ACTON, Mass., June 5, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SeaChange International, Inc. (Nasdaq:SEAC), a leading global multi-screen video software innovator, today reported first quarter fiscal 2015 revenue of $24.3 million and a non-GAAP operating loss of $7.2 million, or $0.22 per basic share, from continuing operations. In comparison, first quarter fiscal 2014 revenue was $35.6 million and non-GAAP operating income was $1.2 million, or $0.04 per fully diluted share, from continuing operations. The Company posted U.S. GAAP operating loss of $10.1 million, or $0.31 per basic share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2015, compared to a U.S. GAAP operating loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 of $1.8 million, or $0.05 per basic share. The Company's U.S. GAAP first quarter fiscal 2015 results include charges of $3.0 million that are excluded from its non-GAAP results, which consisted primarily of stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets from prior acquisitions.
"In spite of the anticipated short-term challenges, which include significant declines in legacy product revenues and continuing delays in receiving customer acceptances for new products, as well as push outs of expected orders, SeaChange is continuing to invest in R&D to further enhance our next generation software products to support new and existing customer requirements," said Raghu Rau, CEO, SeaChange. "While these investments impact short-term profitability, we believe they will create long-term value based on continuing customer traction of our next generation products. During the first quarter, we received acceptance of our Adrenalin multi-screen television platform from two service providers that was previously delayed. Since the end of the first quarter, we have also begun to receive orders from three large U.S. service providers that were expected earlier. We also have achieved a new design win with an existing customer for Adrenalin and our Nucleus video gateway software in an additional European country. Based on expected rollouts of our next generation products and customer upgrades, we remain confident that our revenue and profitability will improve sequentially in each of the next three quarters. We also expect to grow second half fiscal 2015 revenues and profitability year over year."
Anthony Dias, CFO, SeaChange, said, "As we've stated previously, our first quarter is typically our lowest period seasonally and this quarter's results were compounded by significant legacy declines and delays in customer acceptances of new products. We expect our second quarter fiscal 2015 revenues to be in the range of $26 million to $30 million and non-GAAP operating loss between $0.10 and $0.20 per basic share. Driven by orders for our new products and lowered legacy revenue declines in the second half of this year, we expect revenues for full fiscal 2015 to be in the range of $125 million to $135 million and non-GAAP operating results to be in the range of a loss of $0.12 per share to an operating income of $0.10 per share."
SeaChange ended the first quarter of fiscal 2015 with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $116.6 million and no debt outstanding, compared to $128.1 million at the close of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014. The Company repurchased $3.5 million of its outstanding shares under its $25 million stock buyback authorization during the first quarter. On May 31, 2014, SeaChange's Board of Directors amended the plan, increasing the buyback authorization from $25 million to $40 million and extending the termination date of the plan from January 31, 2015 to April 30, 2015.
The Company will host a conference call to discuss its first quarter fiscal 2015 results at 5:00 p.m. ET today, Thursday, June 5, 2014. The call may be accessed at 877-407-8037 (U.S.) and 201-689-8037 (international) and via live webcast at www.schange.com/IR. For those unable to listen to the live conference call, a replay will be available through June 19, 2014 and may be accessed by dialing 877-660-6853 (U.S.) or 201-612-7415 (international). Callers will be prompted for replay conference ID number 1358-2281. An archived version of the webcast will also be available on the investor relations section of the Company's website at www.schange.com/IR.
Ranked among the top 250 software companies in the world, SeaChange International, Inc. (Nasdaq:SEAC) enables transformative multi-screen video services through an open, cloud-based, intelligent software platform trusted by cable, telco and mobile operators globally. Personalized and fully monetized video experiences anytime on any device, in the home and everywhere, are the product of the Company's superior multi-screen, advertising and video gateway software products.
Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts, including without limitation statements regarding future financial performance, next generation products and customer upgrades, and the repurchase of the Company's shares, are neither promises nor guarantees and may constitute forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any such forward-looking statements contained herein are based on current assumptions and expectations, but are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Factors that could cause actual future results to differ materially from current expectations include the following: the continued spending by the Company's customers on video systems and services; the continued development of the multi-screen video market; the Company's ability to successfully introduce new products or enhancements to existing products and the rate of decline in revenue attributable to our legacy products; worldwide economic cycles; measures taken to address the variability in the market for our products and services; uncertainties introduced by our prior evaluation of strategic alternatives; the Company's transition to being a company that primarily provides software solutions; the loss of one of the Company's large customers; the cancellation or deferral of purchases of the Company's products; the length of the Company's sales cycles; the timing of revenue recognition of new products due to customer integration and acceptance requirements; any decline in demand or average selling prices for our products; the Company's ability to manage its growth; the risks associated with international operations; the ability of the Company and its intermediaries to comply with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; compliance with conflict minerals regulations; foreign currency fluctuation; the Company's ability to protect its intellectual property rights and the expenses that may be incurred by the Company to protect its intellectual property rights; an unfavorable result of current or future litigation; content providers limiting the scope of content licensed for use in the video-on-demand market or other limitations in materials we use to provide our products and services; the risks associated with purchasing material components from sole suppliers and using a limited number of third-party manufacturers; the Company's ability to obtain necessary licenses or distribution rights for third-party technology; the Company's ability to compete in its marketplace; the Company's ability to respond to changing technologies; the impact of acquisitions, divestitures or investments made by the Company; the impact of changes in the market on the value of our investments; changes in the regulatory environment; the Company's ability to hire and retain highly skilled employees; the ability of the Company to manage and oversee the outsourcing of engineering work; the security measures of the Company are breached and customer data or our data is obtained unlawfully; service interruptions or delays from our third-party data center hosting facilities; and the effectiveness of the Company's disclosure controls and procedures and internal controls over financial reporting.
Further information on factors that could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated is detailed in various publicly available documents made by the Company from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to, those appearing under the caption "Certain Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on April 4, 2014. Any forward-looking statements should be considered in light of those factors. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak as of the date they are made. The Company disclaims any obligation to publicly update or revise any such statements to reflect any change in Company expectations or events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statements may be based, or that may affect the likelihood that actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.
We define non-GAAP (loss) income from operations as U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles ("U.S. GAAP") operating loss plus stock-based compensation expenses, amortization of intangible assets, earn-outs and change in fair value of earn-outs, professional fees associated with acquisitions, divestitures, litigation and strategic alternatives and severance and other restructuring costs. We discuss non-GAAP (loss) income from operations in our quarterly earnings releases and certain other communications as we believe non-GAAP (loss) income from operations is an important measure that is not calculated according to U.S. GAAP. We use non-GAAP (loss) income from operations in internal forecasts and models when establishing internal operating budgets, supplementing the financial results and forecasts reported to our Board of Directors, determining a component of bonus compensation for executive officers and other key employees based on operating performance and evaluating short-term and long-term operating trends in our operations. We believe that non-GAAP (loss) income from operations assists in providing an enhanced understanding of our underlying operational measures to manage the business, to evaluate performance compared to prior periods and the marketplace, and to establish operational goals. We believe that these non-GAAP financial adjustments are useful to investors because they allow investors to evaluate the effectiveness of the methodology and information used by management in our financial and operational decision-making.
Non-GAAP (loss) income from operations is a non-GAAP financial measure and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information provided in accordance with U.S. GAAP. This non-GAAP financial measure may not be computed in the same manner as similarly titled measures used by other companies. We expect to continue to incur expenses similar to the non-GAAP (loss) income from operations financial adjustments described above, and investors should not infer from our presentation of this non-GAAP financial measure that these costs are unusual, infrequent or non-recurring.
Severance and Other Restructuring . We incur charges due to the restructuring of our business, including severance charges and facility reductions resulting from our restructuring and streamlining efforts and any changes due to revised estimates, which we generally would not have otherwise incurred in the periods presented as part of our continuing operations.


A retired British Secret Service agent is interrogated about his past and former colleague George Smiley.
Set in 1558 England, two lovers find themselves on opposite sides of a conflict between Catholics and Protestants.
Chief Superintendent Gamache regrets not acting on a hunch when a body is discovered in Three Pines.
Lisbeth Salander is back, teaming with a journalist to uncover the secrets of her childhood.
An Army veteran turned charter boat captain is hired to find $60 million stashed somewhere in Cuba.
An elderly billionaire moves into Greenwich Village with his three sons and gets entangled with a sleek Russian expat.
A self-sufficient 14-year-old girl fights to save herself from her abusive, survivalist father.
Agent Mitch Rapp quits the C.I.A to hunt down the nephew of a Saudi King funding a terrorist group.
The NBC News correspondent writes about covering Donald Trump’s 2016 Presidential campaign.
Cultivating the power of belonging in an era of disconnection.
A memoir from the Grand Slam tennis champion chronicling her wins and challenges.
How the politics and culture of five centuries of historical events led to the current national climate.
This memoir from The New Yorker writer focuses on his early years in the city during the 1980s.
The story of counterculture chef, restaurateur and owner of Chez Panisse.


It is 1941 and the world is in the throes of war. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) wants to do his part and join America's armed forces, but the military rejects him because of his small stature. Finally, Steve gets his chance when he is accepted into an experimental program that turns him into a supersoldier called Captain America. Joining forces with Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), Captain America leads the fight against the Nazi-backed HYDRA organization.


