Thursday’s event included workshops, and several speakers including Westchester County Executive George Latimer and actor Mike Epps.
WHITE PLAINS - Educators, politicians and community leaders who addressed a room full of black and Latino youth were defiant when they said they were talking to the next generation of citizens who would redefine what it means to be a young man of color.
The speakers were talking to about 800 students Thursday who attended a first-ever Youth Leadership Summit organized by a coalition of My Brother's Keeper communities from Westchester, Rockland and Dutchess counties.
“We want them to know that there are people out here who really care, that we want to make the investment in them so they will be a successful, contributing person in this society or the community they will eventually reside in,” said André Early, commissioner for the Department of Community Resources in Greenburgh and co-chair of the committee that organized the event.
But the My Brother’s Keeper challenge is steep.
The communities and school districts around the country that have accepted the My Brother’s Keeper challenge — an idea launched in 2014 by former President Barack Obama — are committed to improving the outcomes of black and Latino men. This demographic has historically faced academic challenges, greater likelihood of incarceration and often come from low-income neighborhoods.
State Education Department Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has repeatedly cited My Brother's Keeper as a key to closing the achievement gap that separates students of color from white students, as commonly measured by test scores and graduation rates. The state has invested more than $20 million in My Brother’s Keeper communities, including about a dozen in the Lower Hudson Valley, since 2016.
That money has helped launch programs in individual schools. Many participating students get together after school or on Saturdays with mentors, get extra help with school work, go on field trips, and put together events like the leadership summit. Thursday’s event included workshops focused on time management and mental health, and several speakers included Westchester County Executive George Latimer and actor Mike Epps.
The initiative can take many forms. Julio Veras, a math teacher at the Enrico Fermi School in Yonkers, said their MBK program is trying to help seventh and eighth graders become role models for younger kids in the school.
Asther Fernandez, an eighth grader at Enrico Fermi, said the My Brother’s Keeper community helped him turn around bad habits.
Hanson Drysdale, a 17-year-old senior from Spring Valley High School, said participating in My Brother’s Keeper has made a big difference for him and his peers in East Ramapo.
Westchester: Elmsford, Greenburgh, Mount Pleasant Cottage, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Ossining, Peekskill, White Plains, Yonkers.


BRENTFORD co-director of football Rasmus Ankersen says the Championship club will be eyeing promotion again next season but won’t be governed by short-term thinking after appointing unheralded Dutchman Marinus Dijkhuizen as head coach.
Dijkhuizen replaces the popular Mark Warburton - who guided the Bees to the playoffs last season - at Griffin Park next term.
And while Warburton’s departure irked some fans, Andersen insists that doing away with conventional wisdom can see Brentford pushing for promotion again next term.
He said: “There’s a lot of sayings in football: why would you fix something that’s not broken but we think it’s important all the time to try and improve things and that also sometimes involves changing things that seem to be working.
And while promotion remains the goal, Ankersen claims that Dijkhuizen will not come under pressure if Brentford struggle in the early stages of next season.
He added: “It would be stupid not to try and do better than last season. And doing better than last season is being in the race for promotion again.
“We definitely think that’s possible but football is a random game.
“There are no guarantees but we aim high. If we fail this year we will aim high next year but it’s a club with big ambitions.
“Obviously we want to do better than last season.
It would be stupid not to try and do better than last season.
“He [Dijkhuizen] definitely has our support.
“Football can be very black and white.
“I think one of football’s biggest problems is that you make decisions on a temporary variation in results. The short-termism is causing a lot of bad decisions.
“We want to look in our performances in a wider perspective.
Speaking about what appealed about Dijkhuizen, Andersen added: “We wanted a coach that was open minded, who had shown he could create results by thinking differently.
“Brentford is not a football club that is going to win by spending more money than the competition. We need to win by out-thinking the competition.
“He’s an innovative, open-minded person, who at the same time embraces the club’s ideas, he also brought his own ideas to the table which we can learn a lot from as well.


Lennox Head sporting groups and concerned residents opposed to aspects of a plan for the villages main recreational reserve are staging a rally this Saturday, March 1.
The Lennox Head Combined Sports Association (LHCSA) is urging locals to dress up in their favourite sporting gear for the Help Save Williams Reserve event at the reserve from 11.30am to 1pm, with a free sausage sizzle and entertainment.
The rally is aimed at stopping the encroachment of a proposed skate park into the existing sporting area of the reserve as well as ensuring a management plan is formulated for the reserve, with relevant community consultation.
In a flyer circulated throughout Lennox Head, the association says it supports Ballina Shire Councils plan to integrate the skate park into the proposed community centre planned for the reserve but wants the reserve to remain an active sporting field for all.
The LHCSA says it also supports the use of the reserve for temporary overflow car parking to accommodate the peak use of the community centre, provided the future use of the reserve is controlled by a management plan.
Councils Lennox Head Strategic Plan aims to eventually remove all organised sport from the reserve once other sporting fields in the Lennox Head area are developed.
LHCSA president Darel Vidler told The Echo the association would vigorously oppose any such move, because after all, the sporting clubs of Lennox Head developed the fields, provided the infrastructure and maintained the field for over 25 years.
If and when the Pines Estate fields are completed, they, along with fields located at Megan Crescent, Skennars Head and Williams Reserve, will still fall short of the required amount of area needed to service the current population of Lennox Head, Mr Vidler said. It is imperative that Williams Reserve be retained, the Pines fields be completed and that Council actively pursue other suitable sites as the population of Lennox Head is expected to double in the next 10 years.
Council will debate the issue at its meeting today (Thursday, February).


NANTWICH Town are rallying supporters ahead of their UniBond Premier Division Play-off final at Ilkeston Town by laying on bargain price coaches to the game.
The Dabbers are gunning for a third successive promotion and fans will be able to travel to the crunch match for just £1. Coaches leave the Weaver Stadium at noon on Saturday and return after the match.
Tickets include a £5 returnable deposit and be booked at the club shop from 10am to 7pm and from 10am to 4pm tomorrow (Friday). Places are limited to 500.


The Carol Burnett-penned memoir Carrie and Me: A Mother-Daughter Love Story is being adapted for the big screen at Focus Features, per news from The Hollywood Reporter.
In her 2014 book, the legendary comedian looking back at her life as a working mother, actress and producer through the lens of her relationship with her late daughter Carrie Hamilton. Unfortunately, Hamilton died of pneumonia at age 38 in 2002.
Tina Fey (The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) and Eric Gurian will produce through their Little Stranger production banner, along with I, Tonya producer Steven Rogers. Burnett also will produce through her Mabel Cat Productions along with Fey, Gurian and Rogers. Jeff Richmond will serve as executive producer.
The screenplay comes from brothers Ian and Eshom Nelms, though no director or cast has been named at this time.
Burnett has been keeping in the public eye, as last year saw the launch of A Little Help with Carol Burnett, where she was joined by a group of the most honest and unfiltered people in the world – a gaggle of straight talking, entertaining 5 to 9-year-old kids. These very opinionated “experts” weigh-in on a variety of relatable and humorous dilemmas brought in by everyday adults. The show was also co-hosted by comedian Russell Peters.


A federal investigation has found that Tesla's Autopilot is partly to blame in the fatal crash of a Model S last year.
Joshua Brown was killed in May 2016 when his Tesla crashed into a tractor-trailer in Florida while the self-driving software was active. Brown had not tried to control the car in two minutes, and the Autopilot didn't brake to avoid the collision.
The Tesla Autopilot wasn't designed for the road Brown was driving on, and drivers are expected to watch the road and take control as needed. Tesla Autopilot is not designed to handle the entire job of driving.
The investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board criticized Tesla for allowing Autopilot to be activated on roads it can't handle, and for how it determines whether drivers are engaged. It monitors wheel torque, and a driver could have a hand on the wheel without paying attention to the road.
The NTSB researchers noted that decades of research has shown humans are bad at monitoring automation systems. They may be lulled into complacency, and trust the Autopilot too much.
"We've found limitations with Tesla's system, but we think we find limitations with other systems," NTSB researcher Robert Molloy said Tuesday at a board meeting. "We think it's an industry-wide problem."
Tesla said in a statement that it will evaluate the NTSB's findings.
"We will also continue to be extremely clear with current and potential customers that Autopilot is not a fully self-driving technology and drivers need to remain attentive at all times," the company said.
The NTSB finding conflicts with a report from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which found in January that the crash was not the result of any defect. The report also found a nearly 40% reduction in crashes after Tesla autosteer installations.
But some safety experts have doubts about that finding. It's not clear whether NHTSA accounted for a Tesla software update that added safety features, including emergency braking. NHTSA declined to comment.
"In no shape or form does the NHTSA document pass for a scientific assessment," Missy Cummings, a Duke professor and director of its Humans and Autonomy Laboratory, told CNN.
Quality Control Systems, an organization specializing in data research, filed a lawsuit this summer to get the data from the NHTSA study.
1.25 million people are killed on roads every year, and human error is overwhelmingly the reason. Fully autonomous vehicles are widely expected to save lives, but it will be dangerous if automakers rely on partial autonomous systems in the meantime.
"Until we get there, it's going to be painful," NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt told reporters afterwards. "But ultimately the utopia will be when everything is automated."


