The following article was published on the Knowledge@Wharton website on February 2, 2016.
A new book by Wharton management professor Adam Grant challenges our assumptions about what it takes to generate and champion original ideas in ourselves and others. In Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Grant reveals what we can learn from entrepreneurs and other trailblazers to help us think differently and to make our voices heard.
Knowledge@Wharton recently sat down to speak with Grant about why he wrote his new book.
Adam Grant: The inspiration for writing this book was twofold. One, I worked as a manager for a while before I came into academia. The one time I worked up the courage to speak up, I was actually dragged by my boss’s boss into the bathroom. I ended up being threatened that I would be fired if I ever spoke my mind again. I really wanted to know, how could I have done that more effectively?
Then more recently, since my first book, Give and Take, came out, people have been constantly asking, “If I am in a culture where people are constantly selfish, or toxic, how do I change that? If I’m facing undesirable circumstances anywhere, what do I do about them?” I didn’t feel like I had good answers for them. So I started doing a lot of research, and here we are.
Knowledge@Wharton: Great. So, you talk about entrepreneurship right at the beginning of the book, especially the company Warby Parker, which came out of the efforts of some Wharton students. Typically, when people think about entrepreneurs, they see them as the ultimate risk-takers, who are willing to bet the farm on their dreams. What is your view of entrepreneurship and the relationship between entrepreneurship and risk-taking?
Grant: That’s what I thought, too, initially. When I thought of an entrepreneur, I thought of a swashbuckling pirate or a daredevil, the kind of person who would basically leap before he or she looked. The data tell a completely different story: Entrepreneurs are not necessarily more risk-taking than the rest of us. In fact, they may even be more risk-averse.
What mystifies a lot of us is we look at entrepreneurs, and we see them taking risks, and we assume they’re risk-takers. What a lot of them are doing is … managing risk portfolios. Think about it like a stock portfolio, right? If you’re going to make a risky investment in one realm, you’re supposed to offset that with a safer bet in a different stock. Entrepreneurs actually do the same thing with risk. At least the successful ones do. When they have to go out on a limb in one domain, they will actually be more cautious in another to cover their bases.
Knowledge@Wharton: You also have so many interesting stories in the book. One that I especially liked was about the internet browsers that people use. Does that say anything about the people who use them, and about their originality?
Grant: It says more than I initially expected. This economist, Michael Housman, was tracking data on customer service reps and call center employees. He found that employees who use Chrome or Firefox actually outperformed Internet Explorer and Safari users. They also stayed in their jobs significantly longer.
So I started stalking him, of course, to find out why. What’s going on? What does Chrome and Firefox do for you? It turned out it wasn’t a technical advantage. It was not that they were faster at typing. They didn’t have more computer knowledge. It was about how you got the browser. If you’re going to use Internet Explorer or Safari, it comes preinstalled on your computer. Right? Whereas Chrome and Firefox, if you want them, you have to take a little bit of initiative, and download a different browser.
That’s a signal, a window around what you do at work. The kinds of people who had that instinct, to say, “You know what? I wonder if there’s a better browser out there,” they were also the kinds of people who looked for ways to improve their own jobs. Ultimately, they were able to create a job where they were more effective and more satisfied.
Knowledge@Wharton: In thinking about originality, you said the biggest barrier to your originality is not the ability to generate ideas, but to select them. How can people avoid making bad bets when it comes to idea selection?
Grant: We’re all actually pretty terrible at this when it comes to our own ideas. The evidence is overwhelming. It’s hard to find an entrepreneur who doesn’t think his or her idea is a winner….
It’s really other people’s feedback that turns out to be important. There’s this brilliant research by Justin Berg, one of our former doctoral students who’s now on the Stanford faculty. Justin got circus artists to try to gauge how likely their performances were to succeed with audiences. They were terrible. They overestimated the success of their own performances by a lot. So then he went to managers, and he showed a bunch of videos. So you get to see some jugglers, you get to see a few clowns. By the way, nobody likes clowns, it turns out. Universally hated. You may get to watch a few aerial acrobatics performances. Then the managers make judgments. The managers are not very accurate, either. You tend to be too positive on your own ideas. Managers tend to be more negative on other people’s ideas because they have a prototype about what a great circus performance looks like. They are evaluating all the ideas that come onto the table in terms of, “Does that fit or not?” The group that was much more effective than either people themselves or managers was peers: fellow circus artists. So you might not be able to judge your own ideas, but you’re great at forecasting the success of other people’s ideas.
Knowledge@Wharton: You have a couple of great examples from the business world of Segway and Seinfeld, in demonstrating this. Can you tell us a little bit about those examples?
Grant: Yeah. I think the Segway example is a case, unfortunately, of an entrepreneur being overconfident in an idea. So the short version of the story is, you have this idea for a self-balancing vehicle. You don’t really go out and figure out, is this something people would want to drive? Would they trust it? Would they buy it?
Whereas in Seinfeld, you have the exact opposite. Instead of a false-positive, it’s a false-negative. The pilot was rated weak, and it was actually initially scrapped. Then this TV executive, Rick Ludwin, who doesn’t even work in comedy – he was from the variety and specials department –sees the pilot, and he says, “This is really good.” He ends up finding a slot for it, using his own budget.
[Rick] was able to step outside of the prototypes that a lot of us tend to use. People look to the Seinfeld pilot, and they said, “It’s a show about nothing. This does not fit the mold of how a comedy or a sitcom is supposed to run.” Rick had come out of variety and specials, lots of different formats. He said, “You know what? Not every plot has to be resolved. Not every twist needs to go somewhere. The point is to make people laugh.” He was much more open to the potential there.
Knowledge@Wharton: Does that mean that when it comes to idea generation, quantity is very closely related to quality?
Grant: One of the myths that people carry around is if you want to be original, you will think, “I should do less because I want to perfect my invention or my creation.” But again, the data actually support the opposite story. Dean Simonton is a psychologist who has been studying this his whole career. What he finds is, one of the best predictors of how much creative productivity you will ultimately achieve, how much you’re regarded as a genius, is about the number of ideas you produce. The more ideas you create, the more variety you have. Some of those ideas are going to be blind alleys or random walks in bad directions. But you have a better shot then of stumbling upon something that’s really powerful.
