during a two-week period in 2008, Cardinal increased what it sent to a pharmacy in Williamson, W.Va., more than 1,500 percent.
The report also said that distributors continued to pump pills into pharmacies even after it became clear that doctors and physicians who practiced hundreds of miles from the pharmacies were writing suspicious prescriptions to be filled there.
The report found that the DEA’s use of administrative enforcement actions against distributors plummeted from 58 in 2011, to five in 2015.
“Our bipartisan investigation revealed systemic failures by both distributors and the DEA that contributed to — and failed to abate — the opioid crisis in West Virginia,” Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) and ranking Democrat Frank Pallone Jr. (N.J.) said in a joint statement.
The report lists several legislative and policy recommendations, such as calling on Congress to create more stringent requirements for reporting suspicious orders. It also urges the DEA to create a platform capable of tracking order data in real time and asks the agency to review staffing in the parts of the country hardest hit by the opioid crisis with the goal of ensuring there are adequate resources for scrutinizing pharmacies where there appear to be suspicious orders.


The central regional communication officer of the National Democratic Congress, Mr. Kwesi Dawood says the people of Central Region will demonstrate their sincerest appreciation to the NDC, by voting massively for President John Dramani Mahama in the December elections to help retain the party in power.
This, he said, would go a long way to ensure that the region would become the next World Bank for the NDC after the Volta region.
Mr Dawood stated this in an exclusive interview ahead of the first phase of the president’s campaign tour in the region which starts from Monday 5th to 9th September.
According to Mr Dawood, under the leadership of president Mahama, the central region has benefitted immensely from the better Ghana agenda, in terms of infrastructural development and other social intervention programmes that have transformed the lives of the citizens of the region.
selected His Excellency Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, a true son of the region as his running mate in 2012 and his vice for 2016 as well.
Mr. Dawood intimated that President John Dramani Mahama has fulfilled all the infrastructural and other promises that were made by the late Prof. Atta Mills to the people of the region and has even added more.
He mentioned the New Cape Coast Stadium, the Komenda Sugar Factory, Essuakyer Water Project, Elmina Benya Bridge, Elmina Fish Processing Plant and the Kotokoraba Market in Cape Coast as some of the major infrastructural developments that the region has benefitted under president Mahama’s administration.
“Today the NDC has become very attractive in the region. Every single district or constituency in the region has benefitted from at least one developmental project which the citizenry can attest to. This is the evidence based achievement we are talking about”. He stressed.
“We can boast of several Senior High Schools in the region today. In fact, the developments projects we have in the central region under the NDC are unprecedented and these are what the good people of the central region are going to vote,” he added.
The communications officer emphasised that several vulnerable ladies and women in the region have been supported by the first lady, Mrs Lordina Mahama through her “Live Changing” interventions.
He said, the regional executive of the party under the chairmanship of indefatigable Mr. Allotey Jacobs are working assiduously to ensure that their projected target of winning over 20 parliamentary seats in the region could become a reality.
Also, the party, he said, was poised for winning over 60 per cent of the total valid votes that would be cast in the region in December.
Currently, the NDC has 16 out of a total of 23 parliamentary seats in the central region.


Louisville's James Lindsey will debut "Same Sky" EP at Speed Art Museum’s 90th anniversary celebration.
Louisville hip-hop innovator James Lindsey will celebrate the Jan. 20 release of his "Same Sky" EP with a Jan. 21 performance during the Speed Art Museum’s 90th Anniversary Community Celebration.
Lindsey, who began his career as Jalin Roze, has been working with producer Joshua Nicholson on the 8-song release from sonaBLAST! Records for the better part of two years. It was more than worth the wait. The lead single, “Wanna Shine? (ft. Otis Junior),” is now available on iTunes and Spotify.
Lindsey will perform the entire EP beginning at 8 p.m. with his band, The Grand Nationals, and special guests. The show, like all of the museum's anniversary events, is free.
Reporter Jeffrey Lee Puckett can be reached at jpuckett@courier-journal.com.


