Egyptian prosecutors sought the death penalty in the trial of former President Hosni Mubarak. They say he was complicit in the killing of more than 800 Egyptian protesters last year.
Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who has been ill, arrives by gurney to court in Cairo, Egypt, Jan. 5, 2012.
The prosecutor in the trial of Hosni Mubarak demanded on Thursday that the ousted Egyptian leader be sentenced to hang on charges of complicity in the killing of protesters during last year's uprising against his rule.
Mustafa Khater, one of a five-member prosecution team, also asked the judge for the death sentence for Mubarak's security chief and six top police commanders being tried in the same case.
"Retribution is the solution. Any fair judge must issue a death sentence for these defendants," said Khater on the third and final day of the prosecution's opening statement. "We feel the spirits of the matryrs flying over this hall of sacred justice and those who lost their sight by the bullets of the defendants are stumbling around it to reach the judge and demand fair retribution from those who attacked them," he said.
"The nation and the people are awaiting a word of justice and righteousness."
Mubarak's two sons, one-time heir apparent Gamal and Alaa, face corruption charges in the same trial along with their father and a close family friend who is a fugitive.
An 18-day uprising forced Mubarak, 83, to step down on Feb. 11 after a nearly 30-year rule. The military, led by a general who served as defense minister under Mubarak for 20 years, replaced him in power.
Earlier in Thursday's hearing, chief prosecutor Mustafa Suleiman said Mubarak was "politically and legally" responsible for the killing of the protesters and charged that the former president did nothing to stop the killings that he was aware of from meetings with aides, regional TV channels and reports by his security agencies.
He said Mubarak's security chief and co-defendant, former interior minister Habib el-Adly, authorized the use of live ammunition on orders from Mubarak.
"He (Mubarak) can never, as the top official, claim that he did not know what was going on," Suleiman told the court. "He is responsible for what happened and must bear the legal and political responsibility for what happened. It is irrational and illogical to assume that he did not know that protesters were being targeted."
Addressing Mubarak directly, Suleiman said, "If you had not issued these orders yourself, then where was your outburst of rage over the lives of your people?" Testimonies by two interior ministers who succeeded el-Adly, he said, pointed out that the defendant could not have given the order to use live ammunition against the protesters without Mubarak's personal approval, said Suleiman.
Suleiman said Mubarak told investigators he decided to step down after the military refused to intervene to "immediately and urgently" help the security forces contain the protests. Mubarak called out the army on Jan. 28 — three days into the uprising and on the day when security forces disappeared from the streets in circumstances that have yet to be fully explained.
"He (Mubarak) fully knew what was happening but he did nothing," said Suleiman.
Another prosecutor, Wael Hussein, said that one of the six police commanders on trial — former chief of the hated state security agency Hassan Abdel-Rahman — has personally given orders to allow inmates to escape from a string of jails across the nation during the uprising. The escapees, who numbered in the thousands, have been blamed for a dramatic surge in crime since Jan. 28 last year when almost all vestiges of state authority collapsed.
Most of the inmates have since been captured and returned to jail, but Egypt continues to suffer higher-than-usual crime rates.


Figure 11. Diagram of the two-year life cycle of the brownspotted grasshopper, Psoloessa delicatula (Scudder) in central Saskatchewan. The species has a one-year life cycle in its southern range.


Williams Jr., a speedy outfielder, was drafted in the sixth round in 2008 and became a problem when former manager Ozzie Guillen felt son Ozney should have been picked higher in a later draft. It helped sour the relation between Guillen and Williams Sr.
Rick Hahn, just hired as Ken Williams's replacement on the south side after Williams Sr. was promoted to Executive Vice President of the White Sox, has made his first trade: dealing Ken Williams Jr. away to the Rockies.
It's a logical move in light of Williams's five unproductive seasons in the minor leagues (30 RBIs in Double A last year, though!) and, at the same time, a mystifying move in that it was freighted with meaning, and took an executive's son-hanging on to his minor league job, it'd seem, largely through nepotism, and dealt him to an organization not beholden to him in any way. As the first trade of Hahn's tenure.
Williams Sr. likely signed off on the trade, which only makes it more confusing-as if he'd been biding his time for five years, sure that getting rid of his son was the right strategy for the White Sox's minor league system, and finally convinced his successor to pull the trigger on the deal when he had the cover of a new title. A strange way to usher in Rick Hahn, and even stranger way to wave goodbye to Williams Jr.


An indoor pool, a 24-hour fitness center, and a snack bar/deli are available at this smoke-free hotel. Free buffet breakfast and free self parking are also provided. Other amenities include a spa tub, a 24-hour business center, and coffee/tea in a common area.
A hotel's guest rating is calculated using data provided under license by TripAdvisor. A total of 194 have reviewed the Fairfield Inn & Suites Cheyenne, giving it a rating of 4, on a scale of 1-5.


Performers include: Garry Shandling, Jeffrey Tambor, Rip Torn, Wallace Langham, Penny Johnson, Janeane Garofalo, Scott Thompson, Linda Doucett, Sid Newman, and Mary Lynn Rajskub.
Stand-up comic Garry Shandling stars as insecure and vain talk show host Larry Sanders. The show-within-a-show goes behind-the-scenes at a fictional late-night talk show which features real-life celebrities from the world of movies, music, and television.
On-camera, Larry is assisted by his sidekick Hank Kingsley (Jeffrey Tambor). Behind the scenes are his fiercely protective producer Artie (Rip Torn), Larry’s personal assistant Beverly (Penny Johnson Jerald), Hank’s personal assistant Brian (Scott Thompson), show booker Paula (Janeane Garofalo), booking assistant Mary Lou (Mary Lynn Rajskub), head writer Jerry Capen (Jeremy Piven), and writer Phil (Wallace Langham).
tnt knows drama,that is why they show 2 hours of las vegas every weekday.they should pick up the show and produce more seasons of tis great show.if not how about a spin off.


INDIANAPOLIS — The Indianapolis Colts have won a franchise-record 12 straight home games and are off to the third-best start of any defending Super Bowl champion.
So why are they underdogs at home this week? Blame that, as Indianapolis fans usually do, on the Patriots.
"They're a good team, they've played great football all year and we've played very, very well," Colts coach Tony Dungy said. "It's going to be a big game."
Both teams enter Sunday's game with glittering resumes.
New England (8-0) has beaten all of its opponents by at least 17 points. Tom Brady has a mind-boggling 136.2 passer rating, new receiver Randy Moss could break the franchise's single-season record for TD catches this weekend, and only two opponents have topped 20 points this season.
Indianapolis is merely off to another 7-0 start, already has three road wins against division opponents and just routed Jacksonville and Carolina on the road within six days of each other. The Colts lead the league in TDs rushing (12) and their run defense has jumped from 32nd last year to 13th. In fact, the Colts — yes, the Colts — have allowed fewer points per game than New England (14.6 to 15.9).
Hum ho, say the so-called experts.
When debating, the focus always seems to be more on New England's chance to go 16-0 than whether the Colts can defend their home turf against a team they have beaten three consecutive times. The oddsmakers installed New England as a 4½-point favorite over the Colts. The line grew to 5 ½ points on Tuesay.
Patriots coach Bill Belichick, a three-time Super Bowl winner, thinks that's no way to treat a champion.
"They've won a lot of games through the years, they won a championship last year and nobody's beat them in a long time," he said, speaking for the minority. "So there's nobody doing it better than they are."
The truth is, the Colts and Pats are in a league of their own.
They're tied for the league lead in turnover margin at plus-11. The Colts have beaten stronger opponents, while New England has mastered the art of fast starts. The Colts have the league's No. 2 pass defense, the Pats the No. 1 pass offense.
The numbers indicate these teams have also traded identities. New England is now the team throwing all over the field, and the Colts are the team methodically cranking out victories.
As Dungy knows from his own experience, the pundits always seem more enamored of the team scoring more points.
"We went through that at one point in '04 where we scoring a lot of points and we went up there and got three points," Dungy said, referring to the Colts' divisional round playoff loss in Foxborough.
Still, the Colts would rather lay low than find themselves in the glaring spotlight for a fourth consecutive year.
There are explanations for why New England has received so much attention and for the perception that New England is far superior. Those range from playing in a bigger media market to the high-profile changes the Patriots made during the offseason. The Pats added an entirely new receiving corps in Moss, Donte' Stallworth and Wes Welker, and signed free agent linebacker Adalius Thomas.
Three Super Bowl wins in four years helps promote that image, too.
The Colts, meanwhile, reverted to their standard philosophy of moving lesser-known backups and draft picks into the lineup to offset defections and retirements.
Both approaches have worked perfectly. The Patriots are scoring points at a record clip, and the Colts have become more physical on both sides of the ball.
How that plays out Sunday is anybody's guess. But how it's playing out in the media is obvious.
"We need to understand we have to play the game and not the media game," Colts president Bill Polian said on his weekly radio show Monday night. "The media will do its job, but we can't get caught up in all that."
Instead, they'd rather earn the respect on the field, and Sunday's game will give them another chance.
"The point spread is there to get the betting right, it's not something we worry about," Dungy said. "New England is a different challenge for us because they've got a lot of guys who can make plays. So far, so good, but it's going to be tougher against these guys."