For example, when you compare great composers, if you look at Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, it wasn’t that their average is so much better than their peers. It’s that they generated sometimes 600 or 1,000 different compositions. A few of those are considered true masterpieces. You can see this not just when comparing different kinds of people, though. You can also pick it up when you look within a person’s career. Creators are the most novel, the most original, during the times when they have the most bad ideas.
Look at Edison, for example. Great example. Edison made a talking doll so creepy that it scared not only children but adults, too. He came up with a fruit preservation technique that failed. He tried to mine in a number of ways that didn’t work out. It was during that window where he had over 100 failed ideas, that he was able to perfect the lightbulb. The idea is that you have to generate a lot of garbage to reach greatness.
Knowledge@Wharton: Now, one of the challenges that anyone who comes up with a new idea is going to face, is how do you get them heard? How do you speak truth to power? Can you give us some examples of how you can do that while minimizing the risk of damaging your career, as you felt at the start of our conversation?
Grant: I could have really used this advice a while back. One of the most important things that I’ve learned about speaking truth to power is that when we’re excited about an idea we tend to make the mistake of assembling as many reasons as possible to support it. By the time we pitch it, it seems as if we’re completely biased and blinded. It’s all, “This is a good idea.” There’s no balance whatsoever in the pitch.
There’s an entrepreneur, Rufus Griscom, who has a great antidote to this. He starts a company called Babble. It’s a parenting web site. He goes to investors, and he says, “These are the three reasons you should not back my company.” That year, he walks away with over $3 million US in funding. Two years later he goes to Disney and says, “I’m interested in selling this company to you. Here are the five reasons why you should not buy it.” They end up buying it for $40 million.
We can all do a better job probably giving a more balanced case for our ideas when we speak truth to power. The other thing that I would recommend is to avoid a mistake that I made, which is, when I went to speak up in my own career, I looked for the friendliest, most agreeable person, assuming that’s the person who’s ultimately going to be supportive. But it turned out that that person didn’t have my back. Because just as he was interested in being nice to me, he also wanted to keep the peace with everyone else.
What I should have done, and what the evidence supports, is that if you go to a more disagreeable boss — somebody who tends to be a little bit more critical, skeptical and challenging — that person’s going to be tougher on you. But then they will be also more willing to rock the boat a little bit and stand up for your idea if it’s unpopular.
Knowledge@Wharton: Interesting. When is it the right time to exit an organization, rather than continuing to make the case for an idea?
Grant: This is a problem that a lot of us struggle with. I don’t know that I have any answers to it. I do know, though, that if you track what happens to most people who speak up, usually they try voicing their idea. Then if it doesn’t work out, they either decide, “You know what? I don’t have other options, and I need to keep this job.” Or they start to look elsewhere.
There are a couple of tests, though, that are worth running, before you decide to leave. The first one is, have I gone to all of the potential allies that I have in the organization? The second one is, is it possible that there’s a better way for me to present this idea, that it’s not that people are unwilling to hear it? It’s just that they didn’t see the potential, because I didn’t speak about it effectively.
Third and most importantly, the question is, what am I ultimately trying to accomplish? Is this organization the best site for me to reach my goals? If you can answer those three questions, “I can’t succeed on any of them,” it’s probably time to start looking around a little bit.
Knowledge@Wharton: Sometimes people procrastinate about some of these things. You have some interesting ideas about procrastination in your book. Do you see procrastination as a strength or as a weakness?
Grant: My stance on this has completely changed, partially during the process of writing the book. If you want to be an original – the kind of nonconformist who champions new ideas and really drives creativity and change in the world – I thought you had to be an early bird, a first mover. But again, the evidence proved me wrong. Turns out that most originals are great procrastinators. They’re constantly putting things off. I actually had a former student, Jihae Shin, who showed that if you procrastinate a little bit, you will generate more creative ideas than if you dive right into a task or finish it right away.
The reason for this is pretty simple. I’ve actually been a victim of the opposite of it for a while. I am actually a precrastinator. I’m somebody who, if I know I have something due in six months, I will feel urgent pressure to do it now and worry about it constantly, until the moment that it’s done. What I noticed as I compared that against the originals that I studied, the people that I interviewed, the data that I gathered, was a lot of them were waiting for the right time. If they put off the start or completion of the task a little bit, they allowed themselves to access more diverse ideas. They saw possibilities that I wouldn’t have seen.
Because our first ideas are our most conventional, typically. You have to sort of weed out the familiar in order to get to the much more unusual and original. I wasn’t doing that when I dove right into a task. So I’ve come to believe we should all procrastinate deliberately. But if you push that too far, of course, you’re just not going to have time to finish your work.
Knowledge@Wharton: What is strategic procrastination?
Grant: I think of strategic procrastination as essentially this idea of waiting for the right time. So as a writer, for example, I have learned to leave drafts unfinished, on purpose. What I will do is, I’ll start working on a draft. I really want to spend the next two hours finishing it. I will put it away. Three days later, when I come back, I have seven or eight new ideas that I would never have considered, because now it’s in the back of my mind. We have a much better memory for incomplete than complete tasks. The moment I hit send on that draft, it’s out of my mind, whereas when I leave it open, then I’m constantly processing it. I’m seeing new possibilities.
The other thing I’ve learned to do over time is I’ll finish a draft, but I won’t actually submit it or ship it. I’ll leave it sitting for two or three weeks. By the time I come back to it, I have enough distance to say, “Who wrote this drivel?” But I also, then again, am able to approach it with a fresh perspective. For me, that’s what strategic procrastination is all about.
Knowledge@Wharton: Especially in writing. When you say something in the heat of the moment, in the heat of writing, you don’t have enough distance to be objective about it.
Knowledge@Wharton: I got very similar advice from one of my early editors in my career. I always appreciated that.
Grant: I think it’s wonderful advice, as long as we find that sweet spot, right? Of procrastinating enough to allow the ideas to incubate, but not so much that you run out of time and you just have to pick the simplest idea.
Knowledge@Wharton: Exactly. Now, Einstein believed that people are most creative when they are young. Is that true?