UNITED NATIONS/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - China prevented a U.N. Security Council committee on Wednesday from blacklisting the head of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), which said it attacked an Indian paramilitary convoy in disputed Kashmir.
The United States, Britain and France asked the Security Council’s Islamic State and al Qaeda sanctions committee to subject JeM founder Masood Azhar to an arms embargo, travel ban and asset freeze. The 15-member committee operates by consensus.
China placed a “technical hold” on the request, according to a note from its U.N. mission to the committee, seen by Reuters. China gave no reason for the hold, which places the request in limbo.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said on Thursday that the Security Council has specific procedures for naming a person or organization on the terror list.
In a statement late on Wednesday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs vowed to pursue “all available avenues to ensure that terrorist leaders who are involved in heinous attacks on our citizens are brought to justice”.
Many social media users urged Indians to boycott Chinese products, with hashtags China and BoycottChineseProducts the top trends on Twitter India.
“There is really no moral rationale for blocking this proposal (on Azhar),” Anand Mahindra, chairman of the Mahindra Group conglomerate, said on Twitter.
In December 2001, an attack on India’s parliament by the group’s fighters and those of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, nearly triggered a fourth war between the neighbors.
Azhar founded JeM in 2000 after a hostage exchange that freed him from an Indian prison in return for 155 people held on a hijacked aircraft.
Pakistani authorities have linked JeM with two assassination bids on former President Pervez Musharraf in 2003 as well as the kidnap and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.


Wakefield Jazz Festival,, Friday, May 25, first set 8.30pm.
Pianist John Crawford’s family roots include Latin influences and to further enhance the authentic sound this quintet includes the guitar of Guillermo Hill and cajon percussionist Andres Ticino both from Montevideo.
The Wakefield audience can expect a hot evening of jazz covering flamenco, Latin and more traditional jazz sounds.


Lufthansa will cut 130 flights on Monday, and 41 flights each day thereafter, despite the end to a strike over the weekend.
The cancellations could be reduced in the coming days as the airline decreases the backlog of flights, an airline spokesperson said on Monday.
But it could also take up to two weeks for the airline to get its schedule back to normal after ten of thousands of Lufthansa workers walked off their jobs during the strike last week.
Lufthansa cancelled about 130 flights daily on Saturday and Sunday, roughly the same number of cancellations in the final days of the strike that ended with Saturday morning's early shift. The continuing cancellations are due to a contingency plan the airline put into place to deal with the strike, the spokesman told German news service DDP.
Lufthansa estimates a total of 2,000 flights will have been cancelled due to the strike led by trade union Verdi.
Lufthansa employees walked off the job on July 28 amid an ongoing wage dispute with the company. A tentative wage deal announced on Friday would raise wages for 34,000 ground personnel by 5.1 percent from July 2008. Wages will increase a year later by another 2.3 percent. There will also be a one-time payment to employees.
The airline is directing passengers to its website www.lufthansa.com to check whether their flights have been affected.
Meanwhile the airline is facing threats of another strike from pilot's union Cockpit. Pilots for the airline's subsidiaries Cityline and Eurowings have already staged warning strikes in recent weeks and news magazine Der Spiegel reported that the union wants to increase pressure with further limited strikes.


Of course the EVER controversial Miley Cyrus had to be in here!
4. Of course the EVER controversial Miley Cyrus had to be in here!


Chennai: “Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi has invited us for an alliance with the BJP, it is for us to decide on it,” said actor and MNM president Kamal Haasan.
A couple of days ago, in an interview to a news agency, Modi said his party would welcome Rajinikanth and Kamal Haasan if they were willing to join the alliance.
Asked if there is any motive behind the Election Commission announcing by-election only for Tiruvarur, Kamal said though it has been announced only for Tiruvarur, we should be happy at least now they have announced it.


Props to Google for working with the hip glasses maker Warby Parker in an attempt to make its wearable A.I. goggles more stylish, but it will take a lot of social acceptance of robot aesthetics before a face-computer looks cool.
Props to Google for working with the hip glasses maker Warby Parker in an attempt to make its wearable A.I. goggles more stylish, but it will take a lot of social acceptance of robot aesthetics before a face computer looks cool. Despite trading out the metal frames for Warby Parker's signature horn-rimmed look (shown at right), Google Glass will still have one feature that will make them look bizarre: "They have a tiny screen that appears much bigger from the wearer’s perspective than it does on the frame," as The New York Times's Claire Cain Miller explains it. It's hard to see that part going away anytime soon, since it's the gateway to the connected-computing part of the device. Total lens integration would make it better. But, it can't be too close to one's face, or else the wearer can't properly see all those fun things Google Glass can do. For now, the tiny screen is here to stay.
So then, a question: Can that mini computer screen hovering over your eye ever look cool or even just normal? "There’s a reason we all make fun of someone wearing a Bluetooth or a BlackBerry holster," Daniella Yacobovsky, co-founder of BaubleBar, an online jewelry retailer told Miller. "Is it useful? Of course it is. Do I look like a tool? Yeah. I’m not going to wear it."
Even when fashion models don Google Glass specs they look like creatures from a sci-fi flick. What hope does that leave for us normal looking folk? Not much, as chronicled by The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal. A San Francisco bartender explained his feelings about two patrons who walked in wearing the Google glasses as such: "When you buy a new phone, it's in your pocket, but this, you're wearing something on your face. Anyone that cares what they look like is not gonna wear Google glasses. That's my opinion," said Tom Madonna, owner of Shotswell where he's seen a lot of customers bring in weird tech stuff. "If you are super nerdy and you like to show off that you're in tech and smart and all those things, I can see you probably wearing Google Glasses, but you are probably in a bubble," he added. Even the nerds think these things look freakish. At least for now. Perhaps in a couple of years looking like an extra in Star Trek: Voyager will be considered hip?


With over 400 startup investments and 150 plus exits Fabrice Grinda is unquestionably one of the most experienced entrepreneurs and investors on the planet today. If anyone knows what it takes to build a scrappy and scalable startup, and how to cash in on one, it’s got to be Fabrice. In a new episode of the DealMakers podcast he pulled back the curtain on his biggest mistakes and how to hit home runs, again and again as an entrepreneur and also as an investor (listen to the full episode here).
Super angel, and startup entrepreneur Fabrice Grinda has built and sold multiple companies, as well as investing in some of the most successful ventures you wish you had been in earlier. Those include Palantir, Airbnb and Alibaba Group. Joining the world’s top M&A experts, startup fundraisers, and angels, Fabrice gave an exclusive interview with the DealMakers podcast detailing how he got started, what he’d do differently now, and how he picks the entrepreneurs that receive his investment.
After finding his passion for tech with his first PC at ten years old, Grinda got his feet wet in entrepreneurship with an import/export business to pay his way through college. That company moved high end computers from the US to Europe. After finishing Princeton he went to McKinsey to hone his skill and business acumen.
That first venture put $50k in Fabrice’s pocket. $25k went to a down payment on a one bedroom apartment. He sold it for $70k more than he bought it for 18 months later. The other half he invested into 4 stocks: Microsoft, Intel, Amazon and Yahoo. Those investments soon grew to $300k. He put all of it into his own startup.
That company went on to raise $60 million in capital, before getting a $300M cash buyout offer from eBay. Unfortunately, his lead investor at the time didn’t want to sell. He let his partner buy him out at a much lower price after the bubble burst.
Then there was Zingy. Launched in 2001, there wasn’t much in the way of capital in the market for a mobile game and ringtone startup. Fabrice told DealMakers listeners “I ended up living in New York essentially at $2 a day, slept at the office in the couch. I showered in the office. I couldn’t even afford coffee. I was living off ramen noodles. We missed payroll 27 times in the course of two and a half years. I was raising money but I would raise it in 5k or 10k increments.” There was a point where money ran dry and the company missed payroll four and a half months in a row. Staff shrank from 27 to just 7. Over several years he still managed to raise $1.4M, but in $5k to $10k increments.
Despite the challenges Zingy became a huge success. Owning over 53% of the company, Grinda sold it in 2004, for $80M in cash. The investors pocketed a 20x return.
Out of that windfall of money he bought himself a TV, Xbox and two tennis rackets. He stayed living in a studio apartment, too busy building a larger company to really get sidetracked by the money.
Despite hiring an investment banker who turned an initial $40M unsolicited offer for that company into an auction which yielded double that, and completing the sale, he stayed on as CEO for 18 months. Of course, as most entrepreneurs realize at this stage, things just don’t work like they used to after a sale. He decided “if you’re not going to let me conquer the world, this is not interesting to me,” and left to start a new venture.
After offering to fix Craigslist for free, and finding the founders were uninterested in improving the platform, Grinda cofounded OLX with Alec Oxenford. They received $10M in startup capital from Jeremy Levine (Bessemer Venture Partners), the Founders Fund, and General Catalyst.
OLX launched in 100 countries, testing each market with $50k to see where they could gain traction. Of course, when you build something with 350M users that consumers love, you get a lot of competition and people who want to buy you. That led to another large exit.
Together with Jose Marin, Fabrice now operates FJ Labs. A VC firm that invests in around 75 companies a year, as well as launching one or two new startups of their own.
Find out why these entrepreneurs have an edge, how much he has given them over a simple Skype call, and all of the other secrets revealed in the full podcast episode (listen to the full episode here).