No one pushing the canard that vaccines cause autism should be setting immunization policy in this country.
Scientists and public health experts immediately went ballistic, but the announcement was hardly surprising. During the Republican primary debates, Trump trafficked in vaccine misinformation himself.
We’ll be clear: No one pushing the canard that vaccines cause autism should be setting immunization policy in this country. A federal advisory committee of medical and public health experts has already established smart, responsible recommendations on vaccinations. Reams of research have found zero links between autism and immunization. And science-denying anti-vaxxers have already hurt too many children.
Kennedy’s claims, sincere though they may be, are dangerous nonsense. They’re of a piece with his assertion, in 2006, that the Republican Party stole the 2004 election, and his 2013 speech in which he said he doesn’t believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy.
Shortly after Kennedy shared his news with reporters, Trump’s team issued a statement saying that the president-elect had made “no decisions,” was merely “exploring the possibility of forming a commission on autism” and was talking to lots of people. Kennedy’s office said he would have no further comment for now.
Trump has a nasty pattern of summoning well-known political figures only to make them look foolish; just ask Al Gore, Mitt Romney, Chris Christie. But he also has a nasty pattern of nominating people to positions where they could do serious damage.
Putting Kennedy in charge of vaccine policy would be like naming a labor secretary who bashes worker protections. Or an education secretary who might be out to gut public education. Or an energy secretary who wants the Department of Energy to be dismantled.
Except in this case, children’s lives would be at stake.


German centre-right and French far-right MEPs have tried, unsuccessfully, to torpedo a new rule which will require MEPs with senior posts to sign a document promising to behave appropriately.
The new rule was adopted on Thursday (31 January) with a broad majority, and relates to a recently-adopted code of appropriate behaviour for MEPs.
The rule states that MEPs who have not signed a declaration to respect the code, will not be able to be elected as president or vice-president.
They will also be barred from taking a position as rapporteur, which is a much-sought after post that gives responsibility over the drafting of legislation and negotiations on behalf of the parliament.
MEPs unwilling to sign would also not be allowed to take part in official delegations.
The new rule was adopted as part of a resolution on the parliament's new rules of procedure, which will also lead to some increased transparency of MEP meetings with lobbyists.
It was voted on in two parts.
The first was about parliament simply declaring in its resolution that MEPs "shall refrain from any type of psychological or sexual harassment and shall respect the code of appropriate behaviour for members of the European parliament."
This amendment was adopted with an overwhelming majority of 622 against 16, with eight MEPs abstaining.
The second part was about the actual rule that made signing the declaration on the code a precondition for getting any of the key posts.
This was supported by 493 MEPs, with 111 voting against, and 26 abstaining.
Opposition came mainly from 30 German MEPs who sit with the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) – almost the entire contingent of deputies from Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party.
It was also opposed by 23 French MEPs, most of them from the far-right Rassemblement National (National Rally).
Of the 111 MEPs who voted against, 57 sit with the pro-EU, centre-right European People's Party (EPP), and 31 with the far-right, eurosceptic Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF).
No ENF member voted in favour, but it did receive support from a majority of the EPP (108 MEPs), the largest group in the parliament.
One reason for opposing the measure was given by German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel, who sits with the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).
According to a leaked email published by Politico, Henkel had called it an "incredibly stupid" initiative.
On Thursday, Henkel explained in a statement that he saw a code of appropriate behaviour as redundant.
"For me, it is common sense not to harass people in any form," said Henkel.
"Maybe I think [too] highly of my colleagues but I think we all know what is right and what is wrong," he added.
However, there is some evidence to the contrary.
Since the eruption of the #MeToo scandal in Hollywood in 2017, stories have come out about harassment in the European Parliament as well.
Some assistants felt that the parliament's administration was not doing enough to fight harassment, and set up a blog with anonymised stories.
Last month a majority of MEPs reaffirmed their desire for a mandatory training for MEPs, which would help them recognise harassment and help prevent it.
Parliament's advisory committee on harassment deals with on average three to four cases per year, a spokeswoman said last year.
The EU parliament's internal chiefs have so far refused to introduce mandatory training on dealing with sexual harassment. MEPs have now asked for it again.
One year ago this month, the European Parliament promised to take measures to tackle sexual harassment. Some of its staff are unconvinced change is coming.
Face-to-face interviews with 15,179 women reveal that beliefs in female subservience and marital obedience continue to persist in south-eastern and eastern Europe.


Vietnam won one more gold medal Wednesday and remained in second position with 10 golds at the 27th South East Asian Games in Myanmar.
The medal was won by Nguyen Thanh Dat in the men's individual 50m rifle prone contest with a score of 201.3 points from Thai shooter Napis Tortungpanich (200 points) and Lim Wen Yi Abel of Singapore (180.3).
Myanmar are still on top of the medals tally with 18 golds while Thailand is third with six, and Indonesia and Malaysia are in fourth and fifth places with five each.


It was a "no brainer" to install a bike lane on dangerous Queens Blvd. despite community board opposition, Mayor de Blasio said Friday.
"It was called the Boulevard of Death for years, and there's a reason — because it was absolutely handled the wrong way. It was constructed the wrong way," de Blasio said on the Brian Lehrer show, referring to the nickname the street got because of the high numbers of pedestrians killed there.
"A protected bike lane along Queens Blvd. is a no brainer. We have to make it the Boulevard of Life. We are not going to go backwards."
The boulevard is set for a major revamp under de Blasio's Vision Zero push to cut traffic deaths, but the neighborhood's Community Board 4 voted for a plan that stripped the bike lane out of the design.
The city will build it anyway, de Blasio announced this week. The community board vote is advisory, not legally binding.
"I do care deeply what community boards think, and we listen. I'm concerned about how that meeting was handled. I'm not sure the members of the board were given fair opportunities to weigh the issues at hand," de Blasio said in the radio appearance.
At the session Tuesday night, the board's chair put up a proposal that didn't include the bike lane, which was then overwhelmingly approved.
The mayor said the bike lane is too important to be left out.
"Community boards have an advisory role to play. They get their input. We try and listen to it carefully. But when it comes to safety, the most important thing is the safety of our people," de Blasio said. "We have lost people, we have lost bicyclists on Queens Blvd. We're not going to allow it to happen anymore. And everyone's got to slow down."
Projects under the Vision Zero initiative have generated controversy in neighborhoods around the city, with some residents opposing them even as street safety advocates complain the city is too timid in bowing to such resistance.
"Part of the conflict here is that this is a culture change. This is drivers understanding that things are changing in this city. They have got to change their ways and their habits," de Blasio said. "Most New Yorkers and most drivers have embraced Vision Zero with a lot of enthusiasm and understand that it's about protecting seniors and children. But some folks keep resisting."


The investing company is ERA Brazil Israel, owned by Eric Ben-Mayor and partners.
Israeli company RescueDose, which has developed a compact robot system for dispensing liquid drugs for injection and for filling syringes and IV bags, has announced a $2.5 million financing round. The company has raised a total of $5 million since it was founded. Founded in the hiCenter Ventures incubator in Haifa, RescueDose latest investment is from ERA Brazil Israel, a company owned by Advocate Eric Ben-Mayor and a group of Brazilian partners. ERA Brazil Israel has invested in a variety of high-tech companies in Israel, and in medical and dental companies.
Automation of drug dispensing has two main advantages. The first is more accurate control of the process of preparing drugs and more accurate monitoring of the dosage. The second is protection of pharmacists against hazardous materials. Syringes with most dangerous drugs are currently prepared manually. The transition to an automated process enables a pharmacist to oversee the process. RescueDose's first line of products is designed for nuclear medicine. The company has two patents in the US and one being registered in China.
RescueDose CEO Gilad Einy said, "This significant financing round is a vote of confidence in the innovative product developed by the company. It will enable us to penetrate additional markets. The company has a joint project with EC Squared, the market leader in medical and nuclear pharmaceutical computer systems, with assistance from the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation. The company also has projects with companies in China, and is bringing its systems to the Chinese market. It is also entering additional medical sectors."
Ben-Mayor added, "The global hospital and pharmacy automation market is estimated at $5-7 billion a year, and is projected to grow substantially in the next five years. ResdueDose specializes in automation of liquid drugs, and is developing products in nuclear medicine and chemotherapy that will be used next year in hospitals and pharmacies in Israel and worldwide. Very few companies are now supplying automated solutions in this sector."
hiCenter Ventures CEO Yael Mittelman said, "I see great potential in robotics for medical uses. I foresee that this financing round will enable the company to deepen its penetration of the markets and make it possible for it to develop applications in additional medical sectors in which IVs are frequently used."


the spr agency, an award-winning social media and public relations agency in Scottsdale, has been named No. 1 Best Workplace Culture: Advertising/Marketing Agency in 2019 by Ranking Arizona.
The agency was previously named Ranking Arizona's No. 1 PR Agency for 2017.
The digital marketing agency, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2018, also ranked in the Top 5 for "Public Relations", "SEO/Social Media Marketing" and "Advertising Agencies."
"We're honored to be recognized once again by Ranking Arizona," said Al Stevens, president of the spr agency. "Our goal as an agency is to always continue to improve and to deliver the best possible advocacy for our clients. Recognition like this is proof that we're on the right track."
The 2019 Ranking Arizona honors are the latest awards for the agency, which was listed as one of Phoenix's top 25 social media firms and public relations firms by the Phoenix Business Journal this year.
The company's roster of clients has included national homebuilders, premier master-planned communities, electronics manufacturers, restaurants, interior design firms and healthcare companies.
For more information about the spr agency, please visit https://thespragency.com/ or call (480) 648-1770.
Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, the spr agency provides full-service business marketing, public relations, digital marketing and social media services to a host of successful companies throughout the United States. Currently, the company works with clients in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. In 2019, the spr agency was named No. 1 Best Workplace Culture: Advertising/Marketing Agency by Ranking Arizona. The agency was also named Ranking Arizona's No. 1 Public Relations Agency in 2017. For more information about the spr agency, please visit https://thespragency.com/.