Across the country Canadian Forces Army reserve units are opening their doors to the public on Saturday as part of a major recruiting effort.
7 Intelligence Company, the reserve intelligence element for the National Capital Region, is looking for recruits to become military intelligence professionals.
One of the company’s vehicles is in downtown Ottawa on Saturday at Cartier Square Drill Hall, 2 Queen Elizabeth Street as part of the Canadian Army’s reserve cross-country open house that day. Recruiters will also be at the DND Blueprint 2020 Career Fair, at the Diefenbaker Centre, 111 Sussex Drive, on Wednesday, Oct. 17. Company personnel will be on hand at both events to talk to area residents interested in the military intelligence profession about part-time and future full-time opportunities.
Company commander Major Bruce Rolston says his 80-strong army company are mostly reservists who hold intelligence analyst positions across the government, including many parts of the Department of National Defence, and also choose to work part-time to select and train the next generation of army intelligence operators. “Our training and reputation gives our part-time personnel excellent options for transition to full-time employment in the intelligence sector,” he said.
One of five reserve intelligence companies located in major Canadian cities, 7 Int Coy began its 25th year of existence in 2018 by amalgamating with the new Canadian Army Intelligence Regiment, the army’s combined regular and reserve force intelligence unit. 7 Int Coy also maintains a high-readiness full-time intelligence support team for deployment domestically or overseas in support of the Regular Force.
In August, that team of Ottawa personnel deployed to British Columbia to work with the Canadian Forces response to the forest fires in British Columbia.
“With this first operational deployment for this new full-time team, its members join the many reserve intelligence personnel from the National Capital Region who have previously deployed overseas to support Canadian military operations, including Afghanistan, the Middle East and Eastern Europe,” said Rolston, himself a veteran of Afghanistan.
While normally keeping a lower profile for operational security reasons, 7 Int Coy is currently actively recruiting for new part-time intelligence operators as part of the Army’s initiative to increase the Army Reserve and in response to last year’s Defence Policy Review which called for both for more intelligence personnel and a stronger role for the reserves. The company’s bilingual team of recruiters are attending several career-related events in the Ottawa area in the next few months with the company’s new Intelligence Support Team vehicles. Such a vehicle is a mobile information management and processing centre outfitted with computers and communications equipment, that has been deployed already on several other domestic operations.
Members of 7 Intelligence Company plotting and analyzing reports during training in Petawawa in March 2017.
Both photos courtesy of 7 Intelligence Company.


Sending money to friends and family abroad can be inefficient and expensive. Seattle-based startup Remitly has created a tool that aims to fix this problem — given the company’s growth and its most recent investment round, it’s certainly finding success doing so.
Remitly today announced a $12.5 million Series B round led by DFJ, with participation from DN Capital and existing investors QED Investors and Trilogy Equity Partners. The company will use the fresh funds to further develop its product and expand service to more countries. Total funding is now at $22.5 million.
Remitly currently allows users to make instant direct deposits within its network of banks in 45 U.S. states, India, and the Philippines. Last year, Remitly grew its customer base by 400 percent and helped transfer more than $100 million.
Remitly co-founder and CEO Matt Oppenheimer said that on average, competitors charge customers a 7.9 percent fee to send money internationally. Remitly, meanwhile, only charges an average of 2 percent as it eliminates the need for forms, codes, agents, and other fees typically associated with the international money transfer process.
The company, a Techstars Seattle grad which is also backed by the likes of Founders’ Co-up and Jeff Bezos’ Bezos Expeditions, employs 70 — 30 in Seattle and 40 abroad — and plans to use the fresh cash to bring on more talent.
“Given how huge market is, we are really excited about being able to raise additional capital to not only grow in markets we are operating in, but also expand our product globally,” said Oppenheimer, who came up with the idea for Remitly while working at Barclays in Kenya.
GeekWire recently named Remitly one of Seattle’s 10 most-promising startups. As part of the new funding round, DJF Partner Bill Bryant will join Remitly’s board. Bryant detailed the reasons for DJF’s investment in Remitly here.


[i] 1 BTU (British Thermal Unit) is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit.
[ii] Typical efficiency for a combustion turbine.
[iii] Typical efficiency for new oil- or gas-fired base load steam plant or combined cycle plant.
[iv] Typical efficiency for a new base load coal-fired steam plant.


Obamacare has put millions of people on the health insurance rolls, but it has yet to rein in soaring prescription drug costs for patients.
A diagnosis of cancer, asthma, diabetes -- any of hundreds of chronic conditions -- can leave insured patients on the hook for thousands of dollars a year in co-payments and deductibles, all at a time when income may already be strained due to treatment. While the Affordable Care Act limits out-of-pocket costs to $6,350 for individuals and $12,700 for families, those costs come on top of the monthly insurance premiums.
"A major illness becomes a huge financial burden very quickly," says Erin Moaratty, chief of mission delivery for the Patient Advocate Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose Co-Pay Relief Program helps reimburse patients for their drug costs.
"A doctor writes you a prescription, and you have no idea what you're going to pay until you show up at the pharmacy," she says. "That's one of the biggest shockers."
Prescription drugs cost more in this country than anywhere in the developed world. The U.S. government does not negotiate costs with pharmaceutical companies, and product patents limit market competition. As a result, a drug that costs $20 in Europe, for example, might cost $200 here.
Insurance companies shift their costs to patients, typically via high co-pays and annual minimum deductibles. According to a recent report in the American Journal of Medicine, nearly a quarter of chronically ill patients reported underusing medication due to cost.
With financial backing from pharmaceutical manufacturers, researchers and retailers, hundreds of co-pay assistance and drug-discount programs exist that will help pay patients' out-of-pocket prescription medication expenses.
Programs' eligibility guidelines and reimbursement amounts vary. But below are some general guidelines. Patients can end up with free or nearly free drugs.
Insurance required. While other programs exist to help the uninsured, co-pay programs are geared toward those with medical insurance. (See "How to buy an individual health plan.") This can include those on Medicare or Medicaid. Medicare Part D patients who get caught in the donut hole, a gap in full drug coverage beyond $2,850 annual drug costs, can find many programs offering co-pay benefits.
Approved medication. Co-pay benefits are typically for drugs that have been prescribed by a doctor and approved by the patient's insurer. Many programs may not cover experimental treatments.
An income threshold. Assistance may be reserved for low-income patients, but not always. The Co-Pay Relief Program requires that recipients earn no more than 400 percent of the federal poverty level. In 2014, that amounted to $46,680 for a single person and $95,400 for a family of four.
Other programs may consider family expenses and the drug costs. Patients should not hesitate to look into co-pay assistance, even if they think their income may be too high, says Moaratty. Some programs are quite generous. And your circumstances could change. What if treatment sidelines you from work? Best to have financial assistance programs waiting in the bullpen.
In country only. Programs here are typically reserved for patients who live in the United States and are receiving treatment here.
Disease or medication limits: Some programs may have annual benefit limits for each disease or medication. The Co-Pay Relief Program, for example, provides a maximum of $5,000 for breast cancer, $2,500 for rheumatoid arthritis and $7,500 for hepatitis C.
Doctor's offices - particularly nurses and billing clerks - are familiar with co-pay programs and can help patients file applications. Pharmacists, hospital navigators and illness support groups should have information, as well.
You can brave the Internet. Just be warned that many companies charge a fee for services that others provide for free.
"What they're offering is to kind of take you out of the loop and do it for you, but it's not that difficult to do," says Moaratty. "You don't have to pay anybody to get to these programs."
Instead, try these reputable, free routes to get the same kind of assistance.
Partnership for Prescription Assistance (PPA): Sponsored by biopharmaceutical research companies, the PPA serves as a clearinghouse, linking patients with prescription assistance programs that best fit their needs. Working with more than 475 public and private programs, PPA has helped millions of Americans obtain free or low-cost medicine. Patients can phone a representative and are never charged a fee.
NeedyMeds: An online resource, NeedyMeds lets patients search by medication, diagnosis or region to find co-pay assistance programs as well as community health clinics. The site is free to use and does not collect personal information or require registration.
First and foremost, don't hesitate to raise the issue with your medical provider, says Moaratty. Doctors want their patients to follow the prescribed course of treatment, but they often don't ask patients if cost is preventing access to medication.
"As a patient it's important to express some of the challenges you're having," Moaratty says.
For those without insurance -- an estimated 32 million Americans remain uninsured -- sites such as NeedyMeds provide information on drug discount cards, which can help pay the direct costs of prescription medications.


DBC told to hand in draft letter by next week.
iiNet and several other internet service providers have been ordered to pay most of the court costs for the owners of the Dallas Buyers Club film for being "adversarial" in the proceedings.
Justice Perram today ruled that by putting "nearly everything in issue", iiNet, Internode, Dodo, Amnet, Adam Internet and Wideband Networks had adopted an adversarial stance and therefore should be required to pay a significant portion of DBC LLC's costs.
Normally, a respondent to a preliminary discovery application "who does not take an adversarial position" can be awarded costs, Justice Perram said.
The ISPs were also told to reimburse DBC LLC for the travel and accommodation costs associated with flying out a purported technical expert - Daniel Macek of piracy tracking firm Maverickeye - to Australia from Germany to provide testimony that was ultimately worthless.
"I do not think the ISPs took any step which they were not entitled to take," Perram ruled.
"Nevertheless, it cost money to get Mr Macek here and it was ultimately fruitless."
Perram similarly waved aside iiNet's argument that DBC LLC should provide $275,000 in security for costs associated with the preliminary discovery process, else they get the user details and "go to the airport", as Perram recently put it.
The judge said while it was clear DBC must pay the ISPs' future costs of handing over the details, the companies should first submit evidence as to what their costs might be.
"The ISPs should not be required to complete the discovery process until the issue of security is finalised," Perram said.
The ISPs are to make an application for recovery of the costs involved in compiling and handing over the user details associated with the 4700-odd IP address by next Wednesday.
Dallas Buyers Club was also ordered to provide the court with a copy of the letter it plans to send to the alleged infringers by next Wednesday.
"The appropriate course is for Dallas Buyers Club to formulate a draft letter for the court’s consideration," Perram wrote.
"When the letter is in a form which is satisfactory I will then require the ISPs to give the account holder information sought to Dallas Buyers Club, on its undertaking to send a letter only in that form."
He said while it was too early to make any comments on the potential contents of the letter, relevant issues included the sophistication of the letter's recipients, the types of conduct involved, and the range of remedies for copyright infringement.
iiNet's argument throughout the case has been that DBC LLC and parent Voltage Pictures will take the same approach as in the US and send threatening letters to ISP customers demanding a settlement payment to avoid legal action.
"As the ISPs correctly submit, it should not be assumed that every recipient has engaged in infringement. On the other hand, it would be to engage in fantasy to think that some of them have not," Perram said.
He ruled against iiNet's argument that DBC LLC should cover the costs of communicating the preliminary discovery to customers - "if the ISPs wish to write such a letter then that is a matter for them".