Grant: It seemed to be true for Einstein but not for most of the rest of us. So, the story of Einstein is actually pretty sad if you look at it. So, transforms physics not once but twice, with special and general relativity. Then he ends up opposing the next major revolution in physics, which is quantum mechanics. Ironically, his opposition to it is debunked, because he forgot to account for his own theory of relativity. Whoops. So Einstein said, reflecting on this experience, that to punish him for testing and challenging authority, the fates made him an authority himself. That suggests that at some point we are all doomed, once we’ve internalized ideas, to essentially lose our creativity.
When you study, though, great scientists, musicians, poets, artists, what you see is that there are basically two cycles. One is basically the young genius. This is the Einstein, somebody who comes into a field, accumulates knowledge really quickly, but also has enough distance to not drink the Kool-Aid. That person ends up with a flash of insight coming up with a wildly different way of looking at the world. If that’s your style, you’re at risk for becoming too entrenched, and starting to take for granted so many assumptions that you can’t really think differently in that field anymore.
But there’s a second path, which was the Old Master. These are the people who tended to work much more experimentally. They were doing lots of little trials and errors. They were doing tasks, they were iterating. They were learning from the data, as opposed to having these eureka moments. They actually tended to peak frequently in their 40s, 50s, 60s, even 70s and 80s in some cases. There is hope for those of us who are more tortoise than hare.
Knowledge@Wharton: How can originality be sustained over time?
Grant: One of the challenges that we all face if we want to sustain originality is we have to keep our exposure to fresh ideas. The longer you spend in a field, an organization, a job, the more familiar certain things will become. You have to push yourself outside of that comfort zone.
How do you do that? There’s a study I really enjoy by Frédérick Godart and his colleagues, where they actually track fashion designers. They look at what predicts which fashion houses have the most creative and original designs. It turns out, one of the best predictors of that is [whether] the creative director of that fashion house lived abroad. Then, if you break down the data, it goes further. Living abroad alone is not enough. You have to work abroad. You actually have to use the ideas of the culture, not just sort of visit and enjoy it as a tourist. You have to internalize how that culture thinks and looks at things differently.
Then working abroad, you can break that down further and say it’s more beneficial for your creativity and originality if you work abroad in countries that are more different from your own and if you stay there longer. So that kind of breadth is what we’re looking for.
How do you simulate that? I think what a lot of us can do is, we can do a much better job with the job rotation, for example. In your own organization, spend two days doing a job that you’ve never done before. It gives you a completely fresh perspective on the work. Go do a site visit to a different organization. Or even a company that’s in a different field from your own, different industry. And all of a sudden, you have lots of ideas that you can apply to your own work.
Knowledge@Wharton: What role do coalitions play in bringing original ideas to life?
Knowledge@Wharton: You also talk about something called a Trojan horse strategy for coalition-building. What’s that?
She was convinced that they were wrong. In order to get them to come on board, she changed her pitch to them. Instead of saying, “I’m trying to build wireless power. Can you make me this kind of transducer?” She just said, “I’m trying to build a transducer. Can you make me this part?” She actually disguised her purpose because it was too radical for most people to understand.
Then a bunch of engineers came on board, and she was able to work with them to make it happen. What she did was, she smuggled her real vision, in that case, inside a Trojan horse. She’s really trying to build wireless power. But she has a bunch of people working on different pieces that ultimately will come together for a different outcome than they intend.
The more radical, the more original your idea is, the more important it is to make sure that people aren’t dissuaded by the end, and instead focus them on perhaps a more moderate goal that they think is plausible.
Knowledge@Wharton: Does originality have roots in family? For example, does birth order matter in originality?
Grant: It matters more than I expected going in. There’s a huge debate about birth order. I would say the jury is still out, overall. But there is compelling evidence that firstborns, on average, tend to be a little bit smarter and a little bit more likely to achieve conventional success in fields like politics and science. We have more elected officials who are firstborn, for example. We also have more Nobel prize-wining scientists.
However, when it comes to originality, completely changing the way that a field operates or introducing a new technology, there does appear to be a later-born advantage. There are a couple of reasons for that. One is that later-borns are given more freedom. So by the time you have three or four older siblings, you’re allowed to do a lot of things that they weren’t allowed to do growing up. You get to take some risks.
The other thing that happens is, some of the more conventional achievement niches are filled. You may have an older sibling who’s the academic star, and one who’s an athlete. You need to find other ways to differentiate yourself. One of those can be creativity. I was interested in tracking this, as you know, with comedians. So I took Comedy Central’s list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics of all time, which had some great originals. People like Chris Rock, George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld. I studied their birth order and found that they were more than twice as likely to be born last in their families as first. The odds of that happening by chance alone are two in a million. So I think there is perhaps an advantage for later-borns in originality. As a first-born, I was not excited by this research.
But the good news is that birth order effects are not set in stone, so giving children the kinds of freedom, encouraging them to find unique niches to express themselves, can push all of us, even us firstborns, in a more original direction.
Knowledge@Wharton: I wonder if you could talk about that in a little more detail. How can parents nurture more originality among their children?
Grant: Role models play an important part of this process. So, what a lot of children do is they become unoriginal because they’ve only been exposed to models or standards who are very familiar and conventional. So children grow up. They see lots of engineers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and they say, “That’s what I want to do, too.” As parents, we can open up more original niches by exposing children to a much wider variety of occupations, careers, ideas. Some of the most original possibilities are not going to exist yet.
Knowledge@Wharton: When you consider families, or even companies, one of the biggest problems seems to be groupthink. How does that come about, and how can you prevent it?
But if you’re not careful, cohesion can take you down a path toward groupthink, when people become more concerned about politics and about maintaining their relationships and reputations than about speaking their minds and being honest. So most leaders try to combat this by assigning devil’s advocates. I know that there’s a majority preference in the room, so I’m going to assign one person to be the opposite.
Instead of assigning a devil’s advocate, what we all need to do is unearth a devil’s advocate: genuine dissenters, people who actually hold the minority opinion. We need to find those people. We need to invite them into the conversation, and give them a voice. What’s so powerful about that is, it turns out minority opinions are useful even when they’re wrong. Let’s say we’re going to hire one of four candidates. Almost everybody in the room prefers candidate A, and candidate B is really the best one. If someone comes in and advocates for candidate C, we will have a better shot at choosing, ultimately, the right candidate of B. Because when divergent information comes to the table, we’re much more likely to reevaluate our assumptions, consider new criteria, and make a better decision.