CHICAGO — Oregon State midfielder Hassani Dotson and forward Don Tchilao were both selected in the second round of Friday’s Major League Soccer SuperDraft.
Dotson was taken by Minnesota United FC with the 31st overall pick (seventh pick of the second round). He was followed five picks later by Tchilao, who went 36th overall (12th pick of the second round) to the Los Angeles Galaxy.
Dotson, who hails from Federal Way, Washington, played every minute for the Beavers this season, serving as a steadying force in the OSU midfield. The senior was a Pac-12 second-team pick, and earned conference player of the week recognition once this season. Dotson also found the net against UCLA, scoring the third goal in OSU’s 4-3 win.
Tchilao, from Chandler, Arizona, was a Pac-12 first-team selection after leading the team with nine assists on the year. The senior also scored seven goals to finish the season tied for second in the conference with 23 points. A two-time Pac-12 player of the week and one-time College Soccer News national player of the week selection this season, Tchilao’s year was highlighted by a game-winning overtime goal vs. UCLA.


Sheila Abramson, a waitress at Langer's Delicatessen on Alvarado Street in Los Angeles, reaches for a plate while serving customers last month.
When Junior's Deli closed in late December, longtime customers lined up for a last, nostalgic nosh at the 53-year-old Westside institution.
But Brian Won's main reaction was "meh."
"The food was unremarkable," said the West Los Angeles IT specialist, 32, who visited to use up a Groupon voucher. "Given that there are so many good places to eat in L.A., I have a really hard time saying yes to that."
Increasing apathy, particularly from younger patrons, has driven traditional Jewish delicatessens from their mid-century pinnacle. The decline seems to be accelerating partly because of health concerns over the schmaltz-spread fare and partly because bagels are now available in every supermarket.
Add sides of restaurant-industry slump and rising lease rates, and even local landmarks aren't immune.
In the last three months, three long-standing emporiums of corned beef and matzo around the country have closed.
Faced with aging clientele and a difficult economy, Ashkenaz Delicatessen in Chicago went dark in November and was replaced by a seafood joint called Da Lobsta. In Manhattan, high rent and the recession led to the closure of 75-year-old Stage Deli.
"People don't open up new delis anymore because it's very, very difficult to do," said Marian Levine, owner of Stage's longtime rival, Carnegie Deli in Manhattan.
In the first half of the 20th century, several thousand Jewish delis were operating in New York. But as Jewish immigration to the East Coast ebbed after World War II and younger generations splintered into the suburbs, the number has shrunk to a few dozen.
Demographic shifts in Los Angeles in the last few decades — along with the arrival of brands such as Langer's in MacArthur Park, Canter's on Fairfax and the Brent's chain — sparked hope of a Jewish deli revival in the Southland.
Lately, however, the region has suffered the same troubles bedeviling delis in the east.
Jerry's Famous Deli closed its Costa Mesa branch this spring and laid off dozens of employees. After years spent dishing up pickle-flanked masses of pastrami to the likes of Bruce Willis and Mel Brooks, Junior's closed following a rental spat with its landlord.
"There's nothing that can bring back the centrality of the deli in either Jewish life or American life," said Ted Merwin, an expert on Jewish culture and a professor at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania. "There's no way they're going to survive in the numbers they once did."
Merwin thinks Los Angeles' thriving ethnic food scene is partly to blame.
"It used to be that delis had a very loyal customer base who would come in every day," he said. "But now, with the restaurant industry in L.A. exploding with thousands and thousands of new options, why would they?"
Jewish delis are also part of a restaurant sector that has struggled overall since the recession. Sales at family sit-down restaurants stagnated between 2007 and 2011 and grew a stingy 0.5% last year, according to research firm Mintel.
The stress showed at Junior's, where revenue slumped 20% over the last three years as food costs surged, the result of unpredictable weather affecting crops and animal feed. Rents are also rising, especially in urban centers, making property difficult to afford for all but the largest chain delis.
Art's Deli owner Harold Ginsburg, 52, said he's had to cut back on non-food items at the Studio City store: having fewer employees on call, trimming insurance costs and sending delivery cars to the cheapest gas stations.
At Langer's, owner Norm Langer jacked up menu prices 4% in March. But the increase "wasn't enough to compensate for the rising cost of food," which he said has soared as much as 9% over the last 18 months.
Fish prices have "gone crazy," said Langer, whose father launched the business 65 years ago. The deli hasn't sold barbecued cod in five years, when the seafood went from being a third cheaper than lox to a third more expensive and supply became unpredictable.
Beef prices, inflated by the severe summer drought and mass exports to Japan, aren't helping. Neither are skyrocketing premiums for medical benefits for the eatery's unionized workers, Langer said.
And with diners still wary after the downturn, even a pastrami sandwich as revered as his struggles when it costs more than $20 a person after a beverage, a side dish, tax and tip, Langer said.
"At Quiznos, you can buy a sandwich for lunch for $5," he said. "That's a third of the cost at a first-class deli. The deli has a better-quality product, but you're going to be filled up with either option."
Part of the problem is younger customers, said David Saul, who with his brother John had inherited Junior's from their father, Marvin.
The deli always drew an older crowd, one that grew up eating at diners and other family-centric eateries. But millennials, ages 18 to 34, "don't understand delis or comfort food" and are "used to quick food and instant gratification, going through a drive-thru in 10 seconds," Saul said.
Throughout the restaurant industry, young diners are driving the push toward hip, healthful and sustainable offerings. Delis, known for menus laden with cheesy blintzes and corned beef, have tried to adapt with more low-calorie dishes and local ingredients.
Art's, which was launched by owner Ginsberg's parents 55 years ago, now sells a "tremendous amount" of egg-white omelets and salads to cater to the body-conscious set, he said. Jerry's in West Hollywood has a Louisiana burger, a Korean bibimbap bowl and fettuccine stroganoff on its sprawling menu. Before closing, Junior's added gluten-free rugelach and vegan chopped liver with peas and lentils.
A menu revamp at Canter's this fall brought in paninis — including some made with jalapeño bagels.
"You don't have to have just rye bread and pastrami to have a deli sandwich," said co-owner Terri Bloomgarden.
Many say the true Jewish deli renaissance is happening in the Bay Area, where establishments such as Saul's in Berkeley and Wise Sons in San Francisco are experimenting with farm-to-table sourcing and ditching Dr. Brown's celery soda for house-made beverages.
"A number of new delis have folded in with the artisanal movement and made the food trendier for the younger generation," said David Sax, author of "Save the Deli." "Hopefully it's the green shoots of a recovery."
On Feb. 7, the former Junior's space got a second chance when another Jewish deli — Lenny's — moved in.
But it's not entirely traditional. Owner and serial restaurateur Lenny Rosenberg, whose Holocaust survivor father ran Jewish bakeries in New York, said his eatery features more-healthful options and lower prices to bring the concept "into the 21st century."


Creditors of the Network Ten will be eager for answers when they meet administrators today. It will be their first opportunity to ask about money they’re owed after the network was placed in voluntary administration almost two weeks ago.
Today’s creditor-only meeting is expected to be tense, with the future of Australia’s third ranking TV Network under a cloud.
Ten’s financial troubles came to a head when its largest shareholders – Lachlan Murdoch, Bruce Gordon and James Packer – refused to continue guaranteeing the company’s outstanding $200 million debt or any future debt facility.
When they pulled the plug, Ten’s board had no option but to place the network in administration.
Since then, Mr Gordon, who owns the regional Win TV Network, and Mr Murdoch, who is co-chair of New Corp, have joined their shareholdings so they can vote as a bloc with more than 22 percent of the company’s shares.
Ten’s troubles prompted the federal government to push ahead with reforms to media laws, which have been tabled but have been held up by parliament’s winter recess. The other major hurdle is the reluctance of a number of cross bench senators to support the changes.
Under the reforms, the licence fee, free to air broadcasters have to pay would be abolished, so would the so called "2 out of 3" rule, which prevents companies owning a TV station, newspaper and radio station in a single market AND the 75 percent reach rule, which currently stops metropolitan and regional organisations from merging.
Without the media reforms, Mr Murdoch and Mr Gordon would be unable to take control of Ten.
In the meantime, administrators, Korda Metha, have said they want to wrap up the administration process within two months.
But this has left Ten staff in limbo. As creditor employees, they will be represented at today’s meeting but are concerned about what administration means for their jobs, with redundancies a real prospect.
Shareholders, who fear their investments are now at risk, will not be able to attend today’s meeting, but will have a private briefing.


HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) - Medical services for inmates at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center cost Horry County $2.5 million in 2018.
The county contracted with Mediko, a private health care company, to provide everything from doctors’ visits to medications to coordinating outside specialty services and clinics.
The company provides 18 medical staff members as well as a 24-hour nurse at the center.
Johnson explained the center would have to pay the company additional fees if the inmate population exceeds 800.
Horry County paid Mediko $209,000 each month this year, according to its check registry.
Mediko began its contract in 2017. Prior to Mediko, Horry County paid around $154,000 a month to Southern Health Partners for similar services, according to the county’s check registry.
Johnson explained the center selected Mediko from submitted proposals based on the staffing it was willing to provide for the cost proposal.
Years ago, county staff members provided medical services.
The center is required by state law to provide and fund these services.
“We don’t want anything to happen to the inmates in our facility and if it was my child in this facility, I would want them to receive the necessary medical care to keep them safe as I would hope anyone would. So it’s not just a requirement; it’s what we need to do,” Johnson said.
He added if you spread the $2.5 million across the 1,600 inmates booked annually, services for each inmate equate to $150 a year.
The funds for medical services are drawn from the detention center’s annual budget, which Johnson said is funded by property taxes.
Mediko’s contract accounted for nearly 10 percent of the center’s $24 million budget in 2018.
The center’s budget is estimated to rise by nearly $2 million for the 2019 fiscal year.
The county also anticipates around 1,500 more inmates will be evaluated by doctors and nurses.


AN ELDERLY woman is in hospital with serious injuries after being mauled by three vicious dogs while trying to save her own pet.
The Sydney woman, 78, was attacked at her Greendale home, police said.
Officers were told the woman was trying to save her pet pug who had been attacked by the other three animals, believed to be pet dingoes. The pug did not survive the attack.
The woman was treated at the scene and taken to Liverpool Hospital in a serious condition. She suffered serious injuries to her arms, legs and back, police said.
It is unclear whether the three offending dogs were pets, or if they had made their way onto the property from elsewhere.
The animals were seized by Liverpool council rangers on Tuesday before a decision is made on whether or not they will be put down.
The incident follows a fatal dog attack that took place in Canberra in October, and cost the life of Watson woman Tania Klemke.
Ms Klemke died in her home after her pet dog, Simba, a mixed breed believed to be similar to a pit bull, attacked his owner and a visiting man.
Police officers shot and killed the dog after the dog turned on them at the scene.
Ms Klemke had previously described the dog as her â€œbest friendâ€?.


PORT ANGELES — The Juan de Fuca Foundation will hold its annual Winter Fundraiser at 6:30 p.m. Saturday featuring a performance by singer-songwriter Laura Love.
She will perform in a duo with guitarist Terry Hunt.
Tickets are $50 and are available for purchase online at jffa.org.
Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. at the Port Angeles Red Lion ballroom, 221 N. Lincoln St.
The evening will include a salmon dinner buffet and open bar, according to a news release.
As the event is a foundation fundraiser, a silent auction will take place throughout the evening.
Victoria hotel stays, Coho ferry tickets, Juan de Fuca Festival passes and Port Angeles Symphony concerts will be among the items available to bid on.
Also planned is a raffle on an “eclectic assortment of wonderful wines.” The winner will be drawn before the end of the evening.
Last but not least, the foundation plans a “dessert dash.” An envelope will be placed on each table representing bids on dessert items like a bourbon torte, cherry pie and other items.
The evening will also be an opportunity for community members to meet the foundation’s new director, Kayla Oakes.
Oakes has worked with the foundation as a volunteer and board member for the past eight years. She became the executive director this month, replacing recently-retired Dan Maguire.
Oakes, 43, has a background in dance and theater. She has worked for numerous dance schools and theater companies on the West Coast and moved to Port Angeles from Boise, Idaho, in 2005.
For more information, go to jffa.org or call the foundation at 360-457-5411.


Since March 22, 2010, the SPDR S&P 500 (NYSE:SPY) has returned 42 percent, including dividends paid. An impressive performance to be sure, but it is often said, and it is true, that sectors lead the broader market not the other way around.
On a related note, a frequently discussed topic in recent months has been what sectors are displaying leadership qualities. With consumer staples ranking high on that list, some investors, professional and retail, have doubted the viability of the broader market rally.
Interestingly, a case can be made that this has been a "risk off" rally for three years now. Using the nine Select Sector SPDRs as the barometers while going back to March 22, 2010, only one so-called risky ETF has offered noteworthy out-performance of those sector funds that are perceived to have less risk. That ETF is the Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLY).
The Consumer Discretionary Select Sector SPDR has returned 68.6 percent since March 22, 2010, meaning the ETF has been simply dominant over other sector funds such as the Materials Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLB), the Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLF) and the Technology Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLK).
XLY has easily trumped XLF and XLB over the past 24 months as well. Over that time, XLY has offered better than six times the returns of XLB and almost double the returns of XLK. Remember, XLK had the benefit of having Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) among its top holdings as that stock surged to astronomical heights.
Not High Beta What may come as a surprise to some investors is that XLY is not extremely volatile despite being home to stocks that are believed to be intimate plays on consumer confidence and sentiment such as Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Home Depot (NYSE:HD) and Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS). The ETF has a beta of one against the S&P 500 and annualized volatility of 16.88 percent, according to State Street data.
That is a slightly lower beta than what is seen on XLK. Over the past three years, XLY has been about 500 basis points less volatile than XLB and the Energy Select Sector SPDR (NYSE:XLE), according to ETF Replay data.
XLE and XLB currently have betas against the S&P 500 of 1.28 and 1.22, respectively.
Not The Only One With $4.44 billion in assets under management, XLY is the largest discretionary ETF by that metric. It is home to plenty of familiar names and heavily traded with average daily volume of almost 5.5 million shares over the past three months.
However, XLY is not the only generator of noteworthy discretionary ETF returns over the past several years. With a three-year return of 67.6 percent, the Vanguard Consumer Discretionary ETF (NYSE:VCR) stacks up favorably against the other non-discretionary sector ETFs mentioned here as well as Vanguard's own lineup of sector funds.
While VCR and XLY are comparable on many levels, cost-conscious investors should keep an eye on this tussle in the coming months because a recent fee reduction by Vanguard means VCR is four basis points cheaper than XLY. That works out to 0.14 percent per year for VCR and 0.18 percent for XLY.
Investors that are willing to embrace some added risk can consider the First Trust Consumer Discretionary AlphaDEX Fund (NYSE:FXD). Although FXD has lagged VCR and XLY over the past three years, but the First Trust offering has significantly outpaced other sector funds as well over that time, including energy, materials and technology.
FXD is not a market cap-weighted ETF. Rather, it uses growth and value metrics to parse through possible constituents. The result is an ETF that looks far different than VCR or XLY in terms of holdings. FXD holds 125 stocks with the top holding being Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) at a weight of just 2.45 percent. Other top-10 holdings include Starz (NASDAQ:STRZA) and Virgin Media (NASDAQ:VMED).
FXD has been a decent performer over the past year with a gain of 12.2 percent, but some lower risk sector funds such as the Consumer Staples Select SPDR (NYSE:XLP) have delivered better gains. FXD has a three-year standard deviation of 20.4 percent compared to 17.1 percent for the S&P 500 Consumer Discretionary Index, according to First Trust data.
That could be viewed as a sign that FXD is better suited to an environment that is more risk on friendly, but it is worth noting FXD has outpaced VCR and XLY year-to-date.


It didn’t happen at the same ground in Nagpur, but we believe that hosts Vidarbha Cricket Association should have organised a token remembrance last Thursday for the victims of the wall collapse that took place exactly 20 years ago during the India vs New Zealand one-day international at the old VCA Stadium in the Orange City.
Indian and South African teams lining up to remember the nine dead and several injured would have been viewed as a nice touch. On the other hand, sensitivity was not lost on organisers of the Indian Super League (ISL).
Before the Mumbai City FC vs Kerala Blasters ISL match at the DY Patil Stadium in Nerul the same day, both teams lined up for a minute’s silence to remember those who lost their lives in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks (see above picture). Well done, football. Where cricket is concerned, don’t forget to remember next time.
Kala Ghoda is as much about scrumptious food as it is about kitschy art and culture. And nobody seems to know this better than Nicole Mody, curator of the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival’s food section.
The 32-year-old foodie has come up with a book that contains recipes from restaurants in the area. From the high-brow Khyber to the quaint Pantry, Mody has curated about 60 recipes across cuisines.
“Chefs from these restaurants have contributed. My job has been to break them down for the home audience,” says Mody, a Malabar Hill resident. Her personal favourite is the beetroot risotto, but she won’t reveal from where. You’ll have to wait till February to find out.
After 13 years, Starboard, the port-side bar at Taj Mahal Palace, Apollo Bunder, will close its doors on December 10. “Actually it was supposed to shut down on Tuesday, but we had made a commitment to a guest for a party,” executive chef, Amit Chowdhury, told us over the phone.
The port-side bar, whose door represented a ship’s deck, was made popular by its live band. “The first one was a Caribbean band, and we served Latino snacks on the menu. As time went, we served small-portion meals such as fondues and raclette.
In 2007, we added a Mexican menu to appeal to a wider audience. Our quesadillas, and mucho nachos have been popular.” Interestingly, among their regular patrons, a name that has been in the news lately pops up — Aamir Khan.
“He has been a frequent visitor,” Chowdhury tells us. As the city nightlife bids adieu to the iconic lounge, the choice of 101 margaritas, such as Green Iguana (lemon grass infused tequila with margarita mix) and Simply Mex (Tequila muddled with fresh cilantro), offered in the bar menu, will be sorely missed.
Nikhil Chinapa’s Submerge is bringing back The Exchange Music Conference for its second year. It aims at improving opportunities for Brit and Indian musicians to collaborate.
“Some of the best ideas and tracks have come from music development and collaboration — the most obvious example of this Where Are U Now by Justin Bieber and Skrillex,” says Chinapa.
He goes on to say that he can’t categorise any of the speakers in neat little boxes according to who’s “big” or not. “It’s really about their contribution to the vertical within the music industry that they’re supporting.
Why wait till February to celebrate love, when you can do it next month? Sensorium, founded by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi and Sunaparanta’s Raj Salgaocar, opens this year’s edition in Goa, themed around love.
Among the participating galleries are Mumbai’s very own Lakeeren and Jhaveri Contemporary. Works by Simryn Gill, Gyan Panchal and Rana Begum, previously unseen in the country, will be showcased by Jhaveri to pay homage to the theme that opens up a world of possibilities.
From Lakeeren’s Arshiya Lokhandwala (in pic) will come works by Chitra Ganesh on tough love, Sharmila Samant’s videos and Anita Dube’s visual couplets. “The works will address different versions of love, right from nostalgia for the homeland to the pathos of love,” says Arshiya.