Today, megacities have become synonymous with economic growth. In both developing and developed countries, cities with populations of 10 million or more account for one-third to one-half of their gross domestic product.
Many analysts and policymakers think this trend is here to stay. The rise of big data analytics and mobile technology should spur development, they assert, transforming metropolises like Shanghai, Nairobi and Mexico City into so-called "smart cities" that can leverage their huge populations to power their economies and change the power balance in the world.
As technology researchers, however, we see a less rosy urban future. That's because digitization and crowdsourcing will actually undermine the very foundations of the megacity economy, which is typically built on some combination of manufacturing, commerce, retail and professional services.
The exact formula differs from region to region, but all megacities are designed to maximize the productivity of their massive populations. Today, these cities lean heavily on economies of scale, by which increased production brings cost advantages, and on the savings and benefits of co-locating people and firms in neighborhoods and industrial clusters.
But technological advances are now upending these old business models, threatening future of megacities as we know them.
One classic example of a disruptive new technology is 3-D printing, which enables individuals to "print" everything from ice cream to machine parts.
As this streamlined technique spreads, it will eliminate some of the many links in the global production process. By taking out the "middle men," 3-D printing may ultimately reduce the supply chain to just a designer on one end and a manufacturer on the other, significantly reducing the production costs of manufactured goods.
Will 3-D printing put you out of a job next?
That's good for the profit margins of transnational companies and consumers, but not for factory cities, where much of their transportation and warehousing infrastructure may soon become redundant. Jobs in manufacturing, logistics and storage, already threatened across many large sites, may soon be endangered globally.
In short, 3-D printing has transformed the economies of scale that emerged from industrialization into economies of one or few. As it spreads, many megacities, particularly Asian manufacturing centers like Dongguan and Tianjin, both in China, can expect to see widespread disruption to their economies and work forces.
The retail sector is experiencing a similar transformation. Shopping malls, for example, which once thrived in megacities, are now suffering from the advent of e-commerce.
The value proposition of shopping malls was always that their economies of scale were location-dependent. That is, for malls to be profitable, they had to be sited near a large consumer base. Densely populated megacities were perfect.
But as stores have moved online, megacities have lost this competitive advantage. While online shopping has not completely replaced brick-and-mortar retail, its ease and convenience have forced many shopping malls to close worldwide. In the U.S., mall visits declined 50 percent between 2010 and 2013.
Cities in China, where the government has sought to build its national economy on consumption, will be hit particularly hard by this phenomenon. China has the world's largest e-commerce market, and it is estimated that one-third of the country's 4,000 shopping malls will shut down within the next five years.
As mobile technology continues its spread, accessing even the most remote populations, this process will accelerate globally. Soon enough, retail websites like Amazon, Alibaba and eBay will have turned every smartphone into a virtual shopping mall, especially if the dream of drone delivery becomes a reality.
Changes in the business world will also affect cities worldwide.
Thanks to artificial intelligence, or AI, which makes it possible to automate numerous tasks, both manual and cognitive, these days it's goodbye, human bank tellers and fund managers, hello robots.
Even in jobs that cannot be easily automated, the digitized gig economy is putting people into direct competition with a global supply of freelancers to do tasks both menial and specialized.
There are certainly benefits to crowdsourcing. Using both AI and the crowdsourced knowledge of thousands of medical specialists across 70 countries, the Human Diagnosis Project has built a global diagnosis platform that's free to all patients and doctors - a particular boon to people with limited access to public health services.
But by taking collaboration virtual, the "human cloud" business model is also making the notion of offices obsolete. In the future, medical professionals from various specialties will no longer need to work near to each other to get the job done. The same holds for other fields.
In a world without office space, traditional business and financial centers like New York and London would feel the pain, as urban planning, zoning and the real estate market struggle to adjust to firms' and workers' changing needs.
At some point, all this change may end up meaning that economies of scale matter much, much less. If that happens, population size - currently the motor of the modern metropolis - will become a liability.
Megacities have long struggled with the downsides of density and rapid urbanization, including communicable disease, critical infrastructure shortages, rising inequality, crime and social instability. As their economic base erodes, such challenges are likely to grow more pressing.
The damage will differ from city to city, but we believe that the profound shifts underway in retail, manufacturing and professional services will impact all of the world's seven main types of megacities: global giants (Tokyo, New York), Asian anchors (Singapore, Seoul), emerging gateways (Istanbul, São Paulo), factory China (Tianjin, Guangzhou), knowledge capitals (Boston, Stockholm), American middleweights (Phoenix, Miami) and international middleweights (Tel Aviv, Madrid).
Rising unemployment is already making waves in many developing world megacities.
And because 60 percent of global GDP is generated by just 600 cities, struggle in one city could trigger cascading failures. It's conceivable that in 10 or 20 years, floundering megacities may cause the next global financial meltdown.
If this forecast seems dire, it's also predictable: Places, like industries, must adapt with technological change. For megacities, it's time to start planning for a disrupted future.


Either Prince George has been bingeing Riverdale on Netflix, or this whole anecdote we’re about to describe represents some sort of misunderstanding, because . . . this is an odd one!
Per The Sun, five-year-old George—son of Prince William and Kate Middleton, and third in line to the throne—was recently walking with his grandmother Carole Middleton near her house in Berkshire, when he struck up a conversation with a stranger. Per the outlet, George had been playing with his sister, three-year-old Princess Charlotte, in a stream, before approaching the stranger, a woman, who was accompanied by her dog.
According to the woman’s account, George was in a quite amiable mood. The woman, who has remained anonymous, told The Sun: “I was asked by a police minder not to take a photo of the children, which I didn’t, but George started stroking my dog.” What does one do when the most famous five-year-old in the world comes up to you and your dog and starts petting the animal? Well, in this woman’s case, she—understandably unsure what to say, probably—blurted out the first question that came to mind. “Just to be friendly, I engaged in a bit of small talk, and I asked George what his name was, even though obviously I knew it,” she said.
Why Archie?! As we wondered earlier, maybe George dressed as the comic-book character for Halloween last year, and this is sort of a residual “bit” he’s been doing since? The Daily Mail notes that George’s middle names are Alexander and Louis, so perhaps it’s possible Archie emerged as some sort of variation of Alexander? Or maybe it’s some sort of layered inside joke with Charlotte, where they pretend they’re “ordinary” kids with alternate normal lives when they come across strangers, just to amuse themselves.