The National Health Insurance Green Paper was published in August 2011. A White Paper followed in December 2015, and the national Department of Health (NDOH) published draft legislation for comment in June 2018, with a closing date for comments in September. The legislation is not before Parliament yet, and it seems unlikely that it will be passed before the election next year. Since National Health Insurance has implications for medical schemes, a draft Medical Schemes Amendment Bill (MSAB) was published at the same time as the National Health Insurance Bill (NHIB).
The release of the Medical Schemes Amendment Bill was not accompanied by an explanatory memorandum, so it is difficult to see what the government is intending to achieve by its provisions. There are some useful provisions in it. Strengthening the governance of medical schemes, an improved complaints procedure, and strengthening the position of children are all measures the HSF supports. On the other hand, there are grounds for concern. The provision for reduced contributions for young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 flies in the face of the principle that healthy people should subsidize those needing more medical assistance. Moreover, the MSAB excludes the Consumer Protection Act from applying to medical schemes matters, and it removes limitations of the waiting period for adults, both reducing rights.
Also, the provisional report of the Competition Commission’s Health Market Enquiry has not been taken into account fully. We believe that the MSAB should not proceed until the final report of the Enquiry has been published. The NDOH should respond publicly to the final report, and the explanatory memorandum accompanying a revised version should deal with the extent to which the report’s principles have been accepted by the government and how they are to be given effect by the MSAB.
In the HSF’s response to the White Paper on National Health Insurance (to read, click here), we made the point that, given the managerial problems in the public health system, it would be counter-productive to impose the extensive task of creating new links with the National Health Insurance Fund, including contracts between all public health service providers and the Fund. Rather, efforts should be devoted to strengthening existing management. We are particularly alarmed by the Office of Health Standards Compliance 2106/17 report. Only seven out of 851 inspections found health establishments fully compliant with requirements, with a score of above 80%. By contrast 532 establishments were assessed as non-compliant or critically non-compliant, with scores of below 50%. On this showing, most public health service providers would simply be ineligible to enter into contracts with the NHI Fund.
We were also alarmed at the lack of information about costing and financing. Especially in a period of low growth, such as South Africa is experiencing at the moment, there are many claims on additional tax rand. Our concern has been echoed by others.
Neither concern has been allayed by the publication of the NHIB. The government has divided introduction of national health insurance into three phases. The first phase is now complete, and we believe the NDOH owes the country a report on the pilot projects it undertook. No attempt by the NDOH to keep appraisals as confidential reports within government is acceptable to us.
Also, release of the NHIB has not been accompanied by any estimate of the costs of NHI, nor of the ways of funding it. The Minister of Health has referred the funding issue to the National Treasury. That cannot proceed until the basket of services and their cost are determined by the NDOH, a task they seem not to have tackled at all to date. Instead, they have left to two committees to be established in terms of the NHIB: a Benefits Advisory Committee and a Health Benefits Pricing Committee. This leaves ordinary South Africans clueless about what services they can expect from national health insurance and what they can expect to pay for them, not at the point of service, but by way of increased taxation or dedicated NHI contributions. It follows that the implications for medical schemes are also unknown, since the Bills specify that medical schemes will not be able to cover services provided by the NHI.
Health care is predominantly a private good, with some positive spillovers, particularly when it comes to infectious diseases. This is not a matter for normative specification. Rather it emerges from the nature of the good itself. The only way to ensure equal provision of a private good is by an army quartermaster system, and this the NHIB seeks to introduce by way of standard service and referral protocols. Since not all services will be covered by the NHI, there will continue to be a two tier system: one part covered the NHI, the other by medical aids or out of pocket expenses. The boundary between the tiers will be relocated.
The implicit assumption in the NHIB is that the two tiers will be distinct. But this is not the way in which users of the public health system operate at present. They may use the public system when effective treatment is on offer, but the available evidence indicates that many resort to the private system when it is not. Equally, under NHI, a user may well be happy to use an NHI contracted pharmacist, but may prefer a private consultation with a GP or specialist. Whether the private consultation will be possible for a service provided by the NHI is itself not clear, since a crucial section of the NHIB is ambiguous. In general, the NHIB makes no provision for people who shuttle between systems. It simply does not consider the possibility.
Accordingly, we believe the NHIB should be withdrawn, pending a radical revision of approach.
This view does not commit us to the status quo in the health system. We support the introduction of new services in the public health system, presently being finances by a national health insurance item in the health budget, but we note its small share (of the order of 1%) of national and provincial public health expenditure. We are also in favour of cost studies of services in the public sector as a continuing programme. Indeed, had they been done in the past, we would have a better basis for establishing the cost of the NHI.
Despite the problems discussed here, and elaborated in our submissions, the government seems determined to press ahead with national health insurance, and promises about it are likely to emerge in the coming election campaign. Accordingly, further developments can be expected during the life of the Sixth Parliament. The views of key constituencies will have to be considered carefully. No system not based on consensus can proceed.
Charles Simkins is Head of Research, Helen Suzman Foundation.
For instance, the treatment of A’s TB reduces the chances of B being infected buy it.
 ‘National Health Insurance’ is a misnomer, but no matter.


HARDINSBURG, Ky. (AP) — Police say a Kentucky middle school student who brought a large knife to school has been charged with attempted murder.
A statement from Kentucky State Police says administrators at Breckinridge County Middle School found the knife while searching the 14-year-old boy Tuesday morning as he entered the building. Police said the boy told detectives that he planned to stab other students.
Authorities say school officials were “acting on information and familiarity” with the juvenile when they searched him.
After finding the weapon, school officials called police, who took the boy into custody and charged him. His identity wasn’t released due to his age.
Police say he was ordered to remain in juvenile detention until a hearing date can be set.


The Erie SeaWolves' scheduled doubleheader in Binghamton on Saturday was postponed because of unplayable field conditions.
The two teams will play a single game Sunday at 2:05 p.m. to end the weather-shortened two-game series. Spenser Watkins, the scheduled starter on Friday, will start on Sunday for the SeaWolves.
Friday's game was postponed because of severe weather, forcing a doubleheader Saturday. The doubleheader was scheduled for 1:05 p.m. but it was moved back two hours because of field conditions. A decision was made around 2:30 p.m. to cancel the doubleheader because of the field conditions.
One game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on June 25 at 5:35 p.m. in Binghamton, while the second game will be made up in a doubleheader on July 31 at 5:35 p.m.
The SeaWolves will head to Bowie Monday-Wednesday before returning to UPMC Park on Thursday against Binghamton.


Nestled on a point between the Manatee River and Wares Creek, just a short walk from downtown Bradenton, is the historic and quintessential neighborhood of Old Bradenton. Founded in 1886 by Henry F Curry, the neighborhood packs an amazing amount of charm and personality into a small area: less than 100 homes, located on a peninsula that pokes into the Manatee River. Curry died in 1917 and the area was renamed Point Pleasant in 1921. Aside from an enviable location the big attraction here is the beautiful old homes. This Vintage Landmark 1921 corner-lot home serves as an anchor to the area. Commonly referred to as the Lambeth House and built by a son of the Curry family, this 3 bedroom 2 baths, 2617 Sq ft home (a total of 3199 sq ft) has been totally "rehabbed". Arched doorways, vaulted ceilings, 10 inch baseboards, original wood flooring, an updated kitchen with newer appliances, are but some of the features and improvements of this majestic property.


Police said they are looking for a man in connection with the incident.
They identified the man as 29-year-old Casey Lee Smith.
Anyone with information about Smith’s whereabouts is asked to call the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS (8477) or Olathe police at 913-971-6950.
Police are looking for 29-year-old Casey Lee Smith after a pickup truck rammed an Overland Park officer’s car early Wednesday.