People tend to eat more calories and fat on the days they also have alcoholic drinks, a new study suggests.
Researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that on average men took in about 400 more calories a day when they drank while women consumed an extra 300.
Possible explanations for the trend were that social events often involve less-healthy foods and people are more impulsive when they are under the influence.
She said the new information gives people an opportunity to be more aware of what they're eating on the days they imbibe.
In a previous study, Breslow found people who drink more tend to have poorer diets in general, compared to those who drink less.
For the current research, she and her colleagues looked at volunteers' diets on both the days they drank and the days they abstained.
The data came from a large U.S. health and lifestyle survey conducted in 2003 through 2008.
More than 1,800 people answered a diet questionnaire on two days within a ten-day span - one day when they drank and another when they did not.
When people did imbibe, they had an average of two to three alcoholic beverages at a time, most commonly beer and wine.
Breslow's team found that on non-alcohol days, men in the study ate about 2,400 calories, based on their diet reports, and women consumed 1,700 calories, on average. When they also drank, men took in about 400 more daily calories and women about 300 more.
For women, the extra calories could be explained by the alcohol alone - but for men, between 100 and 200 were from food.
The types of food people ate - not just how much - changed on the days they drank as well. For example, men and women both ate about nine per cent more fat when they drank alcohol, the researchers reported in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Men reported eating more white potatoes and meat on their drinking days and both men and women drank less milk.
Although food choices tended to go in a less-healthy direction on drinking days, 'we can't say that because these people were taking in more calories that they would be gaining weight, because we didn't study that,' Breslow told Reuters Health.
The researchers don't know how people ate on the other days of the week, she pointed out, and they might have been compensating for their poor eating habits on drinking days.
'Why that's happening, it's very hard to speculate based on this,' said Dr Suthat Liangpunsakul, who studies alcohol consumption at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis and was not involved in the study.
Liangpunsakul agreed that it's difficult to determine just how important less-healthy diets on drinking days might be to people's health.
'We don't know if it will (influence) obesity or weight changes,' he told Reuters Health.
Breslow said people should be aware that alcoholic beverages add calories and be mindful of how they eat when they drink alcohol, focusing on whole grains, healthy oils and vegetables. And, she added, people should drink in moderation.
Current federal guidelines recommend women drink no more than one alcoholic beverage each day and men no more than two.


Santiago.- Major League Baseball’s invitation to theAll-Star Game came to Johnny Cueto as a toy in the hands of poor children atChristmas.
So imagine the happiness he must’ve felt once he learned hewould be the National League’s starting pitcher.
"I did not expect to be the starter, I was just happyto participate, but I feel very pleased and happy to be here," said SanFrancisco Giants’ top starter in the press conference prior to the All Stargame Tuesday night.
Cueto, with David Ortiz, Manny Machado and Marcell Ozuna willlead the numerous Dominicans who a will see action in tonight’s classic at SanDiego’s Petco Park.


Thai protesters continued to prevent Cambodian motorbikes from entering Thailand via the O’Smach international border gate in Oddar Meanchey province, officials said yesterday. The gate was closed for a few hours Wednesday after Thai villagers demonstrated in an attempt to block Cambodian vehicles from transporting goods across the border. After Cambodian officials negotiated with their Thai counterparts yesterday, carts were allowed across, but motorbikes were still banned. “We demand that the Thai authorities allow Cambodians’ motorbikes to travel to the market,” Chhim Sivuth, the province’s chief inspector, said yesterday.


TSMC is ramping into 3nm as soon as possible, with the Taiwanese semiconductor giant spending $20 billion on a next-gen 3nm manufacturing plant, so that it can keep customers like Apple happy in the future.
Samsung and Intel have been in the fab game for a while now, but TSMC has been spending around $10 billion per year in order to keep up to, or exceed what their two main competitors are doing. TSMC has announced its building a next-gen 3nm technology plant in Southern Taiwan, but to put it into perspective... 1nm is one billionth of a meter, and measures the width of each transistor in the chip. It's an incredibly intricate process, with TSMC leading the world in many ways.
Morris Chang, founder of TSMC and 86-year-old ultimate boss of the company said: "By the time we're through, by the time we've built all the necessary capacity, I think we would have spent upwards of $15 billion. That's a conservative estimate. Maybe it's safer to say upwards of $20 billion". Don't worry, TSMC won't be going out of business any time soon, as his company is worth a whopping $190 billion.
TSMC's new 3nm plant will be ready by 2022, so expect next-gen Apple smartphones and tablets to rock TSMC's upcoming 3nm node sometime after 2022. 3nm will usher in a 3x reduction in semiconductor size, giving us faster processors that use less power. We should expect quite a leap in smartphone battery life with 3nm, which is the part I'm looking forward to most.


But Springfield's utility company said it would keep looking at renewable power opportunities.
Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Strata Solar LLC does not have a parent company.
City Utilities said Thursday that it will not move forward on a proposed second solar power farm near the Springfield-Branson National Airport.
A new solar farm would have been too expensive for customers, CU said in a recap of its Thursday board meeting. But CU said it will keep looking at renewable power opportunities for the future.
CU told the Springfield Business Journal on Friday that 15 energy companies submitted bids for the project, saying they would charge 5 cents to 12 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity.
Only one bidder, Sun Solar, was based in southern Missouri.
The proposal was a joint project between the airport and CU, according to previous reporting by the News-Leader.
In June, when the airport and CU decided to study whether it made sense to put in a second solar farm, they said the facility would take up 30 acres of land and would add capacity for about 3 more megawatts of energy. They did not set out a timeline for building a second farm.
At the time, CU spokesman Joel Alexander said that putting a solar farm near an airport was desirable because airports are "a gateway to the community." Thus, many visitors would be able to see that Springfield is committed to developing more renewable energy.
The existing solar farm — a 40-acre plant just east of Springfield that is owned by North Carolina-based Strata Solar LLC — was completed in 2014 and has an output of 4.95 megawatts, with 22,000 solar panels. CU owns the land where the farm sits and buys energy produced there.
In late December, CU announced that it had contracted with Italy-based Enel Green Power to become one of four utilities buying energy from the $400 million Diamond Vista wind farm located near Salina, Kansas.
Diamond Vista provides 100 megawatts of electricity to the Springfield area, CU said in a News-Leader report published Dec. 28. With that wind farm added to CU's power-source portfolio, Springfield gets about 40 percent of its energy from renewable sources.
CU has been working to get more "green power" sources into its mix even as demand for electricity is slumping in the United States.
On Jan. 24, the federal government posted an expert report outlining projections for energy consumption from 2019 through 2050.
Based on data models, the feds predict that slow growth in U.S. energy consumption, along with big increases in oil and natural gas production, will change supply and demand such that the United States will start being a net energy exporter in 2020.
America is expected to continue exporting energy until at least 2050, according to the report.
Natural gas is expected to have the biggest growth, and its prices are low, so the feds predict continued demand for natural gas power.
Meanwhile, power companies will shift to more renewable sources over the next 30 years, and more old coal and nuclear power plants are expected to go offline.
Another factor in play is that homes, businesses and machines are getting ever more energy-efficient, meaning that overall U.S. energy consumption could stay relatively flat, even as the total economy gets bigger.
All that's in keeping with CU's own predictions for Springfield. In March, CU said it expects to see just 1 percent growth in the number of its customers for each year from 2018 to 2022.
But electricity use among those roughly 120,000 customers will steadily decline during that time frame, following a trend CU started seeing in 2015.
Decisions about how much energy is used, and what kinds, are seen as very urgent by scientists and some others due to global increases in temperature that humans have caused in recent centuries.
In a report released by the Trump administration over Thanksgiving weekend, federal officials said climate breakdown could cause hundreds of billions of dollars of losses by 2050, and more harm to the U.S. economy by 2100 than was caused by the Great Recession of 2008.