Samsung has confirmed the arrival of a new sub-brand within its Galaxy range of mobile devices: the Galaxy Mega expands its mini-tablet-sized-phone (aka phablet) portfolio by firing two new devices into the category, building on the momentum generated by its extant Galaxy Note line.
Samsung said the Mega will be available globally — “beginning May from Europe and Russia”, adding that product availability will vary by market and roll outs will be gradual. There’s no official word on Mega pricing yet but since both devices pack dual-core chips (vs the Galaxy Note II’s quad-core chipset) it’s possible they will be a slightly more affordable than Samsung’s other phablets.
The newest addition to the GALAXY family balances an optimal viewing experience on a 6.3-inch HD screen, yet is ultra-thin and portable enough to put into a pocket or hold in one hand. The GALAXY Mega offers a mix of popular smartphone and tablet features such as an effortless user experience, a split screen, multitasking between video and other apps and more.
JK Shin, CEO of Samsung’s mobile business, added in a statement that Mega is about bringing more choice to buyers who want a portable device with a big screen. “We are aware of a great potential in the bigger screen for extensive viewing multimedia, web browsing, and more. We are excited to provide another choice to meet our consumers’ varying lifestyles, all while maintaining the high-quality features of the award-winning GALAXY series,” he said.
Samsung has climbed to a position of dominance in the smartphone market by offering a hugely diverse portfolio of devices, hitting price points from low end budget to high end flagship and everything in between — so little surprise that it’s beefing up its phablet line with Mega.
The company has also fuelled an industry wide trend for smartphone screen size inflation, following the introduction of the original Galaxy Note in 2011. That device had a 5.3 inch screen — which seemed massive at the time. But Samsung’s latest pair of phablets push out even more, adding a full extra inch in the case of the full HD device.
Design wise, Mega does not push the boat out — sharing the same look as fellow Galaxy devices, such as Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy S4 (which packs in a 5 inch pane).
On the specs side, the 6.3 inch Mega is the clear flagship of the pair — packing in a full HD screen, 4G/LTE connectivity and a 1.7GHz dual-core chip while the 5.8 inch Mega has a QHD display, HSPA+ and a 1.4GHz dual-core chip. There’s also a 1mm difference in thickness, with the flagship being 8mm thick vs 9mm for the Mega 5.8.
Full dimensions for the two devices are 167.6 x 88 x 8.0 mm and 162.6 x 82.4 x 9.0 mm. Weight is 199g and 182g respectively. Both devices have 1.5GB RAM. Memory is 8GB/16GB options for the flagship Mega, and 8GB on board the other. Both support microSD card memory expansion up to 64GB. Battery capacity is 3,200 mAh and 2,600 mAh respectively.
Each device has an 8 megapixel rear camera and a 1.9 megapixel front-facing lens. They also both run Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, skinned with Samsung’s TouchWiz UI.
‘Group Play’: Enables easy content sharing for up to 8 devices on the same Wi-Fi network.
Samsung WatchON’: Transforms into an IR remote controller for a richer TV experience. Connect the device to your home entertainment system, and it will provide program recommendations, schedules, and even remotely control your TV.
‘Samsung Link’: Easily streams photos, videos, notes, or music to your television, tablet or computer.
‘S Translator’: Say or text what you need translated into the GALAXY Mega, and it will provide instant translation, using text or voice translation on applications including email, and ChatON.
‘ChatON’: Share what’s on your screen with friends to stay more connected.
Samsung was criticised for larding the S4 with too many software add ons, but it’s clearly not rowing back from this strategy of differentiating its Android devices with scores of its own software extras.
As with the Galaxy Note II, the new Mega devices support split screen viewing for applications including email, messages, ‘MyFiles,’ ‘S Memo’ and ‘S Planner’ — which, beyond their larger screen size, is one way Samsung differentiates its phablets from its flagship smartphones.
Back in January, analyst house IHS iSuppli predicted smartphones with 5 inch+ screens would more than double in number this year — rising from 25.6 million in 2012, to 60.4 million in 2013, up “a notable” 136 per cent year on year.
Last fall, Samsung said channel shipments of its Galaxy Note II had pushed past five million two months after the device launched. Samsung does not break out actual sales of the Note.


LITTLE FALLS - Crystal clear blue skies and crisp snow covered trails set the scene for the Winter Warrior Sled Dog Races this weekend.
This is the second year for the races which take place at Camp Ripley in Little Falls. The North Star Sled Dog Club hosted the event.
Teams consisting of six or ten dogs raced in different divisions on the 25 mile or 45 mile course.
Sled dog racing is an endurance competition for both the riders and their dogs. Bob Bzdok is the defending champion of the 10-dog sprint event and has been racing for 20 years, he says riders spend a lot of time preparing their dogs for the race.
"We spend an awful lot of time with them, training them, feeding them the right food and taking care of them the right way," Bzdok says.
For many of the dogs, training starts early on when they're puppies.
"A lot of them, ever since they're pups we'll start harness breaking them and put them into small race teams," Bzdok says.
Racers of all ages participated in the event. Bzdok's 7-year-old son Johnathon was the youngest participant.
"I want to be a pro dog racer," Johnathan said with a smile.
The North Star Sled Dog Club has been organizing races in Minnesota since the 1960's. The Winter Warrior Race is part of the North Star's competition circuit, which continues through early March.
More information can be found on their website.