Sinclair Tells News Anchors To Denounce 'Fake News' Sinclair Broadcast Group executives are pushing news anchors at local stations to read statements denouncing "fake news" at other outlets. Many employees are not happy about it.
Sinclair Broadcast Group executives are pushing news anchors at local stations to read statements denouncing "fake news" at other outlets. Many employees are not happy about it.
The Sinclair Broadcast Group is one of the most important and least-known TV news players in the country. Sinclair owns more local stations than any media company in the U.S. In its political commentary, the company's pro-President Trump. Well, now Sinclair is under fire for directing its anchors to chide other journalists for their perceived bias. Here's NPR's David Folkenflik.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: The development was first reported by CNN. Last week, Sinclair news anchors were told they would need to tape segments voicing their concerns about, quote, "the troubling trend of irresponsible and one-sided news stories plaguing our country." The script continued like this.
SCOTT LIVINGSTON: The sharing of bias and false views has become all too common on social media. More alarming, national media outlets are publishing these fake news stories without fact-checking.
FOLKENFLIK: That's Scott Livingston, vice president for news at Sinclair.
LIVINGSTON: Unfortunately, some members of the national media are using their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy.
FOLKENFLIK: This is from a promotional spot that aired on Sinclair stations more than 200 times last spring. Now local anchors are being ordered to make similar statements in their own voices. Sinclair journalists expressed discomfort to CNN. American University Professor Jane Hall is a former media critic for Fox News.
JANE HALL: It's naked in the sense that it's forcing people in the news to read something that is a corporate piece of propaganda, in my opinion.
HALL: Something that just can't be seen as anything other than promoting Donald Trump's view of the rest of the news media.
FOLKENFLIK: Sinclair's top news executive, Scott Livingston, rejects that. He tells NPR that Sinclair's reporting is nonpartisan. And he says that gets obscured by all the criticism being directed at the company.
LIVINGSTON: The CNN story claimed our promotion message was an attack on national media, but our message is a warning about fake news circulating on social media.
FOLKENFLIK: Livingston shared the final promotional script with NPR. It differed from the one CNN's Brian Stelter obtained in that the word national was not coupled to the word media. Again, Scott Livingston.
LIVINGSTON: We want to separate ourselves from the competition. We want to be transparent about our commitment to factual and objective reporting. And we know that there's a lot of noise out there.
FOLKENFLIK: Political commentaries on Sinclair have been consistently conservative over the years, and its news coverage has been frequently accused of favoring Republicans. Sinclair was also accused of coziness with the Trump campaign, which executives deny. Chris Ruddy is chairman of Newsmax, a right-of-center news site and cable channel.
CHRIS RUDDY: Sinclair has a very strong position. I think they have a lot of similarities to Breitbart.
FOLKENFLIK: Ruddy notes that Sinclair's chief political commentator is a former Trump campaign aide and Breitbart commentator.
RUDDY: They definitely have a political interest. And I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with that. I just think there should be a diversity of political opinions.
FOLKENFLIK: Sinclair owns and runs 190 stations and is seeking federal approval to buy more than 30 more from Tribune Media. Ruddy says that's too much consolidation of ownership, and he objects to the deal. The $3.9 billion proposed transaction is under scrutiny by the U.S. Department of Justice. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, elevated by Trump, is under investigation by the agency's inspector general for his interactions with Sinclair on the deal. David Folkenflik, NPR News.


McRae tallied 44 points (17-28 FG, 1-6 3Pt, 9-13 FT) to go along with nine assists and eight rebounds in Wednesday's loss to Lakeland.
This should just be a reminder that McRae technically has a two-way contract, even despite his growing role with the Wizards. The G League midseason All-NBA recipient has certainly made an impression at the NBA level, most recently scoring 20 points off the bench just prior to the All-Star break, and likely will be a sparkplug for the Wizards as they push for a potential eight-seed in the Eastern Conference.


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The Daily Beast has hired former Wired editor Noah Shachtman as executive editor, TheWrap has learned. Shachtman will start Feb. 1.
Acting interim executive editor John Avlon has been promoted to editor in chief, filling the role vacated by Tina Brown shortly after the site split from Newsweek in August 2013, according to an internal memo.
Shachtman most recently ran Foreign Policy’s newsroom as executive editor, but earned his digital stripes as co-founder and editor of Wired’s “Danger Room” blog, which focuses on national security. The blog won a National Magazine Award for reporting in digital media in 2012 and an Online Journalism Award for beat reporting in 2007.
The memo also touts new hires including columnists and contributors like Kelly Williams Brown, Dean Obidallah, and P.J. O’Rourke.
I am pleased to announce that Noah Shachtman is joining The Daily Beast as Executive Editor, effective February 1st.
Noah is an accomplished digital-first journalist and joins us after working at Foreign Policy as Executive Editor for News, where his team reeled in big scoops on Syria, the NSA scandals, and the CIA drone program. He is perhaps best known as co-founder and editor of Wired’s Danger Room blog, which won a National Magazine Award for reporting in digital media and an Online Journalism Award for best beat reporting. He’s a respected mentor of young talent and he’s got the right aggressive news metabolism for The Daily Beast. As a former professional bass player, campaign staffer and long-suffering Knicks fan, Noah understands both sides of the high-low, politics and pop-culture news mix that makes The Daily Beast a distinct destination and a growing success.
The Daily Beast grew 35% over the past year, averaging 13.7 million unique visitors a month as measured by Omniture. Our homepage and article design refresh, led by Chief Digital Officer Mike Dyer, has resulted in increased time spent on the site per visit and improved advertising performance. In another sign of vibrant growth, The Daily Beast’s social media referrals rose 44% over the past year and our Facebook and Twitter communities more than doubled in 2013.
Noah joins other notable new hires in the New Year at The Daily Beast. Senior Culture Editor Tim Teeman previously worked as Arts and Culture Editor of the Times of London and published the book ‘In Bed with Gore Vidal’ last year. Senior News Editor Justin Miller joined us from New York magazine and Cheat Sheet writer Emily Shire joined us from The Week. Brian Ries is taking the helm of our new Tech + Health vertical (already up 105% in average daily unique visitors over the more general Business section it replaced). Scott Bixby joins The Daily Beast as our Social Media Editor after playing the same role at Bloomberg News and Bloomberg Businessweek. Well-deserved promotions over the past month include Marcia Allert as Photo Editor and Katie Baker as Foreign Editor. New columnists and contributors include Keli Goff, Sally Kohn, James Kirchick, Kristen Soltis Anderson, Dean Obidallah, Kelly Williams Brown, Kevin Bleyer and the legendary libertarian humorist P.J. O’Rourke.
I’m looking forward to all that’s ahead for The Daily Beast. We’re poised to rise to new heights while focusing on our core strengths. Here’s to a great 2014 for us all.
For the record: A previous version of this story stated that Shactman was stepping into the role vacated by Brown, but Avlon was promoted into her position. TheWrap regrets the error.


Amesite CEO Ann Marie Sastry on how the company's cloud-based platform improve students' college education experience.
Artificial intelligence is creeping into many aspects of modern day living, from housing to banking, and now to education.
Sastry emphasized that her software is not designed to replace colleges and universities, but to help them aid students so that they can be on the right track to graduate.
“The American education system, higher education, is the envy of the world,” she said. “We bring technology to them, so we partner with them, and bring them AI technology because universities are subject matter experts but they’re not software companies. We’re a software company,” she said.


Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican best known for sparring with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at last week’s Benghazi hearings, says the United States is currently living out the plot of the Ayn Rand novel Atlas Shrugged. In an interview with the Rand-inspired Atlas Society, Johnson said he “absolutely” sees parallels between the American economy today and the novel in which government regulations drive prominent businessmen to retreat into a secluded gulch in protest.
Johnson isn’t the only Wisconsin Republican to lavish praise on Rand. Rep. Paul Ryan once called her “required reading” (also at a speech at the Atlas Society) before later backtracking.
*This post originally misstated the name of Johnson’s company.


After watching their moms get killed by poachers in the South African Bushveld, these three baby rhinos are rehabilitating at the Care for Wild Africa Rhino Sanctuary in South Africa with dozens of other orphaned rhinos.
This touching video shows the baby rhinos slurping their milk bottles through the fence and letting out heartbreaking cries after realizing their milk is all gone.
Grab the tissues before watching this one, and visit the Working With Rhinos website to learn more.


Michael Terilli has been in the advertising business for 25 years. Whether as a manager or an account executive, his goal has always been to provide the customer with the best experience and the best results their important business dollars could achieve.
“I’ve always thought that customer service was at the top of what we do, as well as being the best ROI for a customer’s investment in their business," Michael said.
Let KTEN Television assist you in growing your business in the most professional way possible.


Sterilizing hedge shears after every use helps keep plants healthy.
1 Can I Use WD-40 on Hedge Cutters?
A must-have tool for most gardens, a good pair of hedge shears can be used to keep trees, shrubs and hedges healthy and looking good. Hedge shears have a tough job and often end up with plant residue such as sap gumming the blades, making trimming nearly impossible. Keeping the blades clean and clear of sticky goop makes the tool more productive and helps prevent rust, which shortens the shears' life. Additionally, plant residue may harbor harmful bacteria that passes easily to other plants.
Rinse manually operated hedge shears thoroughly or soak the tool in water to remove surface soil.
Scrape the hedge shears' blades carefully with a putty knife or stiff-bristled brush, removing stubborn plant residue. Don't use coarse steel wool or sandpaper, which may scratch the blades' metal and attract rust.
Wear a long-sleeved shirt and rubber or neoprene gloves, and take the hedge shears outdoors. Dip a rag or sponge in turpentine or solvent, and wipe the blades with the rag or sponge to remove sticky sap. Cleaning the blades outdoors prevents the buildup of harmful fumes from the chemicals.
Dry the blades with a soft cloth. Sterilize them with either rubbing alcohol or a mixture containing 1 part household bleach and 9 parts water. Leave either disinfectant on the blades for at least 30 seconds. Wipe them dry.
Unplug the power cord of electrically operated hedge shears. Put on a pair of sturdy work gloves. The gloves will protect your hands from the shears' sharp blades.
Remove loose dirt and soil with a stiff-bristled brush. Wipe the blades with a sponge dipped in soapy water.
Wipe the blades with a rag dipped in turpentine or solvent, removing sap and sticky residue. Dry the blades thoroughly with a clean rag.
Spray the clean blades with a lubricant labeled for use on garden tools.
Dyer, M.H.. "How to Clean Plant Residue from Hedge Shears." Home Guides | SF Gate, http://homeguides.sfgate.com/clean-plant-residue-hedge-shears-96083.html. Accessed 22 April 2019.