South Korea’s first President Syngman Rhee, left, General Douglas MacArthur, center, and Lieutenant General John Hodge attend a ceremony for the establishment of the Republic of Korea in Seoul on Aug. 15, 1948.
On Sept. 8, 1945, a fine autumn day, a lean-faced, fair-haired figure in starched fatigues stepped onto Korean soil at the port of Incheon. He was Lieutenant General John Hodge, United States Army, the man tasked with carrying out “Baker 40” ― the field order for the occupation of the southern half of the Korean Peninsula.
A professional soldier, Hodge had served with distinction in the greatest war in mankind’s history ― a war which had finished six days previously when Emperor Hirohito had surrendered on the deck of the USS Missouri. Now, with the fighting over, there were some very messy loose ends whipping in the political winds gusting across East Asia. It would be left to the armed forces of the victorious allies ― the only instruments equipped and available for this very large, very complicated job, though not necessarily the best ones ― to tie them up.
As he entered Korea with the men of his XXIV Corps, driving through streets packed with cheering Koreans waving banners scrawled with grandiose statements such as “Welcome Apostles of Justice U.S. Army!” the 55-year-old American was advancing into a situation for which his prior training and experience left him woefully unprepared. It would not be resolved to the full satisfaction of any related party, but would begin an association between the U.S. Armed Forces and South Korea that endures to this day.
John Hodge, a blue-collar native of Golconda, Illinois, had entered the U.S. Army in World War I, rising to the rank of captain, though achieving no great distinction. Between the wars, he served in a variety of infantry regiments and rose through the Army’s staff and war colleges. In June 1942, he was posted to Hawaii. That would be the launch pad from which he would take part in arguably the most murderous combat ever experienced by U.S. fighting men, as they battled from island to island to evict a foe who neither asked for nor gave quarter, and for whom death was preferable to surrender.
His battle record is a roll call of Pacific carnage. He served on Guadalcanal then took temporary command of a leaderless division on New Georgia. Next it was divisional command on Bougainville, then command of XXIV Corps on Leyte and Okinawa. By the end of the war, Hodge wore a Legion of Merit, three Distinguished Service Crosses, an Air Medal and a Purple Heart.
This was a formidable war record for any officer, but offered little experience in the role Hodge would be playing in Korea ― a role that fell somewhere between statesman, politician, arbitrator, economist, judge and policeman.
Korea had disappeared from the map in 1910, swallowed whole by Imperial Japan. Korea’s fate had hardly been a priority for the Allies fighting to liquidate the Axis scourge in campaigns that raged from Northwest Europe to the South Pacific and from Southeast Asia to the Russian steppes.
Though Hitler and Hirohito were allies, Tokyo maintained its April 1941 neutrality pact with the Soviet Union ― even when Stalin was reeling as the Wehrmacht advanced upon Moscow in winter 1941. Had the Japanese abrogated their agreement and invaded the Russian Far East at that time, the U.S.S.R. might well have collapsed, with incalculable ramifications for the rest of the war, and for the world we live in today.
The Japanese, however, stayed true to their word, striking against European and American colonies in Southeast Asia instead. Under Allied pressure Stalin agreed to break the pact after the war in Europe was won. On Aug. 9, the Red Army stormed into Manchuria and Korea, traditionally seen as “a dagger pointing at the heart of Japan.” But with the atomic bombs obviating an invasion and with the United States determined to occupy the island nation, Korea suddenly mattered.
The Americans suggested the 38th parallel as the halt line for the Soviet offensive. Somewhat to American surprise, the Soviets agreed. By the time Hodge and his men landed, the Soviets had already been in Korea for a month, and a range of provisional Korean government movements had been vying for attention since Aug. 15 (the day Japan formally announced its surrender by radio; the signing did not take place on the Missouri until Sept. 2).
The Soviets astutely absorbed the Korea People’s Republic (KPR) ― a loose, national collection of “people’s committees” established by Koreans ― into the government that would eventually take shape under Kim Il-sung. In the South, the Americans were not nearly so ready to do business with groups they saw as communist; the people’s committees would be outlawed.
So this was one challenge for Hodge: On the international relations front, his task was complicated by the fact that he would be governing just as the Cold War started to heat up. The other challenge was intra-Korean, for various local personalities and factions (understandably) wanted to play a role in their national government, but had been polarized during 35 years of colonization. Come 1945, these individuals and groups had widely differing ideas, aims and agendas.
Prior to Hodge’s arrival, the Japanese commander in Seoul, Yoshio Kozuki, had already been in touch with the Americans in Japan, warning them of the dangers of communism and suggesting that the Koreans were getting restless. Hodge’s first priorities were law, order and the disarmament and repatriation of Japanese. By the year-end, nearly 400,000 had left; only 1,000 technical employees remained.
More difficult was the issue of establishing governance through Koreans. Hodge had to deal with the KPR. His orders from Washington were not to back any government. The KPR ― a left-leaning organization, perhaps, but hardly the communist body the Americans believed it to be, would be banned outright in December.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Military Government in Korea (USAMGIK) was established. Early moves by USAMGIK to hire prominent figures who had served the hated Japanese authorities caused an uproar, but with the only trained civil servants members of the former colonial administration, hostility inevitably set in. Hodge himself, once described the Koreans “the same breed of cat” as the Japanese, which did not win him any local friends.
Moreover, the Americans, having dismissed the KPR as a political force, hired heavily from the Korean Democratic Party many of whom spoke English, but the party represented the landlords and wealthier class, and (inevitably) pro-Japanese collaborators. Although USAMGIK did, cut the hated police force by 60 percent, for many ordinary Koreans, looking on, it must have seemed as if they had exchanged one band of occupiers for another.
Meanwhile, various nationalists were returning home from their long struggles abroad. Syngman Rhee and Kim Ku arrived in, respectively October and November. Neither proved amenable to the U.S. general, partly because of their strong interest in overall peninsula affairs, rather than in the governance of the southern half which he was attempting to administer.
Meanwhile, a flow of refugees from Manchuria and north of the 38th parallel were swelling the population, while the uncooperative Soviets in the North controlled most of Korea’s power supply. To its credit, USAMGIK curbed a cholera epidemic and overcame food shortages, upgraded educational materials and established labor laws. But it could not resolve increasingly violent politics and had already been accused in the U.S. press of fostering a right-wing police state.
In autumn 1946, a strike broke out among railway workers in Busan. It spread to Daegu, then across the south. It was suppressed by the police force and the USAMGIK-established constabulary ― the force which would form the basis of the Republic of Korea Army ― assisted by U.S. advisors. It was a brutal process and it formed a groundswell of anti-USAMGIK and anti-rightist opinion across much of the south. The only place where the people’s committees remained were on Jeju Island ― and their day of reckoning was not far off.
But when that happened, the USMGIK era was coming to a close. One of its last acts was a land reform in March 1948, but advised by the landowning classes of the KDP, the reform was only partial. On the global stage, the major powers had failed to reach an agreement on a full Korean plebiscite. U.N.-overseen general elections were carried out in the South on May 10, 1948. The Republic of Korea was established on Aug. 15 with Rhee as president. On Sept. 9, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was established in the north, with Kim Il-sung as president.
Rhee’s state already had an insurgency on its hands. There had been protests on Jeju Island protesting USAMGIK policy and violence by police and right wing paramilitaries; in April, police posts had been attacked. In September, massive counter-insurgency operations were launched. The end result was perhaps 30,000 islanders killed and over half Jeju’s villages destroyed. In October, further fighting flared in Yeosu as military units rebelled.
But this chaos was not for John Hodge to resolve: He had departed Korea on Aug. 27, 1948. Later that same year, the Soviets withdrew their main force troops from Korea; in June 1949, the Americans did the same (though both left behind advisory bodies). With separate nations now established on both sides of the 38th parallel, tensions rose ever higher. Those tensions would explode on June 25, 1950. Troops from across the world would be sucked into the resultant vortex.
And yet it is difficult to say ― with the experience, the guidance and the resources Hodge had at his disposal, and in the Cold War environment in which he was operating ― quite how he could have done a better job. He came; he totally removed the Japanese colonial power apparatus; he stabilized; he administered; he established a government; he left. Much of this was well above his pay grade and he was out of synch on some Washington policies that he was beholden to implement. Yet he did it all within the space of three years, after a 35-year colonial period in which intra-Korean polarities had built up explosive passions, and in an atmosphere of growing international tension.
Have things improved since? As recent US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan demonstrate, even with far greater resources than Hodge ever had, and with much more of the Washington brain trust focused thereon than was ever the case with Korea, there is no “right way” to take over and administer a suddenly leaderless nation. The pitfalls are immense.
John Hodge was not the most famous U.S. soldier to command on the peninsula but he was the first American troop commander in Korea ― a sensitive relationship that continues to this day. USAMGIK’s distant descendent, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), is one of the key components in today’s bilateral relationship.
Obviously, they have been key in keeping the peace since the Korean War, but in an era when only a very few, privileged Koreans could travel abroad ― an era that only came to an end in the early 1990s ― USFK personnel were influential in a different way.
Their radio station was a key channel bringing American popular music to Korea, their TV station provided a window on American life and language, and eateries catering to U.S. soldiers, both on- and off-base, were among the first to offer U.S.-style fast food.
On the converse, the attitude of arrogant U.S. soldiers, and the drunken and sometimes criminal behavior of GIs have caused friction with local hosts, hosts who have, for most of the post-1945 Korean-American relationship, been very much the junior partners.
Much of the latter negativity has ameliorated as USFK’s numbers have dwindled and Korea’s prosperity has risen: While GIs might have looked down on Koreans from the 1950s to the 1980s, they are unlikely to do so today, given this country’s prosperity, sophistication and success. In fact, it would be difficult to think of a better-behaved or more public affairs-conscious overseas garrison than 21st century USFK: GIs in Korea face far more restrictions on their after-hours activities than do other expatriates (or, indeed, Koreans themselves). Moreover, the visibility of GIs has been diluted by the ever-expanding expatriate population.
Yet ironically, the role has become increasingly politicized in their host country, to the extent that USFK is a lightning rod for anti-American sentiment ― a sentiment much on display in 2002.
None of this has anything to do with John Hodge, who died in 1963 at the age of 70. He never served in the Korean War, where the most iconic American figure would be his former boss in Japan, MacArthur. Yet as the first commander of U.S. troops in Korea in the post-1945 era, Hodge’s name will continue to be associated with American soldiers on the peninsula until the last “Yankee” finally “goes home.” Given the strategic situation in both Korea and Northeast Asia, that day looks far off.