Stanford University researchers have developed a lithium-ion battery that shuts off before overheating and then restarts immediately when the temperature cools down. This new tech could prevent the type of fires that prompt recalls and bans for a wide variety of battery-powered devices including computers, navigation systems and last year’s must-have Christmas present: hoverboards.
A standard lithium-ion battery consists of two electrodes and a liquid or gel electrolyte that carries charged particles between them. Puncturing, shorting or overcharging the battery generates heat and if the temperature reaches around 300°F (150°C), there is a risk of the electrolyte catching fire.


n the evening of Aug. 11, 1834, a crowd of anti-Catholic demonstrators, most of them laborers, gathered outside the gates of an Ursuline convent and girls' school in what was then Charlestown. As the night drew on, about 60, many with their faces painted like Indians, broke into the convent, forcing the nuns and their students to flee, and, after ransacking the buildings, set them afire while local firefighters stood by.
It was the most notorious of a series of anti-Catholic incidents that occurred in Boston in the years after 1820, when Irish immigration to the city was sharply increasing. The incidents were sparked by the economic fears of Yankee laborers -- and fueled by the incendiary sermons of preachers including Lyman Beecher, the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
In "Fire and Roses," the attack on the Ursuline convent has received a passionate recounting from Nancy Lusignan Schultz, a professor of English at Salem State College. In her account, it is not the rioters or the city's social leaders who take the leading role, but Mary Anne Moffatt, who took the religious name of Sister Mary Edmond St. George. The daughter of a Loyalist (or Tory) who fled to Canada during the Revolution, she became a Catholic and entered a Ursuline convent in Quebec. She was sent to Boston in 1824 to lead a struggling convent, located then on Franklin Street.
Moffatt, writes Schultz, "would have been an extraordinary woman had she been born in any age." She was able to "transform a day school offering the rudiments of education to Boston's poor immigrants into Charlestown's elegant and flourishing academy, enrolling the daughters of the Boston elite, mainly Harvard-educated Unitarians."
But her imperious manner probably contributed to the anger of the mob. She was, in the words of John Buzzell, the Charlestown brickmaker who was the ringleader of the rioters, "the sauciest woman I ever heard talk." And the "elegant" academy with its formal gardens was sited on a hill overlooking -- lording it over, might be a more appropriate term -- the brickyards and working-class neighborhoods of Charlestown.
Suspicions about Catholic ritual and life inside the convent were compounded in the months before the riot by the flight of two young nuns -- one of whom, a charity case from Charlestown, was to write a scandalous account of her stay in the convent, published the year after the burning.
Rumors about the other nun's flight and subsequent return brought an investigating committee of Charlestown selectmen to the convent the afternoon of the attack, demanding to see the young nun, popularly described as "the Mysterious Lady." They did interview her briefly and inspected the convent at some length, apparently searching for imprisoned nuns or their bodies. They left apparently satisfied, saying they planned a story to that effect in the next day's newspapers -- but the rioters were gathering even as these worthies departed. Buzzell and other leaders of the mob were arrested within a few days and 12 of them were eventually indicted on charges of arson and burglary. Only one was convicted, however -- a youth who had burned some books, and he was subsequently pardoned.
Of more interest is the report of a special committee formed to investigate the incident (a panel whose membership and legal status is frustratingly unaddressed). In its report, Schultz writes, the committee "suggested that a larger conspiracy was behind the riot." While the committee failed to prove that "it was hatched by prominent and respectable men who enticed the lower classes to do their dirty work," Schultz notes, it expressed its concern that "the well-placed men who had planned the riot would escape" punishment.
The reference to "well-placed men" draws attention to what may be the most curious aspect of the incident -- the inability, or reluctance, of members of the elite whose daughters attended the school to prevent the riot. These Yankee parents were aware of the rumors of an attack, and indeed, two of them went to the convent during the late afternoon. They were accosted outside the gates by someone -- apparently the leader, Buzzell -- but left without entering the convent or taking any steps to provide protection for the nuns or their own daughters.
For all of Schultz's obvious interest in the event, and her considerable scholarship, there is little sense of time or of place, other than in detailed descriptions of the convent. The unwary reader will be confused, for example, by Schultz's failure to note that the convent was located in an area that split off from Charlestown in 1842 to become Somerville. And despite references to "Mount Benedict," the area had been known locally as Ploughed Hill.
Finally, while Schultz tells us much about convent life in Quebec and in Charlestown/Somerville, she seems curiously uninterested in the lives and workplaces of the rioters. Considering the importance of the event in the history of Yankee-Irish relations in Boston, this leaves a serious gap in her account.
This story ran on page E5 of the Boston Globe on 10/17/2000.
� Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.


We must hold countries accountable for economic abuses just as we do for torture.
The Human Rights Watch report is part of a growing effort to broaden the agenda of the human rights movement. In recent years both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, which for decades focused exclusively on political and civil rights, have begun to address issues like child labor, gender discrimination and the impact of globalization in their reports. New groups like the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), launched in 1993 by three Harvard graduate students, have emerged to advocate recognition of an array of economic and social rights that are affirmed in the Universal Declaration yet have long been relegated to second-class status.
At a time of rising inequality and growing concern about the consequences of unregulated global capitalism, making the right to education, shelter and other basic necessities coequal with civil and political rights is not only long overdue; it may also be the only way for the human rights movement to recapture the power and urgency that faded somewhat after the end of the cold war. In much of the world, after all, the struggle for access to basic necessities like education and medical care has become every bit as urgent as the struggle for free speech or fair trials. Despite claims that social and economic progress flows inevitably from the adoption of the rule of law (the guiding premise of the Clinton Administration), over the past three decades the gap between the world’s rich and poor has doubled, even as dictatorships have collapsed and formal democracy spread. A billion adults, the majority women, cannot read or write; an estimated 35,000 children die of malnutrition and preventable disease every day.
But while incorporating social and economic rights into the human rights agenda holds great promise, it also raises new challenges. It requires, for one thing, that human rights organizations develop credible standards and legal precedents for measuring such rights–standards that recognize that states often lack the resources to implement these rights immediately but that nevertheless obligate governments to make them a priority. It means holding not only governments but private actors–including corporations–accountable for violations. Above all, perhaps, it necessitates challenging the view, still dominant among Western policy-makers, that issues like education, food and housing have no place in the traditional pantheon of rights.
The relegation of economic and social rights to secondary status began early in the cold war. As Michael Ignatieff noted recently in The New York Review of Books, beginning in 1948 “there were two human rights cultures in the world–socialist and capitalist–one giving primacy to social and economic rights, the other putting civil and political rights first.” While Soviet leaders dismissed free speech as a bourgeois luxury, Western policy-makers held that recognizing economic and social rights played into the hands of Moscow. Using this as its justification, the Reagan Administration ceased to catalogue violations of social and economic rights in the State Department’s annual human rights reports, reversing a practice begun under Jimmy Carter.
Although social and economic rights came to be associated with the Eastern bloc, their origin can in fact be traced to Enlightenment conceptions of basic human rights. As Stephen Marks, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, notes in a recent study of the French declarations of human rights of 1789 and 1793, “It is historically inaccurate to claim that those rights falling within today’s category of economic, social and cultural rights were unknown to the Enlightenment and absent from the French declarations of the eighteenth century.” Among the positive rights enumerated in these declarations were the right to education and the right to work or public assistance.
“True individual freedom,” Roosevelt declared, “cannot exist without economic security and independence. ‘Necessitous men are not freemen.'” Today there is a growing recognition that, as Roosevelt’s words imply, the two sets of rights are not mutually exclusive but interrelated. People who are desperately poor or illiterate frequently cannot exercise their civil and political rights. By the same token, the absence of political freedom in countries like Indonesia and China has paved the way for gross economic abuse. Recognizing such linkages, the philosopher Martha Nussbaum and the economist Amartya Sen have advocated a “capabilities approach” to human rights that specifies the basic material resources individuals need to realize their rights and full potential, or capabilities, as human beings.
The United States, however, has never ratified the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN treaty adopted in 1966 that obliges states to honor economic and social rights, and Washington has persistently tried to prevent recognition of these rights in subsequent conventions. In 1996, at the Habitat II UN conference in Istanbul, for example, the US delegation attempted to eliminate every reference to a right to housing from drafts of an international declaration, an effort that failed only because representatives from all other nations rallied against the US position. At the World Food Summit in Rome a few months later, Melinda Kimble, head of the US delegation, led a charge against recognition of the right to food, objecting that such a standard could make America’s welfare reform a violation of international law.
In fact, however, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes, in Article 22, that when it comes to enforcing economic and social rights, “the organization and resources of each State” must be taken into account. In a poorer country such as Bangladesh, advocates of a right to housing might focus on encouraging equitable land distribution, halting discriminatory lending practices and preventing mass evictions–all relatively inexpensive reforms that could improve millions of lives. In a wealthy country like the United States, the expectations would rightly be higher.
Taking a country’s available resources into account does not, however, mean that no uniform standards can be developed for such rights. In the past year the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has issued a series of “General Comments” outlining the minimal obligations that all states are expected to fulfill. With regard to education, the committee calls on all governments to provide “a detailed plan of action for the progressive implementation” of “compulsory primary education free of charge for all,” noting that if a state lacks resources to furnish this basic human need, “the international community has a clear obligation to assist.” Sage Russell, a senior program associate at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says that the AAAS and a number of international NGOs, including the Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland and the Commonwealth Medical Association in London, have been working to develop resources to monitor violations of the right to food, housing and other economic and social rights.
It is true that calling on states to make such goods more widely available to citizens does require governments to spend money. But the same holds for civil and political rights. As Stephen Holmes and Cass Sunstein argue in their important study The Cost of Rights, it is a myth that civil and political rights come at no financial cost to taxpayers and states. “All rights are costly,” Holmes and Sunstein contend, because all “presuppose taxpayer funding of effective supervisory machinery for monitoring and enforcement.” Freedom from arbitrary arrest, for example, a classic “negative liberty,” requires extensive positive action by the state, which must train police officers, fund monitoring agencies and maintain an independent judiciary. (The cost of providing clean drinking water and vaccines to the world’s poorest children is comparatively modest.) Conducting free and fair elections, the quintessential political right, requires staffing of voter booths, monitoring of fraud and distribution of ballots. “Our freedom from government interference is no less budget-dependent than our entitlement to public assistance,” Holmes and Sunstein conclude.
Ultimately, which rights are enforced–or not enforced–comes down to a question of priorities. And, of course, to international law. If economic and social rights are to achieve parity with civil and political rights, more cases must be brought before courts to establish legal precedents for their enforcement. Richard Wilson, a law professor at American University and director of the school’s International Human Rights Law Clinic, says this is beginning to happen. “The European Social Charter recently added an optional protocol that allows certain social and economic rights to be litigated,” he points out. In addition, many countries in Eastern Europe, and some in the developing world, like South Africa and India, actually recognize social and economic rights in their constitutions. In October South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled that the state “failed to make reasonable provision within its available resources” to provide housing for a group of squatters who had been evicted from their land.
Too often in the past, Normand contends, human rights advocates have concentrated on influencing elites rather than building alliances with grassroots organizations that could help spearhead a movement. Normand questions whether the mainstream human rights organizations, which rely on foundations and, increasingly, on corporations for funding and support, are really willing to alter their orientation and place issues such as poverty and inequality at the forefront of their agendas.
Yet, as already mentioned, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have begun to incorporate social and economic rights into their campaigns. In its 1998 annual report, published on the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration, Amnesty acknowledged its past neglect of economic and social rights and vowed to draw more attention in the future to women’s rights, the impact of globalization and the role of business and economic institutions in perpetuating human rights abuses. In 1993 Human Rights Watch began to investigate and monitor economic and social rights. The group has launched a project tracking the role of corporations in human rights abuses, and it has published recent reports on famine in Sudan, the trafficking of women in Asia and abuses in Mexico’s maquiladora factories.
It may be that the challenge of doing so falls to a new set of players. “The real push on economic and social rights is coming from a new generation of NGOs,” says Larry Cox, senior program officer for international human rights at the Ford Foundation. “Many of these groups have a more grassroots orientation, and many are in developing countries, where it’s simply unthinkable to separate civil and political rights from questions of economic and social justice.” In recent years, notes Cox, countless groups have launched projects throughout the developing world on issues such as poverty, indigenous rights, gender equality and access to education.
Taking these issues seriously doesn’t mean focusing exclusively on Africa or Asia. Some activists are beginning to draw attention to violations of economic and social rights in the United States. In 1999, Representative John Conyers and other members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, along with Food First and the Institute for Policy Studies, launched an Economic Human Rights Bus Tour, which traveled across the country to highlight issues of poverty, substandard housing conditions and racial discrimination. At about the same time, the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU), a group based in Philadelphia that is made up largely of low-wage families, homeless workers and people on public assistance, organized a monthlong march for economic human rights from Washington, DC, to the UN in New York City. “Seventy percent of the people in our community live below the poverty line,” says Cheri Honkala of KWRU. The KWRU, with support from the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Urban Justice Center, submitted a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights charging that draconian provisions in the welfare reform law have led to human rights violations.
In the past, people like Honkala were not considered part of the human rights movement. In the future, they may be among its leaders.


Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Pelicia Hall does not like public scrutiny. She does not like dealing with the media. And she does not like being questioned about the things that happen in her agency.
Hall is her own worst enemy.
When the Clarion Ledger was reporting on a string of unrelated deaths throughout MDOC prisons, Hall and MDOC officials were about as uncooperative as possible. For the longest time, Hall refused all interviews. MDOC spokesman Grace Fisher released very little information and seemed put off that we — and other media outlets — were reporting on the large number of deaths during a single month.
None of our reporting and none of the reporting we saw from other media outlets ever even implied, much less outright said, a conspiracy of mass neglect by MDOC linked the deaths of unrelated inmates across multiple prisons, but Hall said such a narrative grew in the public and on social media because of news reporting that was somehow both misinformed and due to MDOC being in an "era of transparency" by putting out so many press releases on the deaths.
The truth is that Hall's secrecy and refusal to address the mounting number of deaths early in the process and to provide the requested context is what caused public outcry. We and other media outlets simply reported what was provided to us and what we could get from other sources, such as coroners and the families of inmates. In the absence of information from MDOC officials, the public was left to draw their own conclusions.
It was not until mid-September that she actually gave an interview about the deaths, and even then she chose to speak to only one outlet — Y'all Politics, a conservative political media site — instead of speaking openly to all media either through a press conference or a series of interviews.
Now Hall is asking the Legislature to exempt MDOC from portions of the state's public records law. She even went so far as to say, "There should be some limits on what you are transparent about." Well, there actually are limits, and she knows that. In fact, many of the limits are aimed at protecting law enforcement and related agencies in their investigative efforts.
Hall also seemed to complain that public records laws were being abused, saying media would use requests as "fishing expeditions." There is no doubt that statement was aimed, at least in part, at us. We have made some pretty broad requests of MDOC before, but the reason we have done so is actually quite simple: when an agency refuses to answer questions or tries to nitpick certain requests, the only way to get at the information we need is to broaden our request.
Regardless of the reason any member of the public makes a request for open records, there should be no limit on the scope of what is requested. If John Q. Public or Jane T. Citizen wants to see how many inmates have died each month over the last 10 years, then they are entitled to it. It doesn't matter why they want it. Those records are public.
Mississippi already has some of the weakest public records laws in the nation. We routinely have to file complaints with the Ethics Commission to get agencies to release records or to come off ridiculous fees they try to charge for those records.
However, most agencies — state and local — are good about working with us. Sometimes our requests are broad or require several specific items, and we generally agree on how the agency can best and most efficiently accommodate those requests.
In the case of Hall and MDOC, the problem is not the public records laws or the public records requests they receive. The problem is an agency administration that prefers to operate on its own terms and outside public scrutiny. That's an audacious decision for any public body, but it is even more of one when you consider that the former MDOC director sits in prison today for the largest public corruption scandal to ever hit Mississippi.
As a task force created by Gov. Phil Bryant said, MDOC needs more transparency, not less. When Marshall Fisher took over as MDOC director in the aftermath of the Chris Epps conspiracy, communication with the agency was good despite what was undoubtedly a highly stressful period for Corrections. That has changed under Hall.
Mississippi deserves a director who can set the example and tone for a more transparently run Corrections system. If Hall refuses to be that person, then the governor needs to find someone who can be.


PEORIA, Ariz. — Aside from the attention he gets because of his talent as a pitcher, Yusei Kikuchi is well aware his first season in the majors will be subject to additional scrutiny.
Kikuchi's rookie season is something of an experiment, an attempt by the Seattle Mariners to see whether pitchers coming to the major leagues from Asia should be handled differently in their first season. The team will regulate Kikuchi's innings while making sure he starts on a regular five-day rotation, even if that means some outings are kept very short.
"As a player you want to go out there every start and perform and pitch one more inning, one more out," Kikuchi said through an interpreter. "But the front office guys, the GM the (manager) are taking an importance in me and making an adjustment to the states. I'm really happy about that and thankful for that."
By using a deliberate approach, the team and Kikuchi's representatives believe they can help ease his transition from pitching in Japan, where starters typically throw once a week, and in the process hopefully cut down on the arm problems like those that have felled Asian pitchers in the past.
Shohei Ohtani, Yu Darvish and Daisuke Matsuzaka are among those who suffered significant arm injuries relatively early in their major league careers after arriving from Japan. Ohtani had Tommy John surgery last year that will keep the Angels' two-way star off the mound for the upcoming season.
"I have no frustrations at all but I am eager to keep moving toward the next step," Ohtani said recently. "I'm eager, but once the games get going after opening day, it will probably hit me harder and I'll want to get back more."
There are other examples too, whether it was Hideo Nomo's shoulder surgery in 2003, Takashi Saito's elbow ligament sprain in 2008 or Junichi Tazawa, who had Tommy John surgery in 2010, his second season in the majors.
Darvish has talked previously of going to either a six-man rotation or having starters pitch once a week to try to save their arms. He's a fan of the approach Seattle is taking.
"Not only for who came from Japan but for the young players, too," Darvish said. "That saves the elbow and shoulder stress. I think it's a very good idea."
When Kikuchi's agent, Scott Boras, was presenting his ideas for easing his client into the majors, he found a like-mind in Seattle general manager Jerry Dipoto. Perhaps it's Dipoto's history as a former pitcher, but whatever the reason, the GM didn't scoff at Boras' demand.
In fact, it was Seattle's willingness to develop a plan — along with a lucrative contract and the club's history with Japanese players — that ultimately appealed to Kikuchi. The deal is worth $56 million guaranteed over four years, but could be worth up to $109 million over seven seasons if options are exercised. The pitching plan is similar to what the Mariners have done to acclimate some of their young arms in the minors.
"Not only do I think it is a viable argument on behalf of the Japanese pitchers, the pitcher coming over from (Nippon Professional Baseball), it's very viable with the domestic draft, U.S. players as they enter pro ball," Dipoto said. "Part of why we were able to create a program that made sense for Yusei, and for us and made sense to Scott, is we've been doing this for years with our entry-level classes."
Seattle was the perfect spot to attempt this experiment. Not only did Seattle provide Kikuchi a contract with flexibility for both sides, but the Mariners have no illusions that they'll be contenders in 2019.
Time and patience are built in, with the team knowing a payoff could be coming in a couple of years when Kikuchi is fully acclimated to the rigours of the majors and the Mariners are possibly better positioned to be contenders.
"For this club, this situation, where they're at, they felt they could manage our concern and yet fulfil their expectations at the major league level," Boras said. "A lot of other teams, no, I don't think it would have worked because their need was too great and the investment was too great for them to not have to get a certain higher volume of innings out of him."
Others around baseball are taking notice of Seattle's plans even before they are fully implemented. Especially those with a pitching background.
"They're individually based," Colorado manager Bud Black said. "Based on the pitcher and where his workload has been, what he is capable of doing workload-wise. It's very practical to have a boundary of innings for a certain pitcher based on where they are coming from, what they've done and what they can handle. I think it's very sound."
There is no guarantee Seattle's approach will work. The number of variables involved means Kikuchi could still have an unexpected arm issue despite the precautions.
"We can't protect against Mother Nature, but we can do the best we can to put him in a position to succeed, and I think we have," Dipoto said.
AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley and freelance writer Carrie Muskat contributed to this report.