Climaxing months of political maneuvering and high anxiety in the halls of Congress, the House ethics committee today released the names of 247 current and 56 former members of Congress who overdrew their checking accounts at least once at the House bank.
Coming two weeks after the committee listed 22 members as having abused their accounts by writing frequent large overdrafts, the new list brings to 325 the number of present and former members involved in the affair.
It will also bring the long and contentious matter to a close, said Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington.
Most members braced for political rather than legal problems, because at this point no laws are known to have been broken. But the free overdraft protection enjoyed by members with House bank accounts has crystallized a perception that representatives are pampered by perquisites out of the reach of the average citizen.
Although dozens of members had already released their bank records in order to defuse criticism, for several of the most prominent members of the House the list released today, covering 39 months ending late last year, was the first disclosure that they had written scores of overdrafts.
Like many members, Mr. Rangel reacted angrily, pointing out that the bank had kept sloppy records and saying that he had never received notice that his account was in arrears.
The list released today does not show the dollar amount of the overdrafts, so in most cases it is impossible to know whether the members on it wrote checks for a few dollars more than their balance or for thousands of dollars more.
The ethics committee, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, issued a statement saying that none of the members on the list broke House bank rules. But the fact is that the rules were vague, and members say it was the longstanding policy that overdrafts were acceptable as long as they did not exceed their next month's salary.
The list does not indicate which members violated that policy. But the General Accounting Office, the Congressional auditing arm that first disclosed the overdrafts, reported that more than 60 had overdrawn accounts for more than a month's salary at least once. On April 1 the ethics committee named 22 of those who had been overdrawn to that extent in at least eight of the 39 months covered by the inquiry. The 40 others were not singled out in the list released today.
Thirty-six members and former members were found to have overdrawn their accounts more than 100 times in the period that was audited by the General Accounting Office in one of its regular reviews.
"To be included on such a list is embarrassing, and I apologize to my constituents," said Mr. Stokes, who recused himself as chairman of the ethics committee during the investigation of the bank and is now not expected to return to the panel.
Mr. Dellums's statement typified the anger expressed by many members who insist that since no House rules were broken, they were innocent of any wrongdoing. "I continue to believe that this is an unwarranted intrusion into our private family life, an intrusion that any private citizen would not tolerate," he said.
Representative George Miller, Democrat of California, who will seek to redeem himself by sending $160 to a California food bank for the homeless, as a penalty for his 99 overdrafts, said: "I completely understand that many people feel penalties should have been charged. There is no way to send this money to the House bank, because it has been closed; and there is no reason to send it to the Treasury, since no public funds were involved."
He said the $160 was double the interest penalty the House credit union would have charged him.
The list of the names and the number of overdrafts they wrote did not specify to what purpose individual members overdrew their accounts or how they came up with the money to make good on the debits.
Investigations of such information by the Congress or the Justice Department could eventually lead to charges that some members violated the tax code or Congressional ethics standards by not reporting what were interest-free loans, in effect, on tax or ethics forms. Republican critics have said such a loan should have been declared as income, but that question is being studied by the Justice Department.
Democratic and Republican leaders attempted to put the best face on the scandal, which has already led to the defeat of a few members in primary elections and forced other prominent members to drop out of their re-election races.
The Republican whip who was one of the chief instigators of the disclosures, Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, pre-empted the ethics committee disclosures by releasing a statement earlier in the day explaining his 22 overdrafts, including a $9,463 check to the Internal Revenue Service in 1990.
"I regret the errors with my checking account and apologize for them," Mr. Gingrich said. "But one thing I do not apologize for is leading the fight for disclosure of all the names. Last year and last month the Democratic leadership tried to suppress the facts. I fought for disclosure even though I knew I would be opening myself to public embarrassment."
Mr. Gingrich released a letter from his accountant that said that none of the overdrafts were "associated with personal investments or with campaign funding."
Mr. Foley, who had already disclosed that he had two overdrafts, has been put on the defensive by Democrats who said he reacted slowly to the scandal. At a news conference today he was combative, accusing the news media of misreporting the House bank story and blowing it out of proportion.
"No taxpayer money was involved," Mr. Foley said, "There were no bounced checks or kited checks. No one lost any money of any kind."
Mr. Foley closed the bank in the wake of the scandal.
Many Republican strategists at first saw the current affair as an opportunity to retake the House by placing blame for the scandal on the Democrats, who have controlled the House since the 1950's. A large majority of the largest overdrafts listed have been by Democrats. But a number of prominent Republicans, including Representative Mickey Edwards of Oklahoma, have also been badly hurt.
Earlier this week, Representative Bill Lowery, Republican of California, withdrew from a divisive primary race after disclosing that he had 300 overdrafts totalling $104,000.
The data released today were compiled by the accounting office from records supplied by the sergeant-at-arms. A statement signed by the acting chairman of the ethics committee, Representative Matthew F. McHugh, Democrat of upstate New York, that accompanied the new list noted that many of the overdrafts were the fault of the bank because it did not always credit deposits in a timely fashion.
The scandal combined with redistricting, frustration with legislative gridlock and the opportunity for some members to keep their unspent campaign funds for personal use, have sparked a rash of voluntary retirements. The anti-incumbency rage has contributed to the defeat of five members in primaries, including Representative Charles A. Hayes, Democrat of Illinois, who was found by the committee to be one of the most egregious overdrafters.
Representative Robert J. Mrazeck of Long Island was forced to drop out of the New York Democratic senatorial primary when he was included on the list of the 22 worst overdrafters.
The scandal has heavily burdened the Senate campaigns of Representatives Les AuCoin, Democrat of Oregon, who overdrew his account 83 times, and Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, who overdrew hers 143 times.
Because of an editing error, two front-page articles yesterday about the House banking scandal misstated the numbers of former and current House members on lists of those who wrote overdrafts. An initial list, issued on April 1, included 5 former and 17 current members. The list issued on Thursday included 51 former and 252 current members, not 56 former and 247 current members.


The Milwaukee Brewers left Chicago on Sunday afternoon with a 6 1/2 game lead over the Chicago Cubs in the NL Central Division standings. The Brewers dropped two out of three games, including Sunday's 5-1 setback.
Jason Marquis (6-4) allowed just four hits and 1 run in seven innings to pick up his first win since early May.
Ryan Theriot and Derek Lee each hit three hits for the Cubs. Corey Hart drove in the Brewers only run with a home run in the 6th, extending his league leading hitting streak to 16 games.
The Brewers send Jeff Suppan to the mound tonight in Pittsburgh against the Pirates.


Benchmark NSE Nifty50 index was up 71.80 points at 10,799.15 while the BSE Sensex was up 262.77 points at 35,957.87.
NEW DELHI: FMCG shares were trading higher with the Nifty FMCG index up 0.56 per cent at 30,358.15 around 11:50 am on Monday.
Shares of Marico (up 2.48 per cent), Jubilant Foodworks (up 1.14 per cent), United Breweries (up 1.10 per cent) and United Spirits (up 1.06 per cent) were the top gainers in the index.
Tata Global Beverages (up 0.77 per cent), Dabur India (up 0.74 per cent) and GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare (up 0.74 per cent) too were trading with gains.
Shares of YES Bank, Ashok Leyland, Tata Motors, SBI, Vedanta, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, ITC, ONGC, JSW Steel, Hindalco Industries, Tata Steel, BHEL and DLF were among the most traded shares on the NSE.