A subsidiary of CIC Holdings PLC, CIC Grains Ltd., sold its assets to one of the leading players in the poultry industry which was facilitated by MTI’s Corporate Finance arm.
This sale was made to two joint ventures of Bairaha Group, Fortune Agro Industries Ltd., and Windsor Real Estate Ltd which includes the land, building, plant and machinery located in Moneragala which was previously owned by CIC Grains Ltd.
CIC Holdings PLC is one of Sri Lanka’s leading conglomerates since 1964 with ventures in businesses ranging from agriculture to chemicals and from medicine to household products. Guided by strong ethics and a culture of growth, CIC has become a household name with every Sri Lankan.
CIC continues to conduct their business in a structured, pragmatic and empathatic manner and to build mutually rewarding and lasting relationships with the principals and the customers by being attuned to their needs. This is underpinned by excelling in all that CIC does.
MTI Consulting is an internationally-networked boutique management consultancy, which is based in Bahrain, offering advisory services in Strategy, Business Operations, Corporate Finance, Talent & Resourcing, Tech Advisory and Go-to-Market. Since its inception in 1997, MTI has worked on over 640 assignments in over 43 countries, covering a diverse range of industries, clients and business challenges.
The internationally renowned organization has a proven track record in strategy consulting related projects over the years.


Alan Webb finally has found his groove.
As a result, he soon may set the American records in the 1,500 meters and the mile.
In his biggest career victory Friday at the Meeting Gaz de France in Paris, Webb showed the tenacity and confidence that this country has been hoping to see from him since he burst onto the running scene as a prep star at South Lakes High School seven years ago.
The reigning USA Outdoor 1,500 champion ran a huge personal best 3:30.54 — slightly less than two seconds faster than his previous best of 3:32.52 in 2005 — and posted the fastest 1,500 time in the world this outdoor season.
Webb ran just a second and a quarter slower than the U.S. record 3:29.30 set in 2005 by Bernard Lagat, who was seventh in Paris in 3:35.09.
Only Lagat (from Kenya) and Sydney Maree (3:29.77 in 1985, from South Africa) have run faster as Americans than Webb, making Webb the fastest American-born 1,500-meter runner ever.
Webb’s time also put him just ahead of Somalian Abdi Bile (3:30.55) and just behind Kenyan Alex Kipchirchir (3:30.46) on the all-time world list. Webb, Bile and Kipchirchir coincidentally share a common bond in former George Mason coach John Cook. Webb’s coach, Scott Raczko, trained under Cook at George Mason, while Bile ran for Cook before and after graduating from George Mason and Kipchirchir ran for Cook as part of the Nike Oregon Project over the last few years.
The Paris race was a tough one, with Webb moving out aggressively with the initial pacesetters. After 1,200 meters, Webb and French record-holder Mehdi Baala (PR 3:28.98) exchanged the lead until Webb regained the lead for good with less than 50 meters to the tape.
His win came just five days after his personal best 1:45.80 in the 800 — a key and lacking component for a fast 1,500 for Webb — and two weeks after he grabbed his third U.S. 1,500 title in Indianapolis. For a guy who has had problems with consistency, Webb seems to be on a roll heading into the IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan, where he lines up for the first heats Aug. 25.
Steve Scott’s 25-year-old American mile record of 3:47.69 is well within reach, too.
Locals heading south — Joshua George of Herndon, Jill Kennedy of Palmyra, Va., and Tatyana McFadden of Clarksville, Md., were named to the 2007 U.S. Parapan American Track & Field Team based on their performances at the 2007 U.S. Paralympics Track & Field National Championships in Marietta, Ga., last weekend.
Athletes across all physical disabilities categories — amputee, wheelchair, visually impaired, cerebral palsy and dwarfism — were ranked against their national standards with the closest performances to the standards receiving top ranking.
The 2007 Parapan American Games will be held Aug. 12-19 in Rio de Janeiro. The United States will bring 28 men and 17 women on the track and field team. George and McFadden compete in wheelchairs while Kennedy, a frequent competitor at the Potomac Valley meets at Langley High School, is an accomplished javelin thrower in the dwarfism classification.
Sorensen watch — Jim Sorensen again failed to become the first to eclipse the four-minute mark in the outdoor mile as a masters (40-and-older) athlete at the USA Youth Championships in Lisle, Ill. The elite mile was won by Mark Fountain in 3:58.86, with Sorensen fifth in 4:04.98. Local runners Rod Koborsi (ninth in 4:09.19) and Sam Burley (11th in 4:12.21) also were in the field.
Salazar news — Legendary distance runner Alberto Salazar collapsed while coaching last week in Portland, Ore. First, the doctors said he had a “heart event,” then went on to say that the three-time New York City Marathon champ and longtime Nike employee had a heart attack at age 48. The news should not be shocking — while Salazar now says there was heart disease in his family, he nearly died at least twice after big races, trained unbelievably hard in his day and currently appears to be under tremendous stress.


Wednesday's tragic death at Notre Dame is now prompting other schools across the country to take another look at their policies regarding hydraulic lifts.
Officials at Notre Dame say they are looking into why Declan Sullivan was allowed on top of a scissor lift when winds were gusting over 50 miles per hour.
It happened Wednesday afternoon when he was videotaping football practice. Colleges and universities across the country use lifts to videotape practice.
Minutes before his death, Sullivan tweeted about being on top of a scissor lift during football practice Wednesday.
"Holy [expletive], holy [expletive], this is terrifying," his post read.
At 4:51 his lift fell over, and Sullivan died shortly after.
The coroner ruled the death was an accident caused by blunt force trauma to the head, chest and abdomen.
Notre Dame officials said they will review their rules for using lifts.
"With regard to the specific protocols that are in place, that is what we are going to make sure we understand. What were they, how were they implemented, who was involved in decision making and that is all part of the decision that will help us understand fully and completely," said Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick.
And other colleges and universities across the county are reviewing their own policies. Purdue says it doesn't have an official written policy, but it does follow the manufacturer's instructions when using the University's four scissor lifts.
"We also let the students tell the supervisor if they are concerned about the wind, rain or lightning if they are uncomfortable at any point you don't need to go up. As far as any policy we would follow that 28 mile per hour wind policy that comes as part of the manual with the lifts," said Tom Schott, Purdue University athletics director of communications.
Ohio State began using permanent structures for taping practices when it renovated its football facility. Those platforms can withstand up to 110 mile an hour winds. Still the coach on Tuesday, 24 hours before Notre Dame's accident, told reporters, "I don't know if we'll be inside or out," Jim Tressel said, "It looks a little nasty. I worry about our cameramen, their wellbeing up there 50 feet in the air."
Ohio State does use scaffolding and a scissor lift similar to the ones used at Notre Dame. Ohio State says it will check with the manufacturer to make sure it is using those devices safely.
"When a tragedy like this strikes one of our athletic programs, we all go back and I can imagine most of my colleagues throughout the world are going back and asking those questions, just to make sure," said Ben Jay, the Ohio State University senior associate athletic director of finance and operations.
The University of Michigan uses three scissor lifts during practice. In fact, on the day of the accident at Notre Dame, the team practiced outside. But officials there say the lifts were only at 15 to 20 feet specifically because of the wind.
And Notre Dame does have current policy on the use of lifts at the University. Their aerial platform lift policy was last revised in 2007. It details inspections, training programs, etc. Along with that is a hydraulic lift use waiver and indemnification agreement that operators of these lifts are supposed to sign.
The agreement basically releases the University from any responsibility in the event of an accident.
The University won't confirm whether Declan signed one. They say that is all part of their ongoing investigation.


The spin is believed to have been about four times faster early in Earth history, such that days were only six hours long. Eventually, if the solar system lasts long enough, Earth’s rotation will become tidally locked to the moon, so that the length of one day will equal that of one lunar month.
Without the moon, Earth would spin faster, the day would be shorter, and the Coriolis force (which causes moving objects to be deflected to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere, due to Earth’s spin) would be much stronger. This would lead to air circulations in the atmosphere that might look more like Jupiter than what we see on Earth today – multiple east-west jet streams and likely more than one big gyre in the oceans. For example, the Gulf Stream would leave our coast far south of Cape Hatteras.
Those circulations might be less effective at moving heat from the tropics to high latitudes, leading to warmer tropics and colder polar regions.
Second, the moon is responsible for most – but not all – of the tides through its gravitational attraction of Earth’s oceans. To take an example from a tide table for Morehead City, it appears that the typical lunar tidal range, high to low, is about 2.5 feet, while the solar contribution is about 1 foot.
I just did a quick calculation and found that the tidal force on the Earth from the moon is 2.2 times stronger than that from the sun.
Without the moon, tides would be weaker, affecting the tidal ecosystems for which tidal mixing and flow are important sources of energy. But this seems more like a quantitative effect, not the huge qualitative effect we’d get from a much faster spin.
More subtle effects would be on organisms that depend on moonlight and that synchronize their nocturnal activities to the phases of the moon.
Obviously, with no moon, moths would not have evolved to use the moon for navigation – which might mean they wouldn’t be drawn to light.


LuxMark is a OpenCL cross-platform benchmark tool that has been around since 2009. It was intended as a promotional tool for LuxCoreRender and remains a popular benchmark for those interested in OpenCL performance. LuxMark is now based on LuxCore, the LuxRender v2.x API available under Apache Licence 2.0 and freely usable in open source and commercial applications.
Benchmark Results: The GeForce RTX 2060 FE shows that raw OpenCL performance is impressive on yet another Turing GPU based card. We saw almost a 77% performance improvement over the EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 SC Gaming in the hotel scene!
We fired up SiSoftware Sandra Titanium 2018 SP2b (version 28.31) to look at GPGPU performance on the new NVIDIA Turing GPU performs. This benchmark isn’t really aimed at gamers, but some will likely find the results interesting.
We ran the Sandra General-Purpose (GPGPU) Processing, Scientific and Memory bandwidth tests on our group of test cards and the results are found below.
AMD says that the Radeon VII has 1TB of memory bandwidth and Sandra showed that the Radeon VII did indeed have the highest internal memory bandwidth of any card we’ve tested at over 650 GB/s!
The scientific and processing tests also showed nice performance gains on Radeon VII over Radeon RX Vega 64 and that is why AMD is able to boast about higher compute scores.