Clashes between riot police and demonstrators have erupted in Bahrain for the fifth day in a row as the activists demand the release of Sheikh Ali Salman, the head of the largest Shiite opposition party in the Kingdom.
Police used tear gas to disperse a crowd following a rally that started after prayers at Manama's Mumen mosque.
"Dozens of people... including women and children, were arrested,"Bahrain Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement. Arabic news sources also reported injuries.
The protest movement demands the release of the opposition leader of the Al-Wefaq party. Before the Thursday’s rally in the capital, protests centered on the villages surrounding Manama.
Salman was arrested on Sunday and charged with seeking to overthrow the ruling Sunni family. A number of countries including the US and Iran have expressed concern over the detention of the opposition leader.
The country's Interior Ministry have banned further protests scheduled to take place on Friday, as Bahraini security forces continue suppressing the Shiite-majority population. Bahrain’s leadership has relied heavily on other Sunni monarchies in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia.
Bahrain has been accused by human rights groups for brutally clamping down on protesters, with the government in Manama using harsh counterterrorism laws to prosecute human rights activists.


SOUTH BEND – Brian Kelly said it is not another DeShone Kiser/Malik Zaire situation. The Notre Dame football coach said if he needs two quarterbacks to beat Michigan, or any other opponent, he will play two.
Book came off the bench in the Citrus Bowl and led the Fighting Irish over LSU 21-17, completing 14-of-19 passes for 164 yards and two touchdowns. Wimbush was still the No. 1 quarterback, and has remained so.
Yet memories are fresh of the 4-8 record of two years ago. Wounds are fresh, too, judging from tweets by Kiser and Zaire during the Citrus Bowl that were critical of Kelly switching QBs.
Zaire surprisingly replaced Kiser in 2016 during a 17-10 loss to Stanford.
Kiser was chosen in the second round of the 2017 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns. As a rookie, he started 15 games and passed for 2,894 yards, 11 touchdowns and a league-leading 22 interceptions for the 0-16 Browns. He has subsequently been traded to Green Bay.
Zaire transferred to Florida, where he was 0-2 as a starter in 2017. He and Kiser resembled each other, Kelly said.
Kelly said it is not a matter of Book “closing the gap” on Wimbush. Book will never be the runner that Wimbush is, and Wimbush will never “spin the ball” the way Book does, Kelly said.
“Let’s say we ran Brandon six times and he needed a blow,” Kelly said. “I mean, he’s not going to be, ‘Oh, you took me out of the game.’ He knows the skill set that Ian has, and that he can go in and help us win.
Kelly said he did not go into the Citrus Bowl expecting to play two quarterbacks. The coach said he has two winners, and is prepared to play either one.
That might have been the case earlier, Kelly said.


Good news: Your teenage sons and daughters have doubled their productivity over the last year.
No, they're not doing twice as much homework or eating double servings of vegetables. Young teenagers are, however, sending twice as many text messages on average compared with 2011.
Ofcom’s latest annual report on children’s media habits shows that those ages 12-15 are averaging 193 text messages each week, more than double last year's average of 91. Of that group, girls tend to send about 35% more messages than boys.
"Children’s take-up and use of different media is growing at a rapid pace, with some areas such as texting and smartphone ownership fast outstripping the general population," said Claudio Pollack, Ofcom’s consumer group director.
The study also shows that the era of television's monopoly on children's attention may be waning as Internet usage equaled children's self-reported television time. Each activity garnered about 17 hours per week. The children also said it was their cellphones, not their TVs, that would miss the most if forced to give them up.
What do these sharp increases mean for children in terms of fitness and education? Are you parents concerned about your children's web security? Check out the video above for more information on children's media usage as reported in the Ofcom annual report, then visit the comment section to voice your opinion on the topic.


CAMP MABRY, Texas -- A line of nominees stand, patiently adjusting their uniforms and silently reciting memorized answers as they wait to be interviewed. On the other side of heavy conference room doors, panels of senior noncommissioned officers review documents and prepare a series of questions to ask each awaiting member. This distinguished panel is charged with identifying the Outstanding Airmen of the Year for the Texas Air National Guard.
The Airman of the Year award recognizes outstanding Guardsmen for superior leadership, job performance, community involvement and personal achievements. Five individuals were selected from the 136th Airlift Wing to move forward to Austin, Texas, Jan. 11-13 to compete for the state title.
The official ceremony took place on Jan. 13, and in the Airman category, the wing’s very own Senior Airman Benfer took first place for the Texas Air National Guard. He will move forward to compete at the national level for the entire Air National Guard.
Maj. Gen. David McMinn, commander of the Texas Air National Guard, presided over the official ceremony at Camp Mabry. Family, friends and unit members were in attendance to support their Airmen and celebrate their success.


Born and raised in Montreal, Elliott Pap figured watching the local team win the Stanley Cup was something that occurred on a regular basis ~ until he moved to Vancouver in 1976. He began covering the Canucks on a reguiar basis in 1987-88 and is still waiting to cover his first victory parade. He is obviously a patient man.
So who really are the lucky ones, Canucks or Flames?


HedgeFundLIVE.com— Monday, April 18 was one of the wildest Mondays we have seen in a while. In the pre-market, S&P released that it is lowering its outlook on the U.S. credit rating/debt. On that piece of news, the market sold off aggressively before the bell and the decline continued after the open as well. By about 11a, the S&P futures were down about 28 handles. Any panic selling must have died down pretty quickly because the market began to recover after seeing the low tick of the day at 11:05a. In fact, the ES closed 81bps off its low. I looked for all days since 2000 when the Spooz closed down on a day in which it traded in a >25 handle day range and bounced off its low by at least 75bps. I also included a criteria specifying that the market was in a downtrend, defined as when the 8D moving average is below the 15D moving average. This scenario has played out 81 times, or roughly 2.9% of the time. Then, I examined what tends to occur in the market following this type of resilience.


Green Cleaning Basics: Wait, What IS Baking Soda?
As a dedicated DIYer and a self-proclaimed aficionado of any and every homemade cleaning product out there, I have to say: I use a LOT of baking soda. To anyone who makes their own eco-friendly cleansers and cosmetics, you know that baking soda is your best friend. See full article.


The Larimer County Sheriff's Office deputy stopped the pursuit when the suspect turned southbound onto the northbound lanes of I-25.
A 49-year-old Fort Collins man died in a head-on collision with a semi-truck after he drove the wrong way down Interstate 25 on Wednesday night while trying to flee from police, according to Colorado State Patrol and Larimer County Sheriff's Office.
About 7:05 p.m. Wednesday, a Larimer County Sheriff's Office deputy attempted to pull over a vehicle at East Mulberry Street and Greenfield Court for a traffic stop, but the driver failed to stop, according to a news release from the sheriff's office.
A check of the vehicle's license plates revealed it was associated with a man wanted for a felony warrant.
The deputy pursued the vehicle eastbound on East Mulberry Street to I-25 at speeds reaching 55 mph, according to LCSO. The suspect then started to turn southbound onto I-25 from the northbound off-ramp.
The deputy attempted a slow-speed PIT maneuver to stop the driver from turning into oncoming traffic. The maneuver was unsuccessful and the deputy stopped pursuing the suspect as he continued driving southbound toward the northbound lanes of I-25, according to the release.
While driving southbound on northbound I-25, the suspect collided head-on with a semi-truck near mile marker 269 in the right lane.
The suspect was declared dead on scene, according the Colorado State Patrol.
The 24-year-old semi-truck driver from North Dakota was not injured in the crash. No other vehicles were involved and no one else was injured, according to CSP.
Northbound I-25 was closed from the time of the crash, about 7:08 p.m., until 12:18 a.m. for clean up and investigation.
CSP is continuing the investigation into the crash. Alcohol and drugs are not considered as contributing factors. Investigators have not issued any citations.
The Larimer County Coroner's Office will release the identity of the man who died in the crash after notification of next of kin.
According to records maintained by the Coloradoan, there have been 35 fatal crashes on Larimer County roads so far this year. At this time last year, there were 28.


The saluki breed pet was out with owner Andrew Griffiths on a shopping trip in Bakewell, Derbyshire, when she apparently saw a picture of the famous Hollywood star outside a local store.
After taking in the blonde bombshell’s famous visage she appeared to strike a canine equivalent of the pose.
‘The picture was outside an antiques shop,’ said owner Mr Griffiths.
Salukis are also known as the Royal Dog of Egypt, which could explain six-year-old Kizzie’s high aspirations.
They are one of the oldest known breeds of domesticated dog with saluki-esque animals appearing on ancient Egyptian tombs dating back as far as 2134 BC.