Knowledge@Wharton: To conclude this fascinating conversation, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how organizations can create a culture of nurturing originality.
Grant: If you want a culture where originality thrives, as opposed to being stifled, there are a couple things to do. One is, you have to make it safe for people to fail. You have to make it okay for ideas to come up that don’t go anywhere. Because if you squash all the bad ideas, you’re going to miss out on some of your most original possibilities. A second step that turns out to be really critical if you care about originality in your organization, and especially if you want it to be a core part of the culture, is you have to think differently about hiring. A lot of leaders hire on culture fit. They say, “Look. I want people who share our values, who match the culture.” That’s actually a recipe for groupthink. You hire a bunch of people who look at problems in the same way, who have the same opinions, the same principles.
Ideo, the design firm, has a compelling alternative to this. They say, “Look. We’re going to throw cultural fit out the window. Instead, we look for cultural contribution. So when we hire, we’re not looking for people who are going to replicate or clone the culture. We’re going to find people who enrich the culture. The test of that is to figure out what’s missing from your culture, and then try to bring in people who can embody that.
The third thing to do if you want to build a culture of originality is, you need to challenge the status quo a lot. You need to get people – as Bob Sutton at Stanford would say – feeling comfortable being uncomfortable. One of my favorite ways of doing that is from Lisa Bodell at Future Think. She actually runs this “Kill the Company” exercise, where she brings leaders together and has them spend maybe an hour or two brainstorming ways to put their own company out of business.
I’ve seen this done in financial services and pharmaceutical companies. I’ve never seen executives so excited, as when they finally get to trash their own employer. But what’s interesting about it is it shifts their mindset. Instead of playing defense and protecting themselves against competitive threats, they’re on offense. They get to try all these new possibilities and drill into them. Then after that, when they shift back to thinking, “How do I defend against these threats,” they have much more creativity at their disposal. I think that’s a good example of shaking things up a little bit.


ST. CLOUD — Representatives from the women's hockey and women's basketball teams will be featured on this week's SCSU Sports Chat, which takes place at noon Wednesday at Garvey Commons.
The women's hockey team is 2-8 in the WCHA and 4-11-1 overall heading into a weekend series at Bemidji State. The Huskies play at 6:07 p.m. Friday and 3:07 p.m. Saturday at Bemidji's Sanford Center.
The women's basketball team is 3-1 and opens NSIC play against Minnesota-Duluth at 2 p.m. Saturday at Halenbeck Hall.
SCSU Sports Chat's host is St. Cloud Times sports reporter Tom Elliott. The show will be shown via the internet live at www.sctimes.com as well as Times Media's Facebook page. A recording will be available at www.sctimes.com.
COLLEGEVILLE — The St. John's basketball team opens the MIAC season against Bethel at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Sexton Arena.
The Johnnies are 3-1 and ranked 25th in the nation in NCAA Division III. David Stockman, a senior guard from Maple Lake, leads St. John's with 17.0 points per game.
Bethel is 2-2 and led by Derek Magnuson's 19 points per game.


May it be known that I do recite and entirely believe words of the historic Apostles’ Creed extoling The Holy Spirit; The holy Catholic [Universal] Church; The Communion of Saints; The Forgiveness of sins; The Resurrection of the body; And life everlasting. But I also believe that the true and living God of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, accepts the doubting-Thomas aspect of my personality. I concur with Tennyson who said: There lies more faith in honest doubt than in half the creeds.
Even if it could be demonstrated that Jesus was not raised from the dead 2000 years ago, still I would believe in Him and trust him to save me in all the ways that salvation manifests itself for me – spiritually, mentally, intellectually, emotionally, yes even physically.
Contrary to the treatise of The Apostle Paul’s First Letter to The Corinthians, chapter 15, v.14-19, if Christ be not raised my preaching and faith are not useless or futile, neither is this life hopeless, my sins not un-forgiven nor ought I to be pitied. Even if Christ be not raised, Jesus is still, in the words of the hymn, “the world to me”.
If it could be proved that the resurrection of the historic Jesus was all a hoax, I would believe still in the Christ of faith. Yet would I embrace with fidelity His words as found in John 8:31f: If you hold to my teachings, you are really my disciples. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
If Jesus the Christ be not raised, to whom shall I go? Shall it be Buddha, Muhammad, Abraham, Confucius, The Inner Self? I think not. Lord to whom shall we go? Enquires Simon Peter of Jesus. To which he replies, rhetorically: You have the words of eternal life.
Even if Christ be nor raised I would remain true to His saving – though imperfectly recorded - words, recorded in the gospels by deeply inspired yet fallible human beings. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John would continue for me as essential reading material, daily meditated upon and adhered to with the help of the Spirit of God. I would still attempt, dutifully, faithfully and joyously, day by day, to live out the tenets of the Matthew Chapter Five Beatitudes, as a practicing member and disciple of the religion of Jesus in God’s kingdom, come on earth in the lives of human beings. I would still believe in the power of crucifixion-love, the power of redemptive-suffering, the unmatched power of forgiveness; the power of the cross – all taught and lived-out uniquely by Jesus of Nazareth, the human life of God. I would still believe that the greatest triple force for good and kindness in life are faith, hope and love. If Christ be not raised from the dead I would seek still to live by faith and not by sight.
Even if there came forth persuasive proof that Christ be not raised from the dead, His life-saving, tested and tried, immortal words, would still inspire me. Words such as these: Jesus said: The greatest commandment of all is this – You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And the second is like the first [arises out of the first], you must love your neighbor as you love yourself. Everything in life hinges on these two commandments (Matthew 22:34-38).
The wonderful words of life, the words and Word of Jesus, would still save. Everything else, including resurrection of the body and life everlasting, is for me an incredible, undeserved and unexpected bonus.
Even if there came convincing evidence to disprove the resurrection, still would I humbly hold fast the words of Jesus recorded in John 20:29, to a now believing Thomas: Blessed [Happy] are those who have not seen me with their own eyes, and yet believe in me.