Live in The Arbor on Lake James! This home was built in 2015 and there is NOTHING left to be desired! From the moment you step foot on the large covered porch you will see that quality and thought were top of mind on this excellent custom built home! Three bedrooms, two baths, open great room, and kitchen all on the main level with plenty of light and doors from every room to an outside living area. The upper level is a large bonus room with alcove for an office. On the lower level you will find plenty or storage space that can be finished into extra living space...a basement garage built specially for your boat! So many extras make this one a must see!


HSBC’s hedge fund star leaves | City A.M.
A TOP fund of hedge funds manager at HSBC’s alternative investments unit has left after the firm decided to merge its discretionary and advisory businesses.
Tim Gascoigne, who was global head of portfolio management and who ran the £1.5bn GH fund of hedge funds at HSBC Alternative Investments Limited, left last month, a spokeswoman for the bank said yesterday.
Gasgoine, who joined HSBC in 1996, managed around $4bn. His duties have been taken on by Faraz Sultan, who runs the advisory business.


Reporting a bullying incident will soon be almost as simple as sending a text message for students in Toronto’s Catholic school board.
Starting Wednesday, about 30,000 teenagers at the board’s 32 high schools can use a smartphone app to report bullying, cyberbullying, threats, concerns about a classmate’s self-harming behaviour or other safety issues. And they don’t have to identify themselves.
The Anonymous Alerts app “is another tool for students in those situations where people don’t feel comfortable reporting in person,” says Nadia Adragna, a high school principal and member of the Toronto Catholic District School Board’s safe schools department.
The app, to be unveiled Tuesday at a safe schools symposium, can also be used by parents who discover unsafe incidents and want to alert the school principal and ensure prompt action, she said.
It’s a solution welcomed by students like Jahiem Henry, a safe schools ambassador and Grade 10 student at St. John Paul II Catholic Secondary School, one of three high schools that piloted the app last fall.
He says his peers found the app easy to download and use, even though only five incidents were actually reported during the two-month pilot.
The process involves a few simple clicks of the button that includes identifying the school and principal, then choosing from a list of categories to report the incident such as abuse, harassment, bomb threats or depression.
As soon as a student clicks “submit” the school principal and vice-principal receive notifications by text message and email.
“It gives students that reassurance that someone’s going to be there, someone’s going to be listening and going to know,” says Henry.
The big selling points for the board, which looked at several options over the past couple of years, was the technology ensuring reports are anonymous and a feature allowing students to upload images and video with their report, which can be crucial in bullying or cyberbullying episodes.
“The message I receive as principal is completely encrypted and remains anonymous unless the student chooses to identify himself or herself,” says Adragna, principal at the St. Martin Campus of Monsignor Fraser College.
Student trustee and Grade 12 student Karina Dubrovskaya said she was excited to learn about the app at a TCDSB board meeting and hopes students will use it. She cites a recent safe schools student survey which found many students had experienced or witnessed bullying, but about half didn’t report it. The app will make it easier.
“Just the fact that you can take out your phone and if you see something or are thinking about it later, you can send in that information, big or small,” she says.
Dubrovskaya says it often takes a major incident to get a student to report it to a staff member, which can lead to normalizing less traumatic bullying. Being able to alert an adult early could help change that, she says.
While such apps have been referred to as “whistleblower” technology, that’s not a phrase used by the school board, which considers it a tool to promote safety. It can also be used by a student concerned over someone struggling with mental health issues or at risk of harming themselves.
Adragna acknowledged a risk of false reports but says that’s no different than with other reports delivered in person or by phone.
Anonymous Alerts founder Gregory Bender says data since his company launched the app three years ago shows about 97 per cent have turned out to be credible.
The Toronto Catholic board signed a three-year contract with the company, based in White Plains, N.Y., but did not disclose the cost to the Star.
Anti-bullying apps have exploded in U.S. school boards over the last few years and Bender says his app is used in 32 states. He designed it after the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre.
Schools also have access to analytics to look at trends and impact of the reporting system.
The Catholic board is the company’s first Canadian client, though Bender said he has spoken with several other boards in the last few months. The Catholic board is the only Toronto board to use this technology.
The Hamilton Wentworth District School Board is among the few already using anonymous reporting apps. The board began piloting TipOff, an app to report bullying, in 2013 and it’s now in place at all its schools.
Of the thousands of messages received, many were tests or considered too minor to pass along, but more than 1,524 were passed along for investigation to the schools involved, board spokesperson Robert Faulkner said in an email.


Published: April 25, 2014 at 05:00 p.m.
Updated: April 25, 2014 at 05:16 p.m.
Never let it be said that Bill Belichick isn't a good multi-tasker.
The New England Patriots coach is in Nashville to run the Rock & Roll Half Marathon, and made time to oversee a private workout from Vanderbilt offensive lineman Wesley Johnson. It not only speaks to Belichick's time management, but of his organization's thoroughness in evaluating draft prospects, as well. After all, it's not as though Johnson is being considered in the same breath as the draft's elite tackle prospects. He is a slightly undersized but exceptionally athletic tackle who excels in the open field with his ability to pull and lead stretch plays, and figures to be a third-day pick.
And one of the NFL's top head coaches is checking him out personally. The workout was Friday; the half-marathon on Saturday.
Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean reported Belichick's plan via Twitter.
Alabama coach Nick Saban, who coached as an NFL assistant under Belichick, has noted Belichick's multi-tasking efforts in the past, including in-house lunches to allow his coaching staffs to work uninterrupted through the lunch hour. Both are masters at getting a lot done in a short amount of time.
Now, what can Bill get accomplished for the draft while he actually running 13 miles?


Drivers take note: Now, only right turns are allowed at the intersection of Park Avenue and Third Street.
Signs went up earlier this month telling drivers not to make left turns or drive straight through the intersection. The signs were erected to curb the number of accidents at the intersection.
There was a grace period to let people get used to the signs, but police are now writing $70 tickets if they catch drivers going straight or left through the intersection.


Recently at the Athens Farmers Market, the topic of cooking with cherries arose twice in conversations with customers. Our restaurant was selling mini cherry pies that morning. In the already shimmering damp heat, what we discussed, wistfully, was iced cherry soup.
I hadn’t thought about that old favorite in years. Now I could taste it in my memory.
When I was a student in the 1960s (please don’t do the math), a family who had fled from Hungary during the brief freedom of 1956, a moment quickly crushed by the Soviet army, opened what became my favorite eatery in New Haven, Conn. The Budapest Restaurant served food as luscious as it was unpronounceable. No matter what main dish I ordered, I could not resist beginning dinner with their exciting cold cherry soup, fragrant with cinnamon and lemon and topped with sour cream. I often finished dinner with coffee and yet more cherries, in a crispy strudel or tender crêpe.
The restaurant used canned sour cherries, which would have been the only cooking cherries available for most of the year in Hungary, or anywhere else for that matter. Canned cherries are, therefore, the authentic ingredient. When I cook with cherries — which until recently I had forgotten about — I still use canned sour (now called “tart”) cherries. These are the dark pink pitted fruit processed in water, not the kind in syrup and certainly not the cherry pie filling. They are sold at some supermarkets, including Kroger, in the canned fruit section.
I had worked out a method way back then to reproduce that soup from “the Budapest.” At home after the hot morning at the farmers market, I found my recipe in our old wooden file box. The yellowing 3-by-5 card carries my younger, and clearer, script. The recipe below shows how I used to prepare the dish.
It should be made at least a few hours before serving, preferably a day or more, and thoroughly chilled. The sour cream is dolloped onto the soup as it is served. You swirl the cream in with your spoon as you start to eat.
Almost any red wine that is not high in tannins will work for making the soup.
A lightly chilled Beaujolais or cold Grüner Veltliner or dry rosé probably would be best to drink with it.
The recipe, using a can of cherries, serves four as a starter dish.
Drain cherry juice into a stainless steel or enamel pan. Stir in water, sugar, cornstarch, plus juice and squeezed-out skin of the half lemon. Add cinnamon sticks.
Bring to a boil, stirring frequently, and simmer, covered, 5 minutes. Remove lemon peel, pressing it to squeeze out any liquid. Simmer soup, covered, 5 more minutes.
Add cherries and wine and return soup to a gentle boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Taste, and add sugar if desired. The soup should be just faintly sweet. Add food color if desired.
After 10 minutes, remove cinnamon sticks.
Chill soup well, preferably overnight.
Serve in soup bowls, with a tablespoon of sour cream dropped onto the soup.
• Tim Dondero is a medical researcher as well as cooking teacher, chef and caterer. Contact him at timdondero@ gmail.com or visit his blog, t-jintan.blogspot.com.