Out in deep space, our universe of heavenly bodies is a riot of glorious colors and fantastical shapes. But you won't know that by looking at the night sky, which, even in the clearest weather when it's dotted by seemingly endless stars, is a minimalist study in black and white. That's because the eye is unable to perceive colors when the source of light is small and faint.
One man has done much to show that objects in deep space have astonishing colors.
David Malin, the photographic scientist at the Anglo-Australian Observatory in New South Wales. has been photographing celestial objects in the night sky for about 20 years through the observatory's telescope, one of the largest in the world. His photographs give a stunning view of stars, nebulae and distant galaxies that is virtually a compendium of art through the ages: from the somber chiaroscuro of Rembrandt and Caravaggio to the rich gold of Titian, from the Expressionism of van Gogh to the glowing hues of Turner, from the Post-Impressionism of Gauguin to the modernist target works of Jasper Johns.
For years Mr. Malin's photographs have been exhibited mostly at scientific institutions in shows like the current ''Night Skies: The Art of Deep Space,'' running through Aug. 31 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington. But lately his photographs are also being shown as art. Last year they appeared at the Victorian Art Center in Melbourne. On Saturday, ''David Malin: View of the Universe'' opens at Howard Schickler Fine Art at 560 Broadway, near Prince Street, in SoHo.
In his achievements as an astronomical photographer, Mr. Malin stands alone. Not only is he known in scientific circles for his superb astronomical photography, but he has also invented new photographic processes to detect very faint distant objects, and in 1987 he discovered what Scientific American calls the largest galaxy known, Malin 1.
One of his inventions, photographic amplification, is a way of copying glass plates to increase the signal of the faint object against the natural glow of the night air. Mr. Malin used it in the early 1980's discovered a new kind of galaxy. Looking through existing glass plates taken by the observatory's companion Schmidt telescope, he isolated and amplified shells, or fossil remnants, around featureless elliptical galaxies. Scientists had believed that elliptical galaxies were formed when galaxies collided and coalesced, and Mr. Malin's discovery of the hitherto barely detectable shells confirmed this idea.
As it turned out, low-key, professorial Mr. Malin, with his remarkable eye for capturing nature's breathtaking artistry, and the Anglo-Australian Observatory are a good match. The observatory is on the eastern edge of the Australian outback, where the night sky is exceptionally dark, pollution free and where there is a 65 percent chance of clear weather. It was also broadminded enough to hire Mr. Malin, who was neither a professional photographer nor an astronomer, to start its photographic laboratory in 1975.
The photographic work he did as a chemist was the opposite of what he was to do half a world away. He used photomicrography to understand, for example, how pigments work in inks and paints and plastics and how adhesives work on surfaces.
Photography was something Mr. Malin had enjoyed since he was a teen-ager living north of Manchester. He was given a simple box camera by his grandparents when he was about 16, and he immediately did something prescient.
After 18 years with Ciba-Geigy, Mr. Malin wanted a change, and the Anglo-Australian Observatory provided more than a change of scenery. He has, he said, ''learned on the job,'' specializing in galaxies. In 1980 he became an Australian citizen.
Although the observatory is outside Siding Spring in New South Wales, the offices and laboratories are in Epping, a suburb of Sydney, and it is there that Mr. Malin spends most of his time. Telescope time at the observatory is rationed, and he considers himself lucky if he spends three to five nights there each year.
A recent British documentary about Mr. Malin, ''The Man Who Colors Stars,'' shows how he positions himself in the ''prime focus cage.'' He steps into a round cubicle that's open at one end, with the camera in the base and the telescope's primary 38-foot mirror beneath it. The cubicle is tilted by computer to nearly horizontal for access. On the curved sides, which are almost vertical when the telescope is in use, are glass-plate storage pockets, filters, intercom and other controls.
Custom-made 10-inch-square black-and-white glass plates are baked in an oven for a few hours in nitrogen gas, then given a dose of hydrogen to increase their sensitivity to very faint light.
Color film is not used for several reasons. With color film, contrast decreases as exposure time is increased to make faraway faint objects clearer. But color is important in astronomical photography because it contains information on the star's age, temperature, size and composition. It also says something about the physical state of the gas and dust from which stars are formed. Hot stars, like the sun, appear white. The coolest stars are a deep orange-yellow. Stars 10 times as hot as the sun are sky-blue.
Mr. Malin has found that the only way to record color faithfully and scientifically is to use a process discovered in the 1850's by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell.
First, he takes three exposures on three separate black-and-white plates, inserting a different filter in front of the plates to capture red, green or blue, the primary colors. With these negatives, each containing the red, green or blue information, he makes a positive contact copy. Then, in an enlarger, each positive is projected through a matching filter onto a sheet of color negative film, from which the final positive print is made.
His large exhibition prints are made commercially. But he is, he says, ''very particular'' about color balance. And the colors indeed vary greatly from image to image. ''Spiral Galaxy, M83'' might well be what our Milky Way galaxy looks like from a distance of 20 million light years or so. It is an elegant, incandescent swirl of light and dark, interspersed with bits of white and red.
By contrast, ''Orion Nebula, M42 and M43'' -- the star-forming region nearest us that can also be seen with the naked eye -- is theatrically hallucinatory: a faceless red blob of a head is above a spectral cape, inside which is a heart of bright light that changes into splotches of blood red.
Providing a kind of post-modern benediction to the two exhibitions is the gently luminous ''Sombrero Galaxy, M104.'' Suspended in inky darkness, this spiral galaxy resembles a glowing white sphere with a golden band made of little more than dust. At the heart of this galaxy is a black hole that could weigh as much as 10 million suns.
In the last two decades, Mr. Malin has made about 150 deep space images, mostly for scientific purposes. He estimates that about half have artistic merit, and in recent years he has had bad luck making more pictures. Sessions in 1995 and 1996 were failures because of bad weather. In 1994, Eastman Kodak, which had been supplying the special glass plates used by Mr. Malin, stopped production of those plates, and he has had to use much slower plates requiring longer exposure times. Electronic imaging, at least for the time being, is not on a par with the glass plates.


Local and federal authorities are investigating a suspicious package at a South Los Angeles mail facility that was addressed to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters.
The package appears to match the description of other suspicious packages mailed to other prominent political figures, including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Waters' Washington D.C. office.
The Los Angeles Police Department confirmed it is investigating the package found at the Los Angeles Central Mail facility on Central Avenue near 66th Street. The building is being evacuated.
Agents with the federal ATF and other agencies are also responding. A bomb squad was on the scene.
DEVELOPING: This story will be updated.


do either of u 2 ladies like Brown Brothers? its in Vic...near ****aratta where my grandparents live.... mum loves it..
Sorry Synthetic, have no idea what that is?
so, where is this winery at?


Also, letters on immigrant history myths; complaints about roadside trash in Sussex; and a lack of good alternatives to Trump.
The lack of civility over political differences in the early 21st century is eerily reminiscent to another dark period in American history, the years leading up to 1861. George Santayana is credited with the wise advice that those who do not learn their history are doomed to repeat it.
On May 19, 1856, Massachusetts’ U.S. Senator, Charles Sumner, a Republican, espousing his party’s anti-slavery platform, gave a two-day impassioned speech that later was dubbed, “Crimes Against Kansas.” On the Senate floor, Sen. Sumner’s speech personally attacked Illinois Sen. Stephen Douglas and South Carolina Sen. Andrew Butler, the two Democrats who co-authored the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, for continuing a westward expansion of slavery.
South Carolina’s U.S. Representative, Democrat Preston Brooks, a relative of Sen. Butler, reacted to this speech by viciously caning Sen. Sumner, nearly to death.
Some may argue that the first shot of America’s second civil war was on June 14, 2017, when House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, a Republican, was shot by a former Bernie Sanders supporter. Although no one blames Sen. Sanders for the actions of a supporter, what happens when uncivilized behavior, espoused by Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters, a 14-term (nearly three decades) representative, turns violent?
In fact restrictions on legal immigration did not go into effect until the Immigration Act of 1924. Before that, anyone who came here was admitted, so there was no such thing as illegal immigration.
Once limits did go into effect, who is to say that her grandparents would have been allowed in depending on the quotas for their country?
Thankfully, my grandparents got here before 1924, or they may have joined the thousands of Jews trying to find sanctuary here from the Nazis who ended up being rejected and dying in gas chambers. It was that cruelty that is reflected in our asylum laws, which the current administration is ignoring.
Rule of law should apply to the government as well as to individuals.
And so it just keeps getting better. DelDOT cut the grass in the median on Route 1 from Milford to Lewes once again and plowed over the trash. Trash all over the median.
Delaware definitely looks like a state that does not care about trash on its roads.
To add to this, Waste Industries had a 13 percent increase on trash pickup, or the cost went from $79 a quarter to $91 a quarter. I called Waste Industries yesterday and it was explained to me that the state increased their cost to recycle from $21 a ton to $81 a ton.
Wow! I have to ask, will this increase encourage us to recycle, or keep us recycling in Sussex County? Or will folks cancel their trash pickup as it is too expensive and the trash dumping will increase?
I don't like the way President Donald Trump talks. It's rude, crude and socially unacceptable. I don't like a lot of the things that Donald Trump has done, like putting tariffs on metal and making it harder for businesses.
If I had a better alternative, I'd probably vote for somebody else.
But Democrats don't have anything to offer me. All they do is yell about Trump, Trump Trump. They can never acknowledge that he did something right or even just shut up and not say anything when he did something right.
Like the tax cut. How can Democrats be against cutting taxes? Or the economy, which is doing great? Or cutting all the onerous regulations that make it hard for small business owners like me to make a living?
Now I see Democrats are going all-in on being liberal and asking government to solve all their problems. So I guess I'll stick with Trump, even though he is rude.