Two mums whose sons died from taking drugs have given their backing to a Hampshire police campaign.
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips and Gail Pitts will be telling their stories at the Operation Fortress's partnership day in Southampton on Monday, December 10.
Elizabeth's son Nick died in 2004 after five years of being addicted to heroin. Gail's son, also called Nick, died in 2007 from his addiction to drugs.
For speaking on the day, the Operation Fortress team have donated £500 to the charity Elizabeth later set up and to which both women dedicate their time. DrugFAM provides support to the friends and families of people addicted to drugs.
The donation comes from funds reclaimed from criminals by police under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
families whose lives have often been devastated by crime and drug use.
"Drug addiction is not just about the addict; it's also about the impact on the family and the community. People often forget that behind the user there is a very distressed family, often with no experience of class A drugs, or gangs and dealers, and it's important the police understand the family is extremely vulnerable if not more."
Elizabeth is author of the book 'Mum, can you lend me twenty quid?' which tells the story of what drugs did to her family.
Through the charity, both women have worked with other police forces and the prison service to help break the cycle of addiction.
Operation Fortress lead Detective Superintendent Kath Barnes said: "Elizabeth has been very supportive of the campaign and I'm very pleased both she and Gail are able to speak to our partners.
"Operation Fortress was set up to tackle drug-related violence around Southampton as part of which we are working with partners to help reduce the demand for drugs in the long term.
drugs can have on whole families and that equally help is available through support services such as DrugFAM."
If a crime is in progress, always call 999.
If you're living in fear or debt because of drugs, you can speak to the Operation Fortress team in confidence by email operation.fortress@hampshire.pnn.police.uk or on 101.


Argentine President Mauricio Macri accompanied by AMIA's Vice President Ralph Thomas Saieg arrives to attend a ceremony marking the 22nd anniversary of the 1994 attack that left 85 dead at the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, on July 18, 2016.
After reopening Argentina’s economy to the world after 12 years of protectionist and populist policies, Argentina’s new centre-right president Mauricio Macri is now facing a hard task at home to restore economic equilibrium to this troubled South American nation.
Following his inauguration last December, Macri moved swiftly to settle Argentina’s main outstanding dispute with foreign creditors. He reached a quick agreement to pay $4.6 billion in defaulted debt to a group of U.S. hedge funds, ending a legal dispute that had been been dragging through a New York court for over a decade, hampering the country’s access to foreign credit.
He also removed foreign exchange controls that had been keeping Argentina’s peso currency artificially strong, damaging trade and discouraging foreign investment, while he almost simultaneously reduced agricultural export tariffs that made it difficult for his country’s farmers to compete on the international commodities market.
Those three quick moves on the international economic front during his first months in office brought a sigh of relief from Argentina’s grains exporters who had seen their profits collapse under the protectionist policies of Macri’s predecessor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. They also renewed the interest of foreign investors who had been put off by the anti-business climate during Fernández´s administration.
But in recent weeks Macri has had to turn his attention instead to Argentina’s more complicated home front, where much of the president’s energy has been devoted to backing Argentina out of the blind alley in which it found itself at the end of Fernández’s eight years at the helm.
With growth at a standstill, state coffers emptied by Fernández’s profligate populist spending, inflation rising and the courts bursting with revelations of jaw-dropping corruption under the former president, Macri has been left with a heavy inheritance to contend with.
With the situation on the international front resolved, Macri is now turning his full attention to trickier problems at home, such as Argentina’s chronic inflation rate. Upon assuming office, Macri’s economic team had predicted they could tame the country’s double-digit inflation before the end of this year.
But that is a pledge they are finding hard to meet, as rising prices continue to eat away at Macri’s inaugural address pledge of “zero poverty” and rapid growth for a stagnant Argentina.
Government figures released last week showed that Argentina will continue suffering the effects of the economic slump it inherited from Fernández until next year at least. The domestic gross product is expected to drop an estimated 1.5% in 2016 before recovering by between three and four points next year. Nationwide inflation, which hit 40% this year, is expected to drop to about a yearly 27% during 2017.
In some areas of the country the figures are even more worrying. In the capital city of Buenos Aires, for instance, prices rose 29% during the first half of 2016, according to official figures, 3.2% during the month of June alone, pushing the city’s inflation rate for the last 12 months to 47.1%.
The picture in Macri’s rear-view mirror, meanwhile, far from receding, seems to be catching up with the president as he enters the second half of his first year in office.
Centre-stage is the ticking time bomb left by Fernández in the shape of the heavily-subsidized home utility rates that helped cement her popularity by keeping gas and power bills artificially low.
Knowing she could not be reelected because of the constitutional two-term limit, Fernández allowed state coffers to be emptied by the giant subsidies she handed out to utility companies in exchange for them keeping rates low, making it inevitable for her successor to apply drastic hikes to balance the national budget.
The dangerous package is proving extremely difficult to unwrap for Macri.
Last week, for the first time during his presidency, Macri had to face thousands of people in Buenos Aires and across Argentina taking to the streets banging pots and pans in protest against the massive tariff hikes of up to 500% that he applied earlier this year to correct the situation.
The protest was called spontaneously on social media after Macri appealed to homeowners to save energy by cutting down on heating. “If you are at home in a T-shirt and barefoot it’s because you’re consuming too much energy,” Macri had said.
The words, coming from the scion of a family of millionaires who was himself photographed with his wife watching a football match on TV only recently, barefoot and wearing football shirts, stoked the fire that resulted in the protest.
“Macri, there’s no heater that can handle the cold in your heart,” read one placard held aloft by a protester under the rain Thursday night. The anger at the massive hikes was vented on social media as well, where consumers uploaded photos of their latest gas bills, which in many cases jumped from a few hundred to thousands of pesos.
The strong reaction to what for many low-income families are unpayable hikes has called into question the wisdom of the government’s decision to apply shock therapy rather than the kind of gradual adjustments a candidate such as Massa favored.
Complicating the scenario, many consumers took to the courts, obtaining judicial orders that blocked the hikes in many districts. The government has backtracked slightly, placing a 400% cap on increases and making it known that services would not be cut off to clients who do not pay on time. The Supreme Court is expected to deliver a ruling in August on whether the hikes are constitutional or not.