(CNSNews.com) – Communist North Korea is one of the most “hostile and repressive” regimes in the world when it comes to religious belief and practice, particularly for faiths associated with the Western world, such as Christianity, according to the 2018 report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, which details the state of religious freedom around the world in 2017.
The North Korean “regime associates Christianity with the West, particularly the United States,” the report said. The regime uses “robust surveillance” to identify secretly practicing Christians and imprison them and their families, even if their family is not religious.
Christians in North Korea are “tortured and killed on account of their religious affiliation,” states the report.
“According to the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, individuals face persecution for propagating religion, possessing religious items, carrying out religious activities (including praying and singing hymns), and having contact with religious persons,” the report documented.
In addition, in North Korea religious groups cannot conduct religious activities unless the activities are through the handful of state-controlled houses of worship, the report said. There are currently three Protestant churches, one Catholic church and one Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church in North Korea.


Iran's crude oil exports have surged to their highest in 20 months, far exceeding a one million barrel-per-day limit set by the West under an interim deal on curbing Tehran's nuclear programme.
The International Energy Agency's monthly report revised February's global crude imports from Iran upwards by 240,000 bpd to 1.65 million barrels per day, the highest since June 2012.
Under a landmark deal signed in November between Iran and world powers - known as the P5+1 - that came into effect in January of this year, Iran's exports are supposed to be held at an average 1 million bpd for the six months to July 20.
Tough international sanctions over the past two years have cut Iran's oil exports around a half.
"The question is whether they are going to continue to test the sanctions," Antoine Halff, head of the IEA's oil industry and markets division, told Reuters.
China accounted for 168,000 bpd of the rise in imports in February, India for 93,000 bpd and South Korea for 83,000 bpd.
On the other hand, Japanese imports of Iranian oil were revised lower by 103,000 bpd, according to the IEA.
"Imports of Iranian oil are running well above 2013 levels for the third consecutive month," the report said.
Preliminary data for March show imports from Iran dropped to 1.05 million bpd "but that figure will likely be revised upwards closer to February levels upon receipt of more complete data," it said.
Importers of Iranian crude in March included Albania and Syria in addition to regular buyers China, India, South Korea, Japan and Turkey, the IEA said.
The IEA data is based on statistics provided to the organisation by member and non-member states as well as shipping data.
Tanker tracking sources estimated Iran's crude exports averaged around 1.3 million bpd in March - the fifth straight month they had risen above 1 million bpd.
They said the volume of Iranian oil held on tankers at sea or anchorages was starting to drop after several months, falling to between 9 to 13 Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) supertankers - each able to hold a maximum of 2 million barrels of oil - from 16 VLCCs in February and a peak of over 20 VLCCs in 2011.
Tanker broker E.A. Gibson said last week floating storage had fallen to 10 VLCCs - its lowest level since December 2012.
"Also, up until recently, several VLCCs appear to have been storing crude off the Chinese coast but this now appears to be down to just one unit," Gibson said.
Exports of Iranian condensate, a form of very light oil, reached 140,000 bpd in February and 110,000 bpd in March, significantly lower than January's 250,000 bpd, the IEA said.
"The current P5+1 negotiations track provides economic growth potential for Iran. The interim nuclear agreement and sanctions relief is helping to stabilise the economy," said Mark Dubowitz of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a U.S. think-tank, in a report this week.
"Oil exports have already overshot their expected levels in early 2014 ... As a result, Iranian growth will likely be somewhat higher," said Dubowitz, who supports tougher sanctions.
But shipments to Asia have topped that level at least since November.


MLB rumors: David Robertson to Phillies | What it means for Yankees; Zach Britton, Adam Ottavino on deck?
Once again, David Robertson has left the Yankees.
The 33-year-old right-hander took a two-year, $23-million deal from the Phillies on Thursday, according to a report from MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. The pact also includes a third-year club option.
What the Yankees are losing: Last season, Robertson went 8-3 with a 3.23 ERA in 69 games and 69 2/3 innings for the Yankees, earning five saves. Robertson also left the Yankees following the 2014 season, taking a four-year, $46-million deal from the White Sox.
What do the Yankees do? They turn their eyes toward Zach Britton and Adam Ottavino, the top two arms remaining on the free agent market. They have been in close contact with both. General manager Brian Cashman and his front office have been among Britton’s top choices all winter. And at the Winter Meetings, Cashman met with Ottavino’s agent. They have two spots in the bullpen open. Come the trade deadline last season, both were filled with top notch arms — Robertson and Britton. It’s unclear if Cashman will aim high for both spots, but it seems likely he’ll spend on at least one, considering the Yankees’ penchant for a super bullpen the last couple of years.
Find out soon? Would think that there might be the proverbial rush on relievers now. With Robertson off the board, there’s no reason to think things won’t soon wrap up for Britton and Ottavino.
Reminders: The 33-year-old Ottavino — a New York native — went 6-4 with a 2.43 ERA in 75 games last year for the Rockies. The 31-year-old Britton — a two-time All-Star — missed a large portion of the season last year due to rehabilitation following surgery to repair a torn right achilles tendon. He went 1-0 with a 2.88 ERA in 25 games for the Yankees after they acquired him at the trade deadline from the Orioles.
Internal options: The Yankees have a bunch of arms who could slot into a back-end role with high-end potential. Chance Adams, Jonathan Loaisiga and Domingo German stand out as potential impact relievers who haven’t had dedicated shots at relief spots yet. Luis Cessa, too. The Yankees’ current back-end looks like Aroldis Chapman at closer, Dellin Betances setting him up and Chad Green in the seventh inning. Not too shabby.