New York: While Vitamin D helps in promoting bone health, a new study suggests that it may also promote greater insulin sensitivity, thus lowering glucose levels and the risk of developing Type-2 diabetes.
The study, conducted only on women, showed that vitamin D supplementation was found to be negatively associated with high glucose levels.
In addition, habitual exposure to the sun also provided the same association, demonstrating that vitamin D deficiencies are associated with high blood glucose levels, said the study, published in Menopause: The journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).
“Although a causal relationship has not been proven, low levels of vitamin D may play a significant role in Type-2 diabetes mellitus. Vitamin D supplementation may help improve blood sugar control, but intervention studies are still needed,” said JoAnn Pinkerton, Executive Director at the North American Menopause Society (NAMS).
Furthermore, a previous study has also found that vitamin D supplements can reduce the risk of potentially fatal lung attacks in some patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
For the study, the team from NAMS involved 680 women aged 35 to 74 years among which 24 (3.5 per cent) reported using vitamin D supplements.


Mathew D. Mulhern, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is Deputy Director of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, Washington, D.C. He advises and directs selected study, development and fielding activities tasked directly by the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, the Secretary of the Air Force, and the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office is responsible for the development and deployment of significant upgrades to the Integrated Air Defense System now operational around the National Capital Region. Other responsibilities include technical integration of Department of Defense classified activities, and the representation of these activities to Headquarters U.S. Air Force, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Congress and the White House.
Mr. Mulhern was commissioned into the U.S. Marine Corps following graduation from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1980. After completing The Basic School and flight training he was designated a Naval Aviator in August 1982. As a Naval Aviator, he served multiple operational tours in the F-4 Phantom and FA-18 Hornet aircraft. During his operational tours he attended the Navy's Fighter Weapons School (Topgun) and the Marine Corps' Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course. After receiving a Master's Degree from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, he served as the Assistant Program Manager for Systems Engineering in the Naval Air Systems Command's FA-18 Program Office, the Operations Officer for the Program Executive Officer for Tactical Aircraft and as the Executive Assistant to the Commander of Naval Air Systems Command. He later served as the Deputy Director of the Capabilities & Acquisition Division in the Joint Staff's J8 Directorate. While attached to the Joint Staff he deployed to Baghdad, Iraq to serve as the Military Assistant to the Senior Advisor to the Ministry of Finance in Iraq's first transitional government, the Coalition Provisional Authority. The last assignment of his 30 year Marine Corps career was as the Program Manager of the V-22 Program. He led the V-22 Program through the declaration of Initial Operating Capability for the Marine Corps' MV-22 and the Air Force's CV-22, as well as their first four combat deployments.
Following retirement from active duty, he joined the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program as the Weapon Systems Program Manager. As the F-35 Weapon System Program Manager he was responsible for the development, test and production of the three variants of F-35 aircraft. Mr. Mulhern was appointed to the Senior Executive Service in 2013.
1980 Bachelor of Science degree in Human Factors Engineering, U.S. Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, Colo.
1985 Navy Fighter Weapons School (Topgun), Naval Air Station Miramar, Calif.
1990 Marine Corps Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz.
2001 Master Degree in Resourcing the National Security Strategy, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Washington, D.C.
2001 Advanced Program Management Course, Defense Systems Management College, Fort Belvoir, Va.
2005 Executive Program Management Course, Defense Systems Management College, Fort Belvoir, Va.
1. July 1980 - December 1980, Student, The Basic School, Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Va.
2. January 1981 - July 1981, Student, Primary Flight Training, Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Fla.
4. September 1982 - August 1983, F- 4 Transition Pilot, Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz.
5. September 1983 - August 1986, F-4 Pilot, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 451, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.
6. September 1986 - October 1989, Fleet Replacement Squadron Instructor Pilot, Navy Fighter Attack Squadron 125, Naval Air Station Lemoore, Calif.
7. November 1989 - February 1992, Weapons and Tactics Officer, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.
8. March 1992 - January 1993, Operations Officer, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 251, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.
9. February 1993 - June 1993, Current Operations Officer, Marine Air Group 31, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.
10. July 1993 - May 1996, Integrated Product Team Lead, FA-18 Program Office, Naval Systems Command, Arlington, Va.
11. June 1996 - August 1996, Fleet Replacement Squadron Refresher Pilot, Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron 101, Marine Corps Air Station El Toro, Calif.
12. September 1996 - January 1998, Executive Officer, Marine Fighter Attack (All Weather) Squadron 224, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.
13. February 1998 - May 1998, Assistant Operations Officer, Marine Air Group 31, MCAS Beaufort, S.C.
14. June 1998 - July 2000, Commanding Officer, Marine Air Group 49 Detachment Alpha, Andrews AFB, Md.
15. August 2000 - June 2001, Student, Industrial College of the Armed Forces, Ft McNair, Washington D.C.
16. July 2001 - June 2002, Assistant Program Manager for Systems Engineering, FA-18 Program Office, Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.
17. July 2002 - December 2002, Operations Officer, Program Executive Office (Tactical Aircraft), Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.
18. January 2003 - June 2003, Executive Assistant to the Commander, Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.
19. July 2003 - July 2005, Deputy Director, Capabilities and Acquisition Division, J8 Joint Staff, Washington D.C.
20. August 2005 - January 2006, Deputy Program Manager, V-22 Joint Program, Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.
21. February 2006 - August 2009, Program Manager, V-22 Joint Program, Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.
22. September 2009 - April 2010, Program Management Team, Naval Air Systems Command Cost Department, Naval Air Systems Command, Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md.
23. May 2010 - April 2013, Weapon Systems Program Manager, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program, Arlington, Va.
24. May 2013 - present, Deputy Director, Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office, Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, Washington D.C.


The Mishka guys sure do love their action sports. Fresh on the heels of releasing their video with pro skater Spencer Nuzzi, comes this gem from the fixed-gear riders of the Seoul Fixed Gear crew, repping for the brand as the Mishka Korea Team.
The city of Seoul looks great in this edit, and the riders featured seem to know their way around it, proving that the fixed-freestyle scene is still very much alive on a global level. Watch these guys get busy out on the streets while draped in the latest Mishka threads.
If all of this isn't enought to convince you that Mishka is legit in their support of fixed freestyle culture, just take a look at the sick Limited Edition Mishka x Affinity build they put together last month.


When all major infrastructure projects are facing delays and cost escalation, the venture to build three new bridges on the Shitalakkhya, Meghna and Gumti rivers is making good progress. All of them are expected to be completed by the December 2018 deadline, and setting an example, will cost less than what was estimated in the development project proforma (DPP).
The High Court upholds death for 15 convicts while commuting the penalty of 11 others – all of whom were sentenced to death by lower court in the sensational Narayanganj seven-murder cases.
Coming down heavily on the chief justice for comparing Bangladesh with Pakistan, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina says she is not scared at all with such a threat and this is not tolerable either.
Legendary Bangla film actor Razzak passes away at a hospital in Dhaka. He was 76.
Ericsson employees in Dhaka demonstrate at their office premises protesting laying off of 50 employees, what the company says are in line with company policy.
Six youths have allegedly gang-raped two schoolgirls in Sujanagar of Pabna and then uploaded the footage of them committing the crime on Facebook.
Excessive rains and flooding twice in just four months have left most of the roads in a miserable state, which could make people's journey home for Eid-ul-Azha a nightmare. If rain continues and the flood situation doesn't improve shortly, the road networks will be further damaged, compounding woes of travellers. Many roads are currently under floodwater.
An instagram video post of visiting Australia Cricket team captain Steve Smith portraying the over-crowded passenger train in Bangladesh goes viral in the social media platform.
Two Bangladeshi youths are killed and another critically injured in a road accident in Georgia State of USA.
Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) Mayor Annisul Huq, who was admitted to a hospital after he fell sick in central London, is now “out of danger”.
The militant who was killed in the “Operation August Bite” planned to carry out an attack on those heading towards Dhanmondi Road No 32 to pay homage to Bangabandhu on National Mourning Day, the inspector general of police (IGP) says.
A suspected militant has been killed in an operation at a hotel in Dhaka’s Panthapath area where lawmen conducted a raid suspecting a militant hideout.
The flood situation yesterday worsened further as the onrush of water from upstream was continuing, affecting 20 districts, said Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre.
As flood ravages through the northern and northeastern parts of the country, 14 people have lost their lives in Lalmonirhat, Kurigram and Dinajpur raising the death toll in floods all over the country to 26.
Some ministers and leaders of the ruling party have been accusing Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha of undermining Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman through some remarks in the 16th constitutional amendment case verdict. Read from the verdict what the chief justice said.
“Salman Shah didn’t kill himself, he was murdered,” Rabeya Sultana Rubi, one of the accused in the popular actor’s death, thus begins her “confession” in a video posted on Facebook.
You would have to be extremely resilient to not look twice. Boasting an alluring smile, confident demeanor and dazzling looks, she is a complete package. No matter the role, she embraces it with thorough dedication. Having recently made her debut in Tollywood, she looks to broaden her horizons in the local film scene. Star Showbiz presents to you the no-holds-barred interview with the ravishing diva, Sohana Saba!
The official website of Bangladeshi private satellite television channel Ekattor TV has been hacked. The hackers wrote “HACKED BY Amjonota. Atheist media: Stop anti-Islamic activities..”.
The other day, my “friend”, Porshi, and I went out to eat at this restaurant that apparently serves “yammy” steaks as stated by many other reviews.
Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader today inaugurated the construction of the first part of the elevated viaduct and nine stations of the country’s much talked about metro rail in Dhaka.
If it rains for longer than the time it takes to make a U-turn on Green Road, Dhaka gets flooded. How do you get around then? Get one of these amphibious wonders, of course.
Brac University students take to the streets for the second consecutive day over the alleged assault on a teacher of the privately-run university.
Model and actress Risila Binte Wazer reportedly commits suicide at her residence in Badda area of Dhaka.
If you are planning to go out today, a good advice would be stay indoors. Or face the consequence of being stuck in traffic for hours together.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina urges all parents and teachers to provide proper guidance to the students for their better future.
A total of 532 educational institutions achieve 100 percent pass in the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and its equivalent examinations across the country.