Macri’s justice minister, Germán Garavano, said the government would not interfere with court action against the hikes, telling the press he himself has been a victim of the increases. “I paid about one thousand pesos for gas and my bill jumped to over 5,000 (from about 70 to about 335 dollars),” he said.
During June, José López, former public works secretary under Fernández, was arrested while he was attempting to hide $9 million in cash at a convent in the suburb of General Rodríguez outside the city of Buenos Aires.
Many other former Fernández officials, including cabinet ministers and even her former vice-president Amado Boudou, are under investigation or in prison facing corruption charges.
President Macri, meanwhile, is hoping that the new business-friendly atmosphere under his government will attract enough new investment to boost production and create new jobs, pointing out the positive response he received during his recent official tour of Europe.


After Thomas Edison died a friend found a piece of paper on his desk. What was written on that paper should be emblazoned on the minds of every one of us. It read, "If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."
One day Jesus went to join his disciples. He found them surrounded by a large group of people. He discovered a man had brought his young son to the disciples hoping to get him healed. The disciples tried but the healing was not taking place. This must have been an especially difficult case.
When Jesus approached his disciples the boy's father came up to speak to him. "Master," he said, "I have brought my son who has a spirit that makes him unable to speak."
He continued that when the evil spirit attacked the boy it would tear him apart on the inside so he could hardly stand it. He continued that several times the boy threw himself in a fire and was seriously burned. At other times he had fallen into water and nearly drowned. He was a tortured, afflicted person. "At times," the father continued, "the boy would wallow on the ground and foam at the mouth." The boy was beyond any medical aid available at the time. He was considered hopeless and helpless.
Imagine how tortured the boy's father must have felt. He had brought the boy to the disciples hoping they could help. But they could not help the boy. Jesus asked, "How long has the boy been this way?" "From childhood," the father answered. Then Jesus, without minimizing the difficulties and complexity of the boy's situation, said to the boy's father, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."
The father was a devout man. He cried out, "Lord, I believe" Then he paused and added, "Help thou my unbelief." There is much in this statement of Jesus. He is saying if we come to the Lord and really believe what we are praying for it will happen. How many times do we pray and then say, "I sure hope God answers my prayer."
We hope he will answer our prayers instead of believing he will answer them. The father was seeking for mercy for the doubt that was in him. It was at war with the belief that was in him. This is usually the case with us.
I wish there was a course we could take or a book available that dealt honestly and forcefully about this matter of belief. It is so vitally important. It would deal not only with belief in God but belief in a goal we have or belief in a cause we endorse.
Belief in the answer to a question we have, belief in a reason for us living, belief in one's self is an admirable thing. We don't realize it but this complete belief is power. It is tremendous power just waiting to be put to use by anyone who grasps it.
Men and women, who believed, really believed, have written history. All we have to do is turn to the history books to see this for ourselves. People who have accomplished great things in this world have been the ones who believed in their mission. They believed it was possible. They believed it was going to happen. The person who doesn't believe it is possible accomplishes nothing great.
Remember what Edison had written at his desk. "If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." How long has it been since we astounded ourselves?


LUXEMBOURG, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Britain can unilaterally reverse its decision to leave the European Union, Europe's top court was told on Tuesday at an urgent hearing in a case supporters of membership hope could pave the way to a second referendum and ultimately stop Brexit.
Britain is due to exit the world's biggest trading bloc on March 29 but it remains unclear whether British Prime Minister Theresa May's draft divorce deal agreed with the EU on Sunday will be passed by parliament on Dec. 11.
Aidan O'Neill, lawyer for the Scottish politicians told a hearing of a full court of Luxembourg justices who have expedited the case because of its urgency, said all parties agreed that Article 50 could be revoked.
"The petitioners' case is that it's fundamental to the treaties and values of the European Union that a member state can revoke a withdrawal notice from the European Union without agreement of all other council states," O'Neill said.
O'Neill told the court those behind the case needed to know what their options were before imminent legislative votes.
That latter statement has given added significance to the outcome of Tuesday's case at the ECJ - whose supremacy over UK legal matters May has cited as one reason to leave the EU.
If the ECJ concludes Britain can unilaterally reverse Brexit, it could give British lawmakers (MPs) a third viable option as an alternative to May's deal or what ministers describe as a chaotic no deal scenario - staying in the bloc after another referendum.


On May 4, 2019, the Civic Orchestra of New Haven will perform Spring in St. Petersburg with Kalena Bovell, music director, with guest violinist Emily Uematsu.
Borodin: Symphony No. 2 "Heroic Symphony"


He took office in 2016 after President Dilma Rousseff was impeached.
Brazil’s federal police filed new charges against President Michel Temer on Tuesday, recommending he be put on trial for corruption, money laundering and criminal association for allegedly taking bribes to favour port management companies.
The investigation report was filed to the country’s top court and obtained by The Associated Press. The report signed by investigator Cleyber Malta Lopes also argues that Temer’s assets should be frozen. The charges also involve one of the president’s daughters, Maristela Temer, and two of his close aides.
Attorney General Raquel Dodge will have 15 days to decide whether to pursue the case. If she agreed to, two-thirds of Congress’ lower house would have to vote to allow a trial, which would suspend Temer, whose term ends December 31.
Lawmakers have rejected trials in two previous corruption charges levelled at Temer, whose popularity is in single digits.
Temer’s lawyer said he had not yet been given access to the police report. Since the investigation began, Temer has denied that his decree on port management was linked to bribes.
The investigation involves a decree signed by Temer in 2017 to extend concessions at the Santos port from 25 to 35 years.
Federal police allege that renovations at Maristela Temer’s house in Sao Paulo between 2013 and 2015 could have been paid for with bribes directed at the president through his aide Lima Filho.
Executives of the J&F company said they paid USD 280,000 to Lima Filho in exchange for political favours.
Temer survived previous congressional votes that could have suspended him on corruption and obstruction of justice charges, both filed by then Attorney General Rodrigo Janot.
But the president has been so weakened by repeated scandals that he has failed to deliver the reforms he promised political allies.