"That's not how we do things around here." How often have you heard that? And what does it really mean? It is said to stop someone from doing something new. It is no way to promote innovation, is it?
Organizations lock in on the things that helped them succeed early on. They perpetuate what worked last year. The Status Quo police make sure that happens.
Hierarchies make sure nobody runs off the reservation spending money on crazy, new ideas. "That's not your problem," you hear, or "The bosses won't go for it," or "That doesn't seem practical or necessary." AT&T's hierarchy was able to make sure the company didn't overspend on computer services, network services or cellphones as it carefully maintained its dedication to the sale and delivery of land-line long-distance service. AT&T was acquired by Southwestern Bell when it approached bankruptcy as its revenue growth and profits disappeared.
Commitment to the company's existing technology, product line, distribution system or customer base becomes a sacred cow. Microsoft's commitment to PC technology has kept it investing in operating system and office automation software for the last decade while losing more than two-thirds of its market share in smartphone operating systems and delaying its entry into the fast-growing tablet business--places where Apple has had astoundingly profitable revenue growth. Dell likewise missed both markets as it kept its focus on its supply-chain strength. Both Microsoft and Dell have stagnated in market capitalization as customers shifted to newer technologies.
The status quo police institutionalize initial metrics. They insist that innovations achieve the proper margin, order size or net price or be abandoned--regardless of shifting market demand and potential future growth. Motorola avoided smartphones, seeing them as a small business even if one with higher than traditional margins. Instead the company focused on maintaining its market share targets with its lower-margin sales of ordinary cellphones. Its profits disappeared while Apple soared with an iPhone that had less than 5% market share but a business designed to reap much higher margins. Likewise Digital Equipment focused on its profit margin in computer-aided design and manufacturing software only to be destroyed by its lower margin but higher volume competitor AutoCad.
Such destructive norms couldn't be sustained if there weren't people anointed to enforce rigid adherence to them. Those are the Status Quo police. Their job, first and foremost, is to make sure that historical ways of doing business are not altered. It is not to focus on positive business results. To the contrary, it is to make sure the organization stays with the tried and true regardless of results. The police simply assume that results will be good if the status quo continues.
Does your human resources department seek to hire "the right kind of person for our company"? Does its employee review process focus as much on getting along with peers and supporting cultural norms and supporting the company purpose as on meeting business objectives and getting measurable results? Such HR practices keep a company from hiring, promoting and rewarding people who don't maintain the status quo.
Does your finance department review all proposals concerning new products, distributors, manufacturing processes or market entries and comment on whether they meet internal hurdles for gross margin? For net margin? For risk-adjusted return on investment? Does it require detailed financial models for anything new, challenging the numbers for anything outside the most common historical practice? If so, your finance managers are the Status Quo police, keeping the business from doing what may be competitively necessary though frighteningly new.
Does your marketing department tightly control what products can carry the company's brand name? Or resist selling through new distribution channels for fear of upsetting old distribution lines? Marketing department managers enforce status quo adherence by making sure they protect old norms first, and they avoid venturing into new products or new ways of distribution regardless of what is happening in the marketplace.
At Virgin and Nike the brand means--what? While other record distributors and running shoe companies are now forgotten, Virgin and Nike have grown dramatically by expanding into new businesses far beyond their original arenas of success.
Amazon's rapid entry into entirely new businesses, including the Kindle and mass merchandising far removed from book sales, has helped it grow and grow. Meanwhile Procter & Gamble has paid the price of focusing on minor brand extensions, seeking approval from the Status Quo police for products like Tide Basic, Charmin Basic and Bounty Basic. Does anybody really consider a less good, cheaper product any way to generate double-digit growth? Sears has lost all growth with its inability to deal with the emergence of traditional retail competitors that have different margin needs and merchandising plans, such as Kohl's , Lowe's and Target , and its inability to embrace Internet retailing as well.
Early in their lives, when growth is good, companies form Status Quo police to make sure they keep doing what works well--always the same thing, albeit better, faster and cheaper when possible. They have ultimate faith that this strategy will forever produce profits. They make sure that all resources--people, money, management attention, supplier enhancements--serve that end. No matter how market needs change.
In fact, when markets shift, the Status Quo police become an internal gestapo. They make doubly sure change doesn't happen. Deteriorating results are beside the point. Realignment with markets, re-establishing growth and improving profitability cannot begin until somebody removes those Status Quo police from power. Only then can innovation and organizational creativity re-emerge to successfully focus on results and take the company forward.
Adam Hartung lives in Chicago and is a partner in Vector Growth Partners, a growth strategy consulting firm in suburban Washington, D.C. He is the author of Create Marketplace Disruption: How to Stay Ahead of the Competition. Learn more at AdamHartung.com.


A 10-year-old girl was taken to hospital this morning after being hit by a car in Mansfield.
The collision happened at 8.40am on Forest Road.
The road was closed earlier this morning.


In close partnership with the Palestinian Authority and Food Security Sector partners, WFP’s Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) strategy focuses on building the resilience and capacity of the most vulnerable people and communities. WFP works on ensuring food security during disasters and increasing the government’s ability to respond to them while reducing risk and protecting and enhancing lives and livelihoods.
Disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness and response are central priorities for WFP in light of the profound impacts that disasters have on food-insecure and vulnerable populations worldwide. In 2010, more than 50 percent of WFP’s programmes addressed the risks of natural disasters and their impact on food security, reaching approximately 80 million people.
WFP’s role as the world’s largest humanitarian food assistance organization, combined with its deep field presence in the world’s hotspots, makes it one of the key experts in emergency preparedness and response.
Following the global Hyogo Framework, WFP’s strategy has four integrated pillars: 1) Enable the Environment, 2) Watch to Safeguard, 3) Prepare to Respond and 4) Build Resilience.
Development and enacting of national strategies linked to DRR.
Integration of DRR activities across government agencies.
Harmonization of food security information.
Common communication platforms to inform action.
WFP’s goal is to build the emergency preparedness and response capacity of the Palestinian Civil Defense (PCD) and local communities.
Establishment of an emergency web portal.
Mobile phone applications to enhance emergency assessment and data collection.
Developing an emergency telecommunication plan.
Establishing an operations room in PCD headquarters and radio base stations throughout the West Bank.
Providing community level volunteers with emergency response training.
Initiated the establishment of the emergency web-portal.
Carried out a training on mobile phone solutions for emergency assessments, for a better insight on how smartphone assessment tools can best serve the PCD.
WFP has also provided the PCD with essential equipment such as water-proof winter overalls, gloves, electric gloves and head flashlights.
WFP is closely coordinating its emergency preparedness activities with other UN agencies, such as OCHA, UNDP, UNOPS and UNRWA. This ensures coherent and gap-filling interventions, where each partners’ strengths and comparative advantages are used optimally.
Funding needs for WFP’s emergency preparedness and response programmes in 2013-2015.
WFP is building the resilience of food insecure communities by using food assistance as a springboard to support agricultural development, addressing the impacts of climate change, enabling the “Greening of Palestine” and supporting local economic activity. WFP’s Conditional Voucher Programme in the West Bank provides food vouchers through food-for-work activities that support communities and food-for-training activities that empower youth, women and farmers.
In January 2013 WFP launched the conditional voucher programmer reaching almost 10,000 people with voucher-for-work/training activities.


GoPro CEO Nick Woodman discusses how the U.S.-China trade dispute is affecting his business and what makes the Hero 7 so unique.
GoPro is part a wave of tech companies that are having to shapeshift their manufacturing to deal with the trade dispute between the U.S and China.
In a First on FOX Business interview with Liz Claman, GoPro CEO Nick Woodman said President Trump’s tariff concerns were the catalyst for moving its production out of China.
GoPro, which has sold 30 million plus of their action cameras, will continue to produce its product that are for non U.S. markets in China.
“As we looked into our options, we recognized that is actually smart business for us to move a percentage of our business outside of China,” Woodman.
The San Mateo, California-based company has yet to announce where it will move its US-bound production. Woodman, founder of the publicly-traded company, said part of his job as CEO is to field potential buyout offers and maximize return for its shareholders.
GoPro is showcasing its flagship HERO7 Black camera at CES 2019, returning to the action camera company’s original business model Woodman said shaped the brand.


my personality im suree is to be shy at first.
i do not like energy drinks as i believe its a waste of health aswell as money, speaking from experience.
I like sport, i support Stormers on rugby and southampton fc on football. i also play lms cricket, havent played for a while though.
I dont like bullies, snakes and i hate criminals.
outlook on life, i tend to not really care at the moment, thats why im looking for inspiration, someone that i can live for.
beggers cant be choosers, however i do prefer them to be white and no children as i would like to start my own adventure, otherwise, one child is welcome. lol. I would like someone that likes me for me. i will never cheat on my partner because finding one partner is hard enough. but truely speaking, i would like to break my streak of never having a girlfriend.
ikronnie hasn't asked any friends to write a recommendation yet.