Today I’ll look at the Utilities sector. With a distribution yield of 5.5% for the sector, it’s easy to see how the distributions can act as a buffer to market volatility.
What do investors need to know when investing in the utilities sector?
The utilities sector is a small one on the Australian market. There are only 5 companies that make up this sector. Utilities companies tend to have stable cash flows. Often, they are restricted in types of price rises they can enforce. We call this a regulated industry. Due to the stable cash flows and high depreciation costs of capital investment, they have huge amounts of debt, when measured against traditional measures, such as equity or earnings.
What is the outlook for this sector?
This sector is thought of as a bond proxy. It means as global interest rates rise, share prices can come under pressure. Higher longer-term interest rates would be a negative while lower long-term interest rates would be a positive.
While transmission and distribution of gas and electricity will continue to be important in Australia, emerging technologies will also pay a growing part. Battery storage, smart devices and home energy management systems are all emerging areas, with the potential to disrupt the industry. As other sectors have seen disruption take hold, utilities are expected to be changed substantially over the next decade.
There are a number of risks and I’ll go through them.
• Interest rate risk. As this sector is seen as a bond proxy due to the large amounts of debt required for investing into the infrastructure, higher longer-term interest rates are a negative for share prices.
• Regulatory risks. This sector is mostly a regulated sector, where the growth in revenues is restricted by government-imposed limits. Changes in energy policy also occur relatively frequently and can have a large impact on sentiment and share prices.
• Disruptive technologies. Like many industries, the utilities sector is also prone to disruption from battery storage solutions for households, home energy management systems and smart devices.
What’s your favourite stock in the sector?


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Like a sweater stretched too often by wide shoulders, space-time can be permanently warped by the gravitational waves that constantly ripple through it. This distortion, called gravitational wave memory, could allow us to detect waves previously beyond our reach – even if we can’t see the event that caused them.
This offers hope that we may be able to find some of the universe’s most exotic objects.
Gravitational waves are created by massive objects moving through space-time. In 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) first detected a gravitational wave caused by two black holes spiralling towards one another and merging. Since then, theorists have been hard at work figuring out what such waves from other events and objects would look like.
Some of the most exotic objects in physics, such as evaporating black holes, cosmic strings and even possible extra dimensions, would induce gravitational waves at much higher frequencies than we can currently detect.
But there is still hope that these elusive objects could leave a detectable signal, say Lucy McNeill and her colleagues Eric Thrane and Paul Lasky at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
If two people were floating near, say, a pair of merging black holes, the space between them would grow and shrink as space-time was stretched and distorted by gravitational waves.
Once the black holes merged and the waves ceased, this oscillation would stop – but the two people would be at a different distance apart to when they started. Memory of the gravitational waves would leave them slightly further apart or closer together.
This permanent distortion of space-time creates a signal 10 to 100 times weaker and with a frequency much lower than the original one from the oscillating gravitational wave. It could also extend in all directions, even if the gravitational waves themselves were beamed in one specific direction.
The difference in frequency means that the kinds of event for which LIGO and similar detectors can spot gravitational waves will have too low a frequency for them to also pick up the memory signal.
But if there are astrophysical events that produce gravitational waves at frequencies too high for LIGO to spot, their memory signals might fall easily into the observatory’s detection range, thus allowing us to pick them up. McNeill and her colleagues call these “orphan” signals because the parent wave is not detectable.
In fact, memory signals could supply the first definitive proof that many objects that would emit high-frequency gravitational waves do exist. Even objects at the less-esoteric end of the spectrum, such as small primordial black holes, have not yet escaped the realm of theory.
Orphan memory signals could represent a ray of light for those theories, allowing researchers to find high-frequency sources without looking for the sources themselves.