Canada’s housing bubble has burst and prices have started to fall. Sales have dipped for 8 straight months as buyer interest has begun to wane. Housing sales in November dropped 12 percent from the same month last year, while previously-hot markets of Vancouver and Toronto saw declines of 28.6% and 16% respectively. Despite the media’s repeated predictions of a “soft landing”, Canada’s real estate market is headed for a bloodbath that will end in a wave of foreclosures, higher unemployment, slower growth, bigger budget deficits, and an aggressive campaign to implement harsh austerity measures aimed at dismantling the social safety net. This is the real objective of bubblemaking, to abolish the publicly funded programs that provide vital assistance for the poor, the elderly, the sick and the unemployed. Ballooning deficits provide the rationale for an assault on the institutions that protect individuals from the ravages of free market capitalism.
As was true in the US, Canada’s massive bubble was created by government and central bank policies intended to shift more of the nation’s wealth to large financial institutions via reckless credit enhancement. Low interest rates, lax lending standards, bogus appraisals, and giveaway gov insurance programs have all fueled a real estate boom which has more than doubled housing prices since 2002. At the same time, “household debt in Canada has risen by 135 percent, while disposable income and nominal GDP have risen by 54 per cent. Household debt growth over the past decade has risen nearly three times as fast as income growth, a trend that is clearly unsustainable. The average Canadian now has a record-high debt load equal to 154 per cent of their disposable income.” (“Is household debt threatening Canada’s economy”, The Globe and Mail) Actually, things are worse than the article suggests. Currently, the household debt-to-income ratio is 165 percent, up from 137 percent in 2007. That means that regulators, big finance, and the BOC have all been working together to inflate the gigantic bubble that’s is now beginning to unwind.
When the government guarantees 100% of every mortgage, then there are going to be a lot of bad mortgages. Also, prices will go up sharply, although those prices will not be supported by fundamentals, (wage growth, high unemployment, and demographics) but by easier access to credit, which is the basis for any asset-price bubble. The bottom line is this: Housing prices do not double in less than 10 years without government and Central Bank involvement. Canada’s housing bubble is policy, that much is certain. The goal of that policy will become clearer as prices fall and members of the Stephen Harper administration and the BOC call for painful restructuring of the economy, and “shared sacrifice” by all parties excluding the corporations and big finance.
This is a good description of what’s happening in Canada, where the levers of political power are controlled by big business. The government, the banks and the BOC have all joined forces to effect changes that will strengthen their grip on political power, enhance corporate profits, and shift more of the nation’s wealth to privately-owned businesses.
“Harper’s Conservative government has totally unshackled Canada’s banks, and allowed them to run wild with reckless lending; exactly as occurred in the U.S…..Harper’s government has been rapidly building Canada’s own “Fannie Mae”: The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
The CMHC has been buying-up mortgages so fast that the Harper government has had to raise its legal borrowing limit twice just since the Conservatives took power, and will soon raise it a third time as it nears its new limit of $600 billion. In proportionate terms, it is now larger than Fannie Mae (at its peak), and this occurs as a Euro Pacific Capital report reveals that, “once small, Canada’s sub-prime mortgage industry is now booming.” It goes on to report that there are now $500 billion in “high-risk mortgages” in Canada’s housing market — nearly half of the entire mortgage market.
That’s what Canada’s housing bubble is really all about. It is a stealth attack on working people and the institutions the keep them from abject poverty.


Unwrapping the Panzerbox shows that they have sent a very well ventilated, monochromatic, sleek chassis for me to take a look at. The all black look is appealing, and the stepped edging works well to hide the full side panel's edge.
Getting a better look at the front gives you a peak at the 190mm fan behind the mesh that covers the bottom 2/3 of the face panel. The mesh is broken up by the aluminium panel that supports the three optical drives. Left of the bays is where NZXT has decided to place the small but functional power and reset switches.
Moving up, above the drive bays, NZXT continues this mesh, and uses it as the top panel as well. This time the mesh is molded for structure and is cut out in the front to accept the front I/O panel.
Zooming in on the front I/O panel shows what NZXT includes. There are two USB 2.0 ports, microphone and headphone 3.5mm jacks, and one E-SATA port to finish off the panels functionality.
Spinning the Panzerbox to the left, shows the textured all black panel, than NZXT has ventilates at the bottom and covers with the same mesh from the front and top parts of the case.
At this point with all the black going on, it's a little tough to distinguish everything. Starting at the top, NZXT has included holes and grommets to allow the passing of up to ½" tubing. Below these holes is the 120mm exhaust fan that sits to the right of the rear I/O panel. At the bottom you can see the seven ventilated expansion slots. What is a bit strange, is next to those slots, is where the PSU gets installed, in a side down position.
Spinning the Panzerbox around to the back side shows that it mimics the opposing side. One thing to add is that these panels are full coverage, and leave no real signs of where they start or end, the edges run cleanly along the built in stepped edging of the face and top.
Laying the Pazerbox on its back gives us a good look at the bottom of the case. The rubber feet that are included are large in surface area, but low in profile, leaving the Panzerbox with a lowered look. One other thing to point out was how easy this case absorbs hand oil. I left the bottom as-is to show what it could all eventually look like completed, if you don't have a rag handy to wipe away all the prints left behind.


Virginia's two Roman Catholic dioceses on Wednesday published lists of 58 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors.
Updated 8:45 p.m. with two priests formerly assigned in Staunton on list.
RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia's two Roman Catholic dioceses on Wednesday published lists of 58 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing minors, joining other dioceses around the country in answering calls to make public the names of abusive clergy.
The diocese of Richmond said each of the 42 priests on its list had a "credible and substantiated" allegation of sexual abuse against a child. The names of 16 priests appeared on a list released by the diocese of Arlington.
Both dioceses said the lists were published after independent reviews of all clergy personnel files. The bishops of both Richmond and Arlington said none of the clergy whose names appear are currently in active ministry. Both bishops apologized to victims in letters that accompanied the lists.
"To those who experienced abuse from clergy, I am truly, deeply sorry," Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout wrote. "I regret that you have to bear the burden of the damage you suffered at the hands of those you trusted. I am also sorry that you must carry the memory of that experience with you."