President Donald Trump announces his decision on the Paris Climate Accord in the Rose Garden of the White House on Thursday.
Under the 2015 deal, the U.S. pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% below its 2005 levels in 2025.
Trump’s announcement may not simply be an in-or-out decision.
The president could actually decide to stay in the accord but adjust the U.S. targets. As the Associated Press notes, countries are permitted to change their goals and there isn’t punishment for missing the targets.
The backdrop to today’s announcement is Trump’s campaign pledge to abandon the deal, and failure to fully do so could alienate some supporters.
Yet even his own advisers are divided. On Wednesday, Trump said he was hearing from “a lot of people both ways.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson favors staying in; Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt calls it a bad deal for the U.S.
Meanwhile, Tesla /quotes/zigman/118681/delayed /quotes/zigman/118681/lastsale TSLA CEO Elon Musk threatened to quit a pair of White House advisory councils if Trump quits the Paris agreement.
While environmentalists and other countries would criticize a withdraw, it’s worth noting that there are no penalties for the U.S. if it pulls out. The deal isn’t binding.
What’s more, leaving the agreement wouldn’t mean the end of all domestic efforts to reduce emissions, as the New York Times noted in this Q&A. States like California and New York are planning to keep pursuing their own programs to clean up power plants and vehicles.
The Sierra Club sent out this tweet a few minutes ago — a nod to Trump’s adviser Steve Bannon reportedly having the president’s ear on this issue.
U.S. stocks are broadly up as Trump prepares to speak, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq all posting gains.
Some of the biggest names in Corporate America have urged Trump to stay in the accord, including Apple /quotes/zigman/68270/delayed /quotes/zigman/68270/lastsale AAPL , Google /quotes/zigman/59527964/delayed /quotes/zigman/59527964/lastsale GOOG and Exxon /quotes/zigman/203975/delayed /quotes/zigman/203975/lastsale XOM .
We’ve passed the advertised time for Trump to make his announcement, but that’s pretty typical for any White House. Stay tuned.
Trump, per a source, will follow the 4-yr rule to get out of Paris, meaning the US will leave on Nov 4, 2020.
Election Day 2020: Nov 3.
We’re getting somewhat of a preview of what Trump is going to say. Notice the use of the word “deal.” Trump may say he can get a better deal for the U.S., if he wants one at all.
A Democratic senator from Connecticut is apologizing to Earth and already looking forward to the next election.
Dear planet, we’re sorry. Please just hang on for three and a half more years and we’ll fix this. We promise.
Close to showtime. Here’s Vice President Mike Pence, introducing Trump.
President Trump is choosing to put “the forgotten men and women” first with this announcement, Pence says. Trump used the same line on Election Day.
But before his Paris comments, Trump says it’s “very sad” as to what’s going on in the world with regard to terror, after the reports of explosions and gunfire in the Philippines.
And he’s hailing the growth of the stock market since Election Day, as well as how many jobs the U.S. had added.
Trump says the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris climate accord, prompting applause in the Rose Garden.
But he says he’ll begin negotiations to re-enter. “We will start to negotiate and see if we can make a deal that’s fair,” he says.
Trump also says it’s possible the U.S. will negotiate something new entirely.
“The Paris accord is very unfair, at the highest level, to the United States,” Trump says.
He singles out India being allowed to double its coal production.
Trump is repeating his economic-growth target of 3% to 4%, and saying the U.S. needs “all forms” of energy.
Economists have said even 3% growth would be a major feat, as MarketWatch has written.
Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine says she’s disappointed in Trump’s decision. She’s a key centrist in the GOP.
Trump’s criticism of the Green Climate Fund isn’t new. Ceasing U.S. payments to the fund were part of his budget released last month.
That was quick: Elon Musk tweeted that he’s leaving the White House councils he sits on.
Executives including Elon Musk said they were disappointed with Trump’s decision while House Speaker Paul Ryan said the president made the right move.
What Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris agreement means for your wallet.
Opinion: Everyone will survive Trump’s climate mistake — except Big Coal.


Gmail recently added the “undo” feature for its mobile users. Here’s how you can recall an email before it is sent.
Have you ever sent an email in a rush, only to regret the silly errors and typos a moment later? Gmail has had an “undo” feature for desktop users for a few years now, but they made it available for mobile users only earlier this month. The catch, however, is that you have just about 10 seconds to tap the undo button before it’s too late.
Gmail’s “undo” email feature is available for all iPhone, iPad and Android users. You can use the feature on a browser or the Gmail application on your phone. So, here’s how you can recall an email on Gmail.
After you have drafted the email and hit the sent button, you will see a notification on the left corner of your screen saying “sending” and “undo”. Quickly click on the undo button. Instead of getting sent, the email will appear on your screen as a draft. You can now make all the changes you want to the email before sending it again.
Similar to the desktop, compose the email and hit send. Right after you’ve hit the send button, you will notice an alert “send” and the option to “undo”. Tap on undo.
While the “undo” button is a very helpful option, a better way to avoid sending emails erroneously is to make it a two-step process.
On your Gmail, tap on the left panel and scroll down to “settings”. Now, go to “general settings” and check mark the option to “confirm before sending”. Enabling this feature will add another step by prompting you on whether the email is to be sent or not.


Hospitals around the country were inundated with people arriving at their emergency departments to see if they had sustained eye damage as a result of watching the eclipse.
(Turn around.) Every now and then I get a little bit lonely. And you’re never coming ’round. (Turn around.) Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears. (Turn around.) Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by. (Turn around.) Every now and then I get a little bit terrified. And then I see the look in your eyes.
But then I see the look in your eyes.
(Turn around, bright eyes!) Every now and then I fall apart.
And I need you now tonight. And I need you more than ever. And if you only hold me tight. We’ll be holding on forever. And we’ll only be making it right. Cause we’ll never be wrong together.


Beach resorts on the Yucatan Peninsula are removed from the violence, author says.
Editor's Note: Robert Reid is Lonely Planet's New York-based U.S. travel editor and host of the 76-Second Travel Show.
New York (CNN) -- Mexico tourism is having a bit of a PR problem lately.
Reports of mass grave sites, daylight shootings and carjackings from the escalating drug war don't exactly build confidence for a family planning a week's holiday. And on April 22, the U.S. State Department upgraded its travel warnings to target 14 of Mexico's 31 states.
Now's not the time to visit our southerly neighbor, right? Well, wrong. Mexico is a lot safer than you may realize.
We tend to lump all of Mexico -- a country the size of Western Europe -- together. For example, a border incident resulted in the death of a Colorado tourist last year, and the Texas Department of Homeland Security recommended against travel to all of Mexico.
Yet it's in the 17 of 31 states not named in the newly expanded warnings where you'll find the most rewarding destinations: the Yucatan Peninsula and Baja California beach resorts, colonial hill towns like the ex-pat haven of San Miguel de Allende, even the capital Mexico City.
An hour inland from Cancun's beaches, Yucatan state -- home to the most popular Mayan sites and "real Mexican" colonial cities such as Merida and Valladolid -- is among the country's safest. The state, with roughly the same population as Kansas, saw two drug-related deaths in 2010. Wichita, Kansas, alone had six gang-related killings over the same period.
In most of central and southern Mexico, drug violence simply isn't on the radar of daily life. "It's as easy-going as it's always been," said Deborah Felixson, a diving operator on Cozumel who is "shocked" when people say they had been scared to go to the Caribbean island. "We're just small communities here. We all know what everyone's up to."
That sentiment is found even in places once linked with political tension, such as Chiapas state and Oaxaca City, where political protest turned into a stand-off in 2006.
"Things are so much quieter now," said Rogelio Vallesteros, who runs a Spanish-language school in Oaxaca City. "People call to ask about safety all the time, then they come and see how quiet it is. We're normal, really."
After the swine-flu crisis of 2009 -- when some cruise ships diverted routes from Mexican ports that had no reported cases to American ones that did -- travel bounced back a bit last year. Interestingly, the increase of returning Canadians and many Western Europeans doubled that of the American rate. We seem to remain particularly leery of Mexico.
That's sad. My love of travel began with childhood visits to Mexican ruins and beaches, and I feel the U.S. is fortunate, not cursed, to be so close to a place that offers jungles, deserts, volcanoes, beaches, coral reefs, ancient pyramids, living pre-European cultures and some of the world's most satisfying cuisines.
And of course the best reason to go: the people.
A couple years ago, I informally polled various innkeepers and tour operators worldwide to find out who are the world's friendliest travelers. Guess who won. "Mexicans are such a joy to have here," one Bulgarian guesthouse owner e-mailed back. "They make everyone feel happier."
And it's often better in Mexico, where locals show particular gusto in love of life. Once I saw fireworks go off in Mexico City, before sunset, and asked a local why. He was surprised I didn't know. "It's Friday," he explained.
In restaurants, strangers seeing each other's eyes instinctively say "buen provecho" before eating. It's an earnest wish that their food should not only be tasty, but really pleasurable, and that the hope that their life will be a bit better as a result. There really is no English equivalent. Even our adopted "bon appétit" pales in significance.
Naturally, crime exists everywhere in Mexico.
I've been pickpocketed in Guadalajara (and in New York, too). But that's the extent of my unpleasant scrapes in a dozen visits that have taken me to home-stay language courses, traditional Mayan markets, mummy museums, cenotes (surreal limestone sinkholes in which you can swim) and even Zapatista zones in the south.
Most travel to Mexico, ultimately, is simply good travel. It's fun, affordable, eye-opening and fascinating (seriously, what other city of 21 million other than Mexico City is founded on a filled-in lake?).
But, no, you don't have to visit Mexico. And there are certainly places, like Ciudad Juarez or Tamaulipas state, I'd never visit now. Just know that the Mexico experienced on the ground almost never matches the Mexico we increasingly see and read about.