If one thing has become abundantly clear over the course of the Euro crisis it is that the Euro is not going to be allowed to collapse. While I believe it is in the best interest of some of the periphery nations to leave the Euro it's now obvious that they have been convinced that this is not in their best interest. The core is very concerned about the ramifications of defaults and defections as their banks remain the largest lenders to the periphery. So, while the periphery bails out the core (and vice versa) we will continue to see this union held together with increasing attempts to create a truly unified Europe.
Admitted or not, flashing across the political mindset in Europe is the realization that monetary unification will inevitably require a greater degree of political and fiscal unification. Critics of the euro have been saying this since its inception, but the current crisis is forcing the issue to the forefront of pan-European policy.
Ever since [the creation of the euro], economists have warned that monetary union, without a parallel authority to regulate taxes and spending, was destined to fail because there was no way to enforce the fiscal discipline essential to a currency's health. Now, as Europe's year of crisis grinds to a close, the Continent's leaders are contemplating what many long resisted: a United States of Europe.
The federalization of Europe isn't as far-fetched a concept as one might think. Remember that the United States of America initially operated under a loosely constructed confederation of sovereign states.
Prior to the Articles of Confederation, the individual colonies accumulated varying degrees of debt while fighting the Revolutionary War. The colonial debt burdens were highly divergent depending on the level of commitment to the war and the economic benefits accrued as a result of independence. Similar to the situation in Europe, some states suffered under far heavier debt burdens than others and economies prospered in varying degrees.
Without a tax base or the ability to consolidate debts, the make-shift Continental Congress was unable to assist individual states. Therefore, in 1787, it convened to address the financial viability of a confederation of unified states. Broad and sweeping changes were necessary, but under the Articles of Confederation such change could not occur without great difficulty. In response, that convention seized the opportunity to forge the Constitution of the United States of America, which curiously needed only a two-thirds vote to be ratified rather than the unanimity previously required in order to amend the Articles of Confederation.
It was reported that during the debate, John Jay, an American founding-father who co-wrote the Federalist Papers, argued in favor of the fiscal benefits of federalization. He said, in effect, that without a federal government the states would no sooner become independent than they would become insolvent. He argued that it should not be said of America that "her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith."
It was this Alexandrian-style paradigm shift in American government that paved the way for the Articles of Confederation to be replaced by the United States Constitution, and for Alexander Hamilton to ultimately absorb the debts of the states as a part of the process of federalization.
As Solomon said, "There's nothing new under the sun." The federalization of independent sovereign states for the purpose of financial and political stability has happened before. The application to the current crisis in Europe really isn't as crazy a concept as one might think. At the end of the day, it's all been done before.
Returning to modern day, the escalation of the current crisis in Europe will represent the Alexandrian moment for Germany and France, who have long desired to extend their influences across the continent. I believe that politicians are on board for greater European fiscal union; however, they still need to sell it to their constituents. Ironically, their lack of action may ultimately do the selling for them as the crisis deepens. It's only a matter of time before Germany and France find the political will to lead the European Union into a new era of fiscal unification. Ultimately, the German and French motivation is the same reason Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot - the promise of ruling over a unified continent.
I have to disagree somewhat here. While power grabs are the soup du jour for most politicians, this is not merely a power grab. This is part of the natural progression of an ever increasingly unified global economy. In Europe, this economic interdependency is now abundantly clear. Europe is more intertwined than most are likely comfortable admitting.
While social differences remain there is simply no denying the fact that these countries are interconnected by common banking systems and common economies. The leaders of Europe understand this and likely recognize that this interconnection is only going to increase in the coming decades. That makes the direction clear - we are moving towards some form of a United States of Europe. Unfortunately for all involved, the only thing keeping this from becoming a reality is social disunity due to a long history of conflict. This will make the road towards unification increasingly tumultuous.
For now, we will continue to see austerity on the periphery, weak economic growth and a system that is held together very loosely by an accommodative ECB. Ultimately, they must find a way to increase fiscal and political union. This is easier said than done, however, and while European leaders kick the can the risk of peripheral defaults and defections will continue to rise as economies suffer under austerity and citizens slowly realize that they are on the losing end of what is essentially a core banking bailout.
Europe has reached the crossroads and the direction they appear to be choosing is clear. They are moving in the direction of some form of unity. The social divide, however, is proving difficult to overcome. And the more slowly we move towards unification the higher the odds of turmoil. My guess is that I will see a unified Europe in my lifetime. How unified? That depends on their ability to overcome their social differences. Ultimately, however, money rules the day and money is forcing these reluctant neighbors to learn to love one another.
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Unreal Tournament 2007 delayed - Nooooo!
Lets hope it doesnt start following the same ole' beaten path as Duke Nukem Forever, ugh!
In October 2003, Atari announced that Unreal Tournament 2004 had been delayed...until 2004. Though it was originally slated for a February release, the latest installment in Epic Games' wildly popular PC shooter didn't make it to market until mid-March.
Now it appears that this year, Unreal fans will be feeling a sense of dejà vu vis-à-vis the latest installment in the series. Today, representatives for Midway Games, which took over Unreal publishing duties from Atari in July 2004, announced that Unreal Tournament 2007 will not be released in time for the 2006 holiday season.
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On Feb. 9, 1964: The Beatles made their first live American television appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," broadcast from New York on CBS.
In 1825: the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams president after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes.
In 1861: Jefferson Davis was elected provisional president of the Confederate States of America at a congress held in Montgomery, Alabama.
In 1942: the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff held its first formal meeting to coordinate military strategy during World War II. Daylight-saving "War Time" went into effect in the United States, with clocks moved one hour forward. The SS Normandie, a former French liner being refitted for the U.S. Navy at a New York pier, caught fire (it capsized early the next morning).
In 1943: the World War II battle of Guadalcanal in the southwest Pacific ended with an Allied victory over Japanese forces.
In 1950: in a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., charged the State Department was riddled with Communists.
In 1964: the G.I. Joe action figure was introduced at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
In 1971: a magnitude 6.6 earthquake in California's San Fernando Valley claimed 65 lives. The crew of Apollo 14 returned to Earth after man's third landing on the moon.
In 1984: Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov, 69, died 15 months after succeeding Leonid Brezhnev; he was followed by Konstantin U. Chernenko.
In 2002: Britain's Princess Margaret, sister of Queen Elizabeth II, died in London at age 71.
In 2005: Hewlett-Packard Co. chief executive Carly Fiorina was forced out by board members, ending her nearly six-year reign.
In 2017: a federal appeals court refused to reinstate President Donald Trump's ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations, unanimously rejecting the administration's claim of presidential authority, questioning its motives and concluding that the order was unlikely to survive legal challenges.


Laguna Beach will spend $38,400 to develop a monitoring system that would evaluate flooding conditions in Laguna Canyon and advise residents of potential danger and when to evacuate.
The City Council on Aug. 16 unanimously approved the recommendation of the Laguna Canyon Flood Mitigation Task Force to hire Dr. Frank Weirich to design and supervise the installation of the system, as well as develop the notification and evacuation thresholds.
"At the time the task force was formed, we envisioned meeting for six months and then bringing recommendations to the council," said Councilwoman Verna Rollinger, task force co-chairwoman. "But this is the second time we have brought recommendations forward early. We want the early warning system in place before the rainy season."
The council also approved the distribution to canyon residents of educational material about the potential for flooding and the measures they can take to be better prepared. City staff was directed to work with property owners on clearing significant debris that could dam drainage from the upper portion of the Laguna Canyon Channel.
Weirich will be paid $15,000 for his services. Components of the system, including stream-monitoring remote cameras, gauges that send real-time data, and saturation monitors are estimated to cost $18,400. A $5,000 contingency fund was approved.
The system will include networking with existing Orange County Public Works rain gauges, stream monitors and identify and display National Weather Service products.
Monitoring equipment is expected to last between 10 and 15 years, at which time its usefulness will be evaluated.
Staff will do the monitoring. Repairs likely will be paid for out of operating budgets.
The system will be paid for by the city's General Fund, which covers day to expenses.