The Galaxy Note range is being put under pressure to deliver or disappear. Leaked information suggest that an under-performing Galaxy Note 9 could be the last of the Note handsets to reach the market. If Samsung wants to be radical and disrupt the market, then it should commit to cancelling the Note 9 after this month’s launch of the phablet.
After all, the Note 9’s replacements are already in production.
I doubt Samsung will say anything publicly about this now (because everyone knows about The Osborne Effect, right?) but even if the Note 9 is a success, I would argue that the correct decision is to cancel the Note family and move on with something new.
When it started the Galaxy Note family was seen as trailblazing hardware, with a new form factor (the large almost tablet like screen), a new peripheral (in the S-Pen), and a new focus (on enterprise). Back in 2011 the iPhone was sporting a 3.5 inch screen, and the Note’s 5.3 inch screen was seen as ‘gigantic. How times have changed. Large screened devices can be found at every point in a portfolio, enterprise software is built into the software of most handsets, and user interfaces have evolved to reduce the impact of a stylus.
The Galaxy Note 9’s biggest potential win for Samsung is to run interference on Apple’s new iPhone, which will be launched a few weeks after the Note 9 goes on sale.
Samsung already has a replacement for the Note series, and it is already in production. The ‘Plus’ series of Galaxy S handsets have a similar screen size, similar software, and a similar mission goal to the Note series. Just add in physical support for the S-Pen, and the Galaxy S line-up can handle the flagship smartphone, the phablet, and (with the upcoming ‘low cost’ version of the S10) the entry-level Galaxy S Mini.
Cancelling the Note 9 would not only bolster the demand for the Galaxy S line up in 2019, but it would leave the Q3 slot open to be more than ‘block the iPhone’. It could revert back to being the ’new technology’ slot.
And if we're talking about new technology in a smartphone from Samsung, then perhaps the ambitious folding screen equipped Galaxy X will take the August 2019 slot?


In a decision scaling back the Kansas City, Mo., district's elaborate remedial plan for school desegregation, the U.S. Supreme Court last week placed new limits on federal judges' powers in such cases.
The High Court ruled 5 to 4 that a federal judge exceeded his powers by requiring a plan designed to attract white suburban students into the Kansas City district through capital and educational improvements. The Court further held that substandard achievement by the district's black students on national tests was not, by itself, a proper basis for requiring the state of Missouri to continue to pay for costly desegregation programs in the city schools.
"Insistence upon academic goals unrelated to the effects of legal segregation unwarrantably postpones the day when the [Kansas City district] will be able to operate on its own," Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the majority in Missouri v. Jenkins (Case No. 93-1823).
The Court stopped short of requiring a dismantling of the desegregation program, which has cost taxpayers more than $1.4 billion over the last decade. The immediate effect of the June 12 ruling was to reverse a series of lower-court orders requiring the state--in the name of desegregation--to finance special academic programs and pay raises for virtually all school employees in the district.
Associate Justice David H. Souter, in the main dissent, criticized the majority for ruling broadly on the scope of the plan more than six years after the High Court passed up the chance to do that in an earlier appeal.
"The Court's process of orderly adjudication has broken down in this case," he wrote.
Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in a separate dissent: "Given the deep, inglorious history of segregation in Missouri, to curtail desegregation at this time and in this manner is an action at once too swift and too soon."
Legal advocates and desegregation experts disagreed last week about the national implications of the ruling. The Kansas City plan has long been viewed as going far beyond most other desegregation efforts. Several civil-rights advocates argued that despite the decision's strong tone, it did relatively little to change the law.
"The effects on other school districts may be more atmospheric than real," said Theodore M. Shaw, an associate director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who argued before the High Court on behalf of the black plaintiffs in Kansas City.
A Justice Department official, who did not want to be named, said that the ruling would likely have implications for only about "a half dozen" of the hundreds of pending desegregation cases being handled by the department.
But Mark J. Bredemeier, the general counsel of the Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative public-interest law organization in Kansas City, said the ruling provides new guidance for districts seeking to get out from under federal-court supervision.
"The Court is beginning to provide a framework to advise litigants that ultimately school districts must be returned to local authorities," he said. "There is no set amount of money that needs to be spent."
Christopher A. Hansen, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union who specializes in desegregation, said the ruling shows the Justices' "impatience with the length of time that school desegregation is going on and their frustration that this era has not come to an end."
"You can almost hear them tapping their feet," he said.
The decision was a defeat for a group of black plaintiffs and the Kansas City district, which though nominally a defendant has long been allied with the plaintiffs in seeking to keep the state obligated for most of its desegregation costs, which amount to about $200 million a year.
The decision was a big victory, however, for the state of Missouri, which has tried for years to get the High Court to limit the scope of the Kansas City plan.
The case has been overseen since 1977 by U.S. District Judge Russell G. Clark of Kansas City, who in 1984 ruled that the state was jointly liable with the district for the costs of desegregation because of Missouri's legacy of legally mandated segregation. The remedial plan approved by the judge included massive capital improvements and the establishment of magnet schools designed to lure white students from the suburbs.
The High Court declined in 1989 to review the overall scope of the plan. But the seeds of last week's ruling were planted in the Court's 1990 decision about a tax increase imposed by Judge Clark.
The Court ruled 5 to 4 that year that the judge could not raise local property taxes himself, but that he could order the school district to raise the taxes to fulfill the court's mandate to desegregate.
The four justices who were in the minority in the 1990 ruling joined a dissent that was harshly critical of the cost and scope of the Kansas City plan. The same four dissenters were all in the majority in last week's ruling: Chief Justice Rehnquist and Associate Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor, and Antonin Scalia.
Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who in 1991 replaced Thurgood Marshall, a stalwart defender of school desegregation, as the Court's only African-American member, provided the fifth vote last week in favor of scaling back the Kansas City program.
Chief Justice Rehnquist's opinion gave relatively scant attention to the specific rulings by Judge Clark and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that required the state to pay for special programs and salary increases, although it was those rulings that Missouri had appealed.
Instead, the majority accepted the state's invitation to examine the overall scope of the Kansas City plan. And the Court held that Judge Clark had exceeded his authority by requiring a plan designed to attract white students from the suburbs into the 37,000-student district, whose enrollment remains about 68 percent black.
The Chief Justice said the plan was, in effect, akin to an interdistrict desegregation plan of the type the Court rejected in a 1974 case, Milliken v. Bradley. In that case, the Court held that suburban Detroit school districts could not be forced to join the city district in a busing plan because they had not been found liable for segregation.
"In effect, the District Court has devised a remedy to accomplish indirectly what it admittedly lacks the remedial authority to mandate directly: the interdistrict transfer of students," the Chief Justice said in last week's decision.
He also said that a comparison of student achievement "clearly is not the appropriate test to be applied in deciding whether a previously segregated district" had met its legal mandate.
Justice Thomas wrote a provocative concurrence that expanded on views he had expressed in speeches and writings before he was named to the Supreme Court.
"Given that desegregation has not produced the predicted leaps forward in black educational achievement, there is no reason to think that black students cannot learn as well when surrounded by members of their own race as when they are in an integrated environment," he wrote.
Justice Souter, joined in dissent by Associate Justices Ginsburg, John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer, contended that the Kansas City plan did not amount to an interdistrict remedy and that Judge Clark did not exceed his authority by approving salary hikes as part of a desegregation plan.
He stressed that neither Judge Clark nor the Eighth Circuit court has required a specified level of achievement by black students as a condition for releasing the district from supervision.
"Test scores will clearly be relevant in determining whether the improvement programs have cured a deficiency in student achievement to the practicable extent," Justice Souter wrote.
The majority opinion was ambiguous about what should happen next in Kansas City. It suggested that Judge Clark reconsid- er his recent rulings in light of the Court's 1992 ruling in Freeman v. Pitts, which stressed that court supervision of school desegregation was meant to be temporary.
John R. Munich, the chief desegregation lawyer in the Missouri attorney general's office, said the High Court's ruling "dramatically strengthens the state's hand in that process."
But Arthur A. Benson 2nd, the lawyer representing the black plaintiffs in the case, argued that the decision leaves the door open for the lower courts to continue to order many of the same remedies, provided their use can be justified under the Court's new criteria.
"We have made more progress academically and desegregatively than any other urban district in the nation over the last 10 years," he said.