Stronghold 1 adds free build mode to the game and extra options into multiplayer mode. You can stop alliance while playing in multiplayer mode. Gatehouses can be captured now from an enemy player. This version is the first release on CNET Download.com.
dont waste your time, cnet keeps adding mods in the games sections..
"This isn't the right one."
Amazing game for a very low price.
"Dont wast your time here.."
I used to play this game and it was very good for its time, wanted to play it as a throwback..
The download appears to work howeber, upon attempting to run the game it asks for the CD-ROM.
"this game is verry funny and can make u relax"
Life is full of giggles for Sim Town toddlers, and the good times continue with the latest update.


The veil is thin and the deceased are near—are you ready to delve into the magic this year?
Producers of Tarocco and Animalia, the Fox & Beggar Theater returns to the Bywater with a special Halloween performance: Pulcino: A Day of the Dead Carnival. Featuring two music stages, live face painting, dancers, circus and fire performances, food vendors, carnival booths, and twelve ornamented Día De Los Muertos altars, designed by local artists and stationed throughout the landscape. It’s an event not to be missed! And the 21+ evening is expected to sell out…but here at Xpress we have a pair of tickets that could be yours! For your chance to claim these tickets, tell us this: what’s your favorite part Halloween/Samhain/Día De Los Muertos? Comment below by Friday, October 23 at 2 PM and you’ll be entered to win!!
Live music by Asheville’s Juan Benavides Group, Hot Point Trio, One Leg Up , Dub Kartel, Byrdy , Pícaro and Morphonic.
Altars constructed by Joshua Spiceland, Asheville Full Moon Gathering, Travis Eagledove, Beto Nuñez, Carlos Vera, Alena Applerose, Rebecca Mellstrom, Keith Shubert, Maurice Legendre, Patrick McCormick and Julia Ferris. Dress up in your funeral finery and paint a sugar skull on your face (or get one painted on you there). Taste ‘n See will be on hand to feed your mortal body. For more information check out the FACEBOOK EVENT.
Tickets: $17 in advance/$25 the day of the show.
Held at the Bywater, located at 796 Riverside Dr., Asheville.
Carpooling to the carnival is strongly recommended. Parking for all vehicles is $3.
Connecting with the dark shadow that is part of the light, embodying the turning of the seasons.
I love the mundane ( All Hallows) and the sacred (Samhain) of the 31st. The solemnity, and the pageantry…..
Costumes- taking on a different persona or appearance!
All I can say is , have you heard the Halloween story ‘Tailybone” ? I’ve told it and made the children scream !!
Dia de Los muertos- delicious food, surrounded by stories and pictures of our loved ones!
Autumn is a magical season. Halloween is a chance for young and old to step outside of themselves and embrace a part of that magic and excitement.
Would love to be the winner. I have family playing this show and can’t afford to go. Please pick me!!!
I love dressing up for Halloween and carving pumpkins but Dia de los Muertos and SamHain speak to my spiritual side. I love the opportunity to celebrate and honor those who have passed on.
That adults can be kids again!
My favorite part of DiaDe Los Muertos is the celebration and honoring of our ancestors who have walked before us. The American culture holds so much taboo around death and dying. However death is another beautiful transition on the continuum of living. In Mexico and Venezuela, as well as other Latin countries, this festival is a chance to remember, honor and celebrate the lives of so many that walked before us.
I love the season. The leaves, the crisp air, and the celebration of the changing of the season.
This a is time of the year where everyone comes together in the crip night and sprits become creative.
Congrats to Matt Rooks! The tickets are yours! Thanks everyone for you lovely comments and your participation!


Committee vote sends Spy Block Act, which limits spyware, to the Senate for consideration.
A key Senate committee approved a modified version of an anti-spyware bill on Wednesday, a move that forwards the legislation to the full Senate for a vote expected by the end of the year. The revised Spy Block Act prohibits companies from surreptitiously installing software, requires that software provide a reasonably straightforward uninstall option, and bans software that leaks information about users unless they know about it in advance.
"It has become common practice for online spies to bury themselves in computer systems and watch every move computer users make," Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., said after the vote. The U.S. House of Representatives could vote on a similar measure as early as next week.


Well maintained 2-story home located on quiet street! Spacious living room, formal dining room with hardwood floors, master bedroom with laminate floor and full bath! Newer furnace, central air & water heater! Fenced yard with patio for your outdoor enjoyment plus detached garage! Make this house your own!.


Turkey's foreign minister discusses the country's plan to attain EU membership.
Turkey positions itself as the bridge between Europe, Asia and the Middle East, a role it hopes to consolidate with accession to the European Union.
However, there are a number of obstacles it has to overcome first, including addressing issues of human rights and international practices and standards.
Turkey's government says it has made significant progress on all fronts and has a long-term plan to ensure it achieves full membership. What does that plan entail?
On Thursday's Riz Khan we talk to Ali Babacan, the Turkish foreign minister.


Dwyer unsuccessfully ran for governor in 1998 and 2000.
A former Vermont gubernatorial candidate is taking down a 60-foot by 24-foot screen she built to block her view of her neighbor's home.
The Valley News reports Ruth Dwyer has agreed to remove the structure by Nov. 1 as part of a settlement filed earlier this month. Dwyer will face a $200 fine for each day the screen remains up if she doesn't remove it by that date.
Dwyer has said one of her horses was startled by a child on the neighbor's driveway, prompting her to plant trees to block the view. She had the temporary screen installed while they grow.
She didn't respond to messages seeking comment.
Thetford officials say it violates zoning rules and began assessing fees of $200 per day in March.
Dwyer unsuccessfully ran for governor twice.


SYDNEY: Australia opener Matt Renshaw is a doubt for the series-opening test against Pakistan after suffering a head injury in a tour match in Dubai.
Renshaw, who has a history of concussions, exited the match against a Pakistan ‘A’ side after being hit by a pull shot from batsman Abid Ali when fielding at short leg on Sunday.
Renshaw was wearing a helmet when he was struck in the side of the head. He pulled it off immediately and sat with his head in his hands before being examined by medical staff.
He came off the ground for further checks and was replaced in the lineup by Marnus Labuschagne.
Opening batsman Aaron Finch said Renshaw was in good spirits, but the selectors are likely to be cautious about playing the Yorkshire-born 22-year-old in the first test starting on Sunday.
Renshaw suffered concussion in a warm-up mishap before a Sheffield Shield match for Queensland in March and was subbed out of the game.
He was also withdrawn from a 2017 test against Pakistan in Sydney having been hit while fielding just days after being struck by a bouncer when batting.
“He’s okay,” Finch told reporters. “It was a pretty heavy knock to the head there.
The Renshaw blow soured an otherwise positive day for Australia’s batsmen with Finch, Shaun Marsh and younger brother Mitchell all spending valuable time in the middle as the tourists moved to 207 for two at the close of the second day’s play, in reply to 278.
One-day specialist Finch, hoping to make his test debut after his surprise selection in Tim Paine’s squad, scored 54 in an 82-run opening stand with Usman Khawaja, while number three Shaun Marsh and Mitchell were unbeaten on 54 and 53 respectively.
“It was nice to get out in the middle after training away for the best part of a week and doing the hard yards,” said 31-year-old Finch.


President-elect Donald Trump’s latest Twitter-driven controversy arises from his dashed-off call for jailing or stripping citizenship from protesters who burn the American flag. As Philip Bump notes, this is hardly the first indicator that Trump is not what you would call a civil-liberties enthusiast. And as my colleague Jonathan Chait observes, this might be just another Trump distraction from the nasty stuff he is planning to do in the real world.
It is probably worth taking notice of the fact, however, that demagogic attacks on the First Amendment rights of people conservatives don’t like aren’t as broadly acceptable on the right as they used to be.
A SCOTUS justice with a more ambiguous relationship to conservatism, Anthony Kennedy, also sided with the majority in Texas v. Johnson, while conservative justices more attuned to the political branches of government, Rehnquist and O’Connor, went the other way. After a few years of regular fulmination against the SCOTUS precedent and regular House passage of constitutional amendments aimed at overturning the decision, the conservative passion for this particular form of hippie-punching subsided — until Trump brought it back this very week.
But something else has happened that helps explain why leading Republican politicians — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy — have responded to Trump by reiterating their support for First Amendment protections.
The First Amendment has become the basis for a variety of high-profile conservative causes based on the belief that free expression is under attack by progressives. One, of course, is the “religious liberty” crusade, based on the idea that antidiscrimination laws violate the First Amendment principle of freedom of religious association. A second is the claim that any sort of campaign-finance regulation — from spending or contribution limits to requirements that donors must be disclosed — is a deadly threat to free speech. Whatever else it was, Citizens United was a First Amendment case. And the First Amendment is even central to the conservative attack on unions and collective bargaining. The pending Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association case, which the Supreme Court is very likely to resolve in the plaintiff’s favor once Trump has appointed another Justice, involves a claim that requiring a payment for representation by public-employee unions violates the First Amendment right to expression of union-hating employees who benefit from such representation.
When Trump does make that SCOTUS appointment, it will be, of course, to the seat held by Scalia, whom the president-elect has repeatedly described as the model for future Justices. Now that he has been made aware of Scalia’s position on flag-burning, perhaps Trump will make that issue one of his many flip-flops, memorable until the next one comes along.