This week has taken a toll me. I kept coming back to the clinic for doctor's appointments and felt all dizzy in between. My doctor has said that I have been getting too much stress and that it’s slowly killing me. If I don't take a step back, I might just be in for another adventure of my life. She added that it is not a cause for alarm though, just a gentle reminder to get my life straight. That hit me hard.
While it is true that I squeeze in yoga, running, and swimming between my already-crazy schedule, there is just too much negative energy in the workplace and outside. I have to deal with irritable, unreasonable, and sometimes senseless individuals with the most pleasing personality. I try my best to stretch my patience for people who have wronged me and I take in the situations of the daily news. That is why I hate it when some people (especially friends and family) ask me what's the latest about this and that. It's as if I haven't had enough at work. Why don't we talk about something else? Like your life and how exciting it is?
It gets more shocking to note that it is not only me who is undergoing this ordeal. Many my friends my age or younger have been going to doctors to get themselves checked for weird bumps and lumps in their bodies, only to find out that it’s due to stress. I'd have to say that stress does kill.
I don't quite get where all the negative energy comes from in workplaces. It must be the disparity between generations. Here are the baby boomers being overpowered by millennials, so they make their lives miserable. They don't take pride in a younger person accomplishing too much, they only think they are correct in their own minds and affect the whole office and maybe the immediate environment.
If there is a call to stop this kind of bullying, I would gladly support it. After all, the health of an individual matters, especially for young people who still have a long life ahead of them. It kind of explains why young individuals are hopping from one job to another, looking for a place where they can relax and work their passion through. It wouldn't matter to them if they aren’t stable in their jobs as long as they are happy. I wouldn't have thought happiness was a factor to consider when you look for work. This gets very interesting. Now I see why a lot of my former schoolmates are finding joy in community work. It gives them fulfillment, plus they get to handle their own time, which means more time to relax and breathe, which equates to a less stressful life.
Now it hits me, I'm at my own crossroad --confused if I should continue what I love doing most or risk looking for another venture and giving my body a reward. It's a big decision to make. I'm sure other yuppies are in this dilemma too. I pray we all find that discernment to make the right decision. Someday, some way, this will all make sense.


Google announced deeper integration between Gmail and Google+ on Thursday, confirming your Google+ connections will now auto-appear as potential recipients when composing an email.
Google has long kept Gmail contacts updated via Google+, but now the Internet giant allows its free email service to suggest your Google+ connections as recipients when you're composing a new message.
Google said its new feature will roll out “over the next couple of days” to anyone who uses both Gmail and Google+. However, if you'd like stop this feature (i.e., stop anyone on Google+ from emailing your Gmail account), you're in luck.
Pocket-lint has compiled a step-by-step guide on how to adjust your settings and disable the feature. Thus, you'll never get random emails from people on Google+. Check it out below.
Google's new Gmail/Google+ integration might seem like a serious breach of privacy, but Google has actually added a few security measures to protect you.
For instance, your email address isn't visible to Google+ connections unless you reply to their emails. Similarly, their email addresses aren't visible to you until you reply.
Google's new feature also works with Gmail’s inbox categories. That means emails from people in your circles will appear in the Primary category. All other Google+ messages will go to the Social category, if you've enabled this setting.
In addition, you'll only receive Google+ emails in the Social category once. That's because you must respond or add people to your circles in order to receive further communication.
Got it? Good. Now, if you still want to adjust your settings and disable the feature, continue reading.
Gmail will let you control whether people on Google+ can email you with a new setting called “Email via Google+”. If this setting isn't visible yet, then it hasn’t rolled out to your account. Be patient - it'll land soon.
With this setting, you can choose the type of people on Google+ who can email you. This includes "anyone on Google+," "extended circles," "circles," and "no one." To choose your preference, follow the steps below.
Scroll down to the “Email via Google+” section under the “General” tab.
Scroll to the bottom of the page, and then click on “Save Changes".


RUBY AIKO YOSHIMURA July 21, 1922 to September 6, 2011 Ruby, age 89, passed away peacefully at home with her family by her side. She was born in Hanalei Kauai and graduated from Santa Maria High School in California. Ruby is a Sears Roebuck retiree. She was married to the late Charles Yoshimura, who passed away this year on March 5. They are together again, reunited in heaven after 70 great years of marriage. Survived by son Michael, daughters: Shirley Yoshimura and Diane (John) Beirne, Grandchildren: Debra (Keith Boruff) Yamakami, Dina (John) Suyemoto, Dara (Greg) Duane, Derek Yamakami. Great-Grandchildren: Tiare (Daniel Kuba) Yamura, Jake and Cole Suyemoto, Aidan and Dilyn Duane, Jarin Tengan Yamakami. Great-Great-Granddaughter, Paisley Kuba. Sisters: Nancy Kobayashi, Geraldine Katayama, Kathleen Davis. Brothers: Donald Takaki, Kenneth Takaki, William Takaki. A celebration of life will be held at the Hawaiian Memorial Chapel in Kaneohe on Monday, October 10, 2011 at 10:30am. Visitation 10:00am.


Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and Nutrisystem, oh my! For years, stars from Jessica Simpson to Valerie Bertinelli to Kirstie Alley have been lending their names and bodies to weight loss programs to serve as spokespeople. See some famous faces that have promoted weight loss brands.