One of the best aspects of the early NFL offseason is the sense of hope it brings to fans. Did your favorite team miss the playoffs in 2018? No worries, because everyone is 0-0 right now, and your favorite team can get better through free agency and the draft.
While free agency gets plenty of hype—and it is first up on the schedule—the draft is the real centerpiece of the offseason. Not only can it add missing pieces, provide franchise building blocks and supply quality roster depth, it can do all of it on the cheap thanks to the rookie wage scale.
The rookie wage scale also makes it financially feasible for teams to take risks, which can lead to some intriguing and unexpected early draft selections.
It's early in the draft process—and a lot will change between now and April 25—but here is an early look at how the first round might unfold along with a close look at some top pairings.
The Arizona Cardinals aren't completely starting their rebuild from scratch. They drafted quarterback Josh Rosen last offseason, so at least one key piece is in place. However, they are beginning the Kliff Kingsbury era in need of several other pieces.
This means Arizona as options with the first overall pick. It isn't locked into any one position, and it can afford to trade the pick to a quarterback-needy team.
One thing the Cardinals could use, however, is a premier pass-rusher to play opposite Chandler Jones. Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, who coached the duo of Von Miller and Bradley Chubb with the Denver Broncos last year, knows exactly how effective a two-man sack squad can be.
While both Ohio State's Nick Bosa and Kentucky's Josh Allen are high-end pass-rushing prospects, the Cardinals may ultimately land on Allen because of his versatility at linebacker. He can get to the quarterback, yes, but Allen isn't a liability in coverage or against the run.
Since Joseph is planning to run a 3-4 base defense, Allen may be the edge player best suited for it. Joseph likes the 3-4 because it helps mask what the defense is doing.
"They have to guess, who's the fourth rusher?" Joseph said during an appearance with Arizona Sports 98.7 FM's the Big Red Rage.
Allen would provide Joseph with a player who can both rush the passer and drop out into coverage, depending on the play call.
Like the Cardinals, the Cincinnati Bengals have a new head coach in Zac Taylor. However, they don't need quite as many pieces to get back into contention as Arizona. Cincinnati has a quarterback in Andy Dalton, an elite receiver in A.J. Green, a high-end running back in Joe Mixon and several strong pieces in the defensive secondary.
Where the Bengals are in dire need of help is at linebacker. Vontaze Burfict is no longer the tone-setter he once was, and the unit as a whole was underwhelming in 2018. It's a big reason why the defense finished 29th against the run (137.8 yards per game allowed) and 32nd against the pass (275.9).
Cincinnati had strong defensive linemen like Carlos Dunlap and good defensive backs like William Jackson III, but the second level of the defense was a mess.
This is why former LSU linebacker Devin White would be a perfect fit for Cincinnati. He is a tremendous all-around defender who could quickly become the leader of the Bengals defense. His head coach at LSU, Ed Orgeron, compared White to two of the top NFL linebackers in recent memory.
"I've been a part of Ray Lewis," Orgeron said, per Sam Spiegelman of Rivals.com. "I've been a part of Patrick Willis, and he's right there. He's one of the best I've ever been a part of as far as middle linebackers go. He's very talented, and I think he's still getting better."
If White is still getting better, it's a scary thought. He racked up 123 total tackles, 12.0 tackles for a loss, 3.0 sacks and six passes defended in 2018 alone. He would almost immediately improve both the run defense and the pass defense for Cincinnati.
Will there be an early run on quarterbacks? This is a question the Miami Dolphins would love to learn the answer to. While the new regime, led by head coach Brian Flores, has not confirmed that it is moving on from Ryan Tannehill, signs point in that direction.
"Other NFL teams I talked to Tuesday don’t believe the Dolphins will keep Tannehill regardless of what [general manager Chris] Grier said," Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald recently wrote. "They do not buy it for an instant. They do believe, on the other hand, the talk of Miami rebuilding. And Tannehill being present amid a rebuild makes zero sense to them."
It certainly feels like Miami is leaning toward drafting a quarterback this April. The question is which one—and that likely depends on which are left on the board at Pick 13.
With Dwayne Haskins, Kyler Murray and Drew Lock already off the board in this mock, the Dolphins settle on Daniel Jones. While Jones didn't have a good week at the Senior Bowl, he is still a quality quarterback prospect. He moves well in the pocket, has good touch on his passes and has ideal size at 6'5".
It doesn't hurt that Jones was coached at Duke by David Cutcliffe, the guy who coached both Peyton and Eli Manning.
This certainly doesn't mean that Jones is destined to be the next Manning (either of them). If he can come even close to that, however, the Dolphins will take it in a heartbeat after experiencing years of mediocrity at the position.


SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney) — Google is releasing a sanitized YouTube app just for kids.
Called YouTube Kids, the Android app only plays age-appropriate videos and has a simplified design that even young children who can’t read will be able to navigate. The app, which will carry ads, will be available in the U.S. from Feb. 23.
As its popularity with children has increased, so have concerns from parents. The site bans explicit sexual content, but there are dark corners of YouTube where kids can accidentally end up. There is a “Safety mode” on the regular site and apps, but it’s still easy for kids to stumble onto inappropriate videos, or worse, read the comments.
“Parents have been asking us to make YouTube friendlier for kids and for families,” said Shimrit Ben-Yair, the group product manager for YouTube Kids.
The app only plays a heavily edited selection of videos. Since there is such a huge amount of new kids’ content being posted daily, the app will also rely on the community to tag anything ill-suited for children.
To accommodate toddlers, there’s only minimal text in the graphics heavy design, and kids can speak search terms instead of typing. When a video ends the next will play automatically. A timer feature lets parents control how long their kids can use the app before it shuts down.
Videos are divided into four categories. The Shows section includes popular channels like Sesame Street and The FuZees, which are some of the big name brands releasing new episodes for the launch. Music is stocked with videos including the sing-along version of “Let it Go,” which has been viewed more than 345 million times.
In addition to testing with kids and parents inside Google, YouTube shared the app with children’s advocacy groups like the Family Online Safety Institute and The Internet Keep Safe Coalition. YouTube did not say if it is working on an iOS version.
The free app will make its money from ads specifically targeted at kids. All the ads will undergo a rigorous review, according to Ben-Yair. To comply with the COPPA (the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), which limits online tracking of anyone under 13, the app doesn’t require users to log in.


Microsoft Israel Research and Development Center. Photo: Microsoft.
In the six-plus decades of Israel’s existence, the nation has proven to be a global pacesetter in innovation and the development technology start-ups. According to recent story in the online magazine ISRAEL21c, Israel has the most start-ups per capita worldwide and the third-highest number of patents per head.
Just some of Israeli inventions include the Pillcam, a pill-sized camera that can pass through the digestive tract and detect diseases, and Copaxone, a revolutionary medicine treating Multiple Sclerosis.
Microsoft Windows NT and XP both were developed in Israel. Another memorable invention was the instant messaging service ICQ, sold later to AOL for more than $400 million.


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All games are not created equal. That goes against the Patriots' official mantra, but with 15 wins in the bank and history at hand, it's apparently time to come clean.
Asked if he expected the blood to be pumping a little harder before kickoff on Saturday night when the Patriots visit the New York Giants, linebacker Tedy Bruschi said, yes, it would be.
The Pats never would have admitted that about the Week 6 trip to Dallas, even though it was billed as a potential Super Bowl preview. They never would have admitted that about the Week 9 tilt in Indy, even though it was hyped as the "Game of the Century."
But with a first-round playoff bye on the horizon and the rest of the schedule a fill-in-the-blank, it's been OK this week - finally - to talk about the 16-0 elephant in the room.
"As focused as we've been (on the next game) in terms of answering all these (perfect-season) questions in here (the locker room), it is in the back of our minds what we can achieve," Bruschi said. "To be undefeated in (a 16-game) regular season is something that has never been done before.
"When you're faced with that, it's a challenge and you want to face that challenge and achieve it. I think that will all be in the back of our minds, (especially) with all the attention around this game, being on three different networks."
The Patriots' quest for perfection took a unique turn Wednesday night as the NFL announced it would allow the Pats-Giants game to be simulcast nationally on both CBS and NBC, along with the NFL Network. With Channel 5 already showing the game - the station owns local simulcast rights when the Pats are on cable - that means the Patriots will be on three of the four major networks Saturday night.
"It will be like the State of the Union address - you can flip to every channel and see it," coach Bill Belichick quipped during his opening remarks at yesterday's news conference. Asked what that meant to him, Belichick deadpanned, "I'm not planning on watching it."
"I don't really think much of it, to be honest with you," agreed safety Rodney Harrison. "We've been on nationally televised games for a while now. It's really no big deal for us in this locker room. It's just something for the media to talk about. We're focused on what we have to do and how well we go out there and play, not about all the TV and everything that's going on behind that."
"When the ball is snapped and we're playing out there, everything else just kind of disappears," left tackle Matt Light said. "... I don't think how many people are watching will have much of an effect on that."
Linebacker Larry Izzo is one of nine finalists in the NFL's "Super Ad: Who Wants it More?" contest. The competition features NFL players pitching a story about their NFL journey as a possible Super Bowl commercial. Izzo's story recounts the day during training camp of his rookie year when Dolphins coach Jimmy Johnson informed him that he was the second player to make the team after Dan Marino.
Izzo's pitch is representing the AFC East in the finals of the competition.
The pitches are posted on www.nfl.com/superad and fans can vote for their favorite until Jan. 6. The winning pitch will be determined by fan vote and a panel of judges consisting of marketing, advertising and media professionals. It will inspire an NFL commercial that will run during Super Bowl XLII on Sunday, Feb. 3. The player who submits the winning pitch will be featured in the spot.
Fans who vote may also enter the sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ariz.
Belichick took this week's Sports Illustrated "Perfect Season's Greetings" cover - a shot of him digitally altered into a Santa suit - in stride.
"Well, you know, being associated with Santa Claus - there's a lot worse associations to have," he said, joking. "I'll take it. When you're a kid, sometimes you dream about being on the cover of 'Sports Illustrated.' That's not actually the one I pictured, but it's pretty funny. Whatever sells."
In a mild surprise, Belichick, a student of NFL history, said he was not familiar with the 1948 Cleveland Browns, who also authored a perfect (15-0) season - in the All-America Football Conference.
The Browns won the crown all four years the AAFC existed (1946-49), then moved over to the NFL and played in six straight NFL championship games (1950-55), winning three of them. Those '48 Browns were coached by Paul Brown, one of Belichick's coaching heroes, and featured such legendary players as QB Otto Graham, FB Marion Motley and LT/K Lou Groza.
Veteran linebacker Chad Brown is out of work again. The Patriots cut him again, for the third time this season.
Brown was waived on Sept. 1, re-signed Sept. 12, waived again Oct. 10 and brought back Nov. 27. He only appeared in two games.
With the Giants' fearsome pass rush (a league-high 52 sacks) on deck, the Patriots practiced yesterday without RT Nick Kaczur, who sat out with a foot injury. Kaczur has started every game since Week 9 of last year – 27 straight games, including playoffs. If he's not able to go Saturday, the Patriots likely would turn to either Ryan O'Callaghan or Wesley Britt ... TE Kyle Brady (foot) and FB Kyle Eckel (stomach) also missed practice, while six other players saw limited action - DB Willie Andrews (elbow), QB Tom Brady (right shoulder), Harrison (thigh), RG Stephen Neal (shoulder), TE Benjamin Watson (ankle) and G Billy Yates (foot) ... Three Giants missed practice - RB Ahmad Bradshaw (calf), CB Kevin Dockery (hip flexor) and WR Sinorice Moss (back). WR Plaxico Burress (ankle) practiced for a second straight day, although he was limited.