Knestout said publishing the list "can help bring about healing" and "heighten the awareness of this tragic situation."
One priest on the list, Roland Edmund Leveille, served at St. Francis Assisi Catholic Church in Staunton from 1969-1971, according to News Leader clippings from that period. He was removed from ministry in 1973 and died in 1994.
Another was pastor of St. Francis in the 1950s and 1960s. James Henry McConnell was accused of abuse after his death in 1969, the Richmond diocese said. He retired abruptly in 1964 and in a News Leader story of the time blamed "rapidly developing events in my life." He left before a replacement was named.
Thirteen of the 42 priests on the Richmond list are now deceased. Six have been criminally convicted. That list covers allegations dating from the 1950s to the most recent substantiated allegation in 1993, said Deborah Cox, a spokeswoman for the diocese. The list doesn't include details about the allegations or what parishes the priests were serving in at the time.
Cox said Knestout does not know of any priests or deacons currently serving in ministry or in any other capacity with a credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse against them. Cox said that if victims come forward with allegations against any clergy in active ministry, Knestout "will respond in accordance with our commitment to addressing allegations of sexual abuse."
One of the priests listed by the Richmond diocese is the Rev. John P. Blankenship, who pleaded guilty in 2002 to sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy in 1982 while the boy and his mother went to the Church of the Sacred Heart in Prince George County to do housekeeping chores. Blankenship was given supervised probation and avoided a prison sentence. He was removed from ministry in 2002 and dismissed from the priesthood in 2007.
Eight of the priests on the Arlington list are deceased.
"The publishing of this list will bring a range of emotions for all of us. Embarrassment, frustration, anger and hurt are all natural emotions to experience in a time such as this. I share those emotions," Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Arlington diocese wrote.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring said in October that his office and state police were investigating possible clergy sexual abuse of children and whether any church officials may have covered up or "abetted any such crimes."
Herring set up a hotline and an online reporting form for any victims to report abuse.
A spokesman for Herring did not immediately return a call seeking comment Wednesday.
The News Leader contributed to this report.
Here's a list of priests credibly accused of abuse as released by the Diocese of Richmond, which includes all of central and western Virginia. The diocese did not say at what parishes the priests served. Key dates in their careers are available on the Richmond Diocese website.
Priests ordained in the Catholic Diocese of Richmond, alleged to have committed abuse in the present-day territory of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond and later incardinated to the Catholic Diocese of Arlington, or alleged to have committed abuse in both dioceses.
Smalls, Oliver Joseph, Unknown, Belize, S. A.
Clergy – Ordained bishops, priests, or deacons.
Deacon – Ordained to ministry of service, may be married. May preside at baptisms, weddings, and funerals. May preach at Mass or other services. May not preside at Eucharist, Reconciliation, Confirmation, or Anointing of the sick.
Diocesan Priest – Ordained to serve in the Catholic Church under a bishop who exercises supervision, provides assignments and offers support.
Religious Order Priest – Ordained to serve in the Catholic Church as a member of a particular religious community whose work may include duties within the diocese.
Incardinated – A canonical action by which a priest or deacon becomes a member of a particular diocese or religious order.
Minor – Any person younger than age 18.
Removed – A canonical action imposed by the Holy See (Vatican/Rome) through which no public active ministry is to occur, yet there remains obligation for supervision and support from the Diocese.
Laicized/Dismissed – A canonical action imposed by the Holy See through which no public ministry is to occur. No obligation for supervision by and financial support from the diocese or religious community remains.
Dispensed – A canonical action imposed by the Holy See at the request of the priest so that he is no longer obliged to public ministry. No obligation for supervision and financial support remains.
Suspended – A canonical action imposed by the diocesan Bishop in which no public ministry is to occur, pending the possibility of removal by the Holy See.


Video: Is Dubai shifting from an investor-driven to a consumer-driven market?
Dubai property brokers are seeing an increasing number of owner-occupiers buying properties in the emirate.
Samer Abdin, GM of Dubizzle Property, speaking on this week’s AB Live, said the dynamics of Dubai’s property markets are changing, with more end users investing in homes.
“One of the shifts that has happened in the real estate market is when you go back a few years, it was primarily an investor-driven market from a sales point of view. Now we are seeing more and more, the shift to end users. People are buying to live, families settling in, who are planning to make Dubai a long-term home. And I think that is a sign of maturity”, he explained.
As a result, people are opting for larger apartments and villas to experience community living, which are now becoming affordable.
“The way the market is going presents opportunities. The way that Dubai is maturing means that more people are settling. Young families are starting to grow and they are looking for villas in places like Dubai Land, Arabian Ranches. People are looking for that community feel,” Abdin said.
“If you are an end user, yield is not the only thing. You are also looking for community, facilities etc. As more and more end users are buying properties, more and more of these considerations are taken into account and developers are starting to realise that too,” he added.


The Conservative Party, once expected to enjoy a landslide victory, now see a tight race to the finish line in the UK election.
London: Polls opened in Britain on Thursday, in an election Prime Minister Theresa May once expected to win easily but which has proved increasingly hard to predict following a campaign shadowed by terrorism.
May called the snap vote in April, when opinion poll ratings for her and her centre-right Conservative party were sky high, presenting herself as the strong leader to take Britain into Brexit talks.
But terrorist attacks in London and Manchester have put her under pressure over her six years as interior minister, while campaign missteps have dented her reputation as a safe pair of hands.
Meanwhile opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, an anti-war campaigner deemed unelectable by a majority of his own lawmakers, has run an energetic campaign promising change and an end to austerity.
While May has been touring target seats around the country, delivering slogan-heavy speeches to small groups of hand-picked activists, Corbyn has drawn large crowds to open-air rallies.
Polling experts -- many of whom failed to predict the referendum vote to leave the European Union last year -- are now wary of calling the outcome.
While most still expect a Conservative victory, predictions of the margin vary widely, and one shock forecast model even predicted May could lose her majority of 17 in the 650-seat House of Commons.
"I'd still put my money on a comfortable Tory win -- but who knows?" said Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London.
Speaking to reporters on her plane during a final burst of campaigning on Wednesday, May insisted she had no regrets about calling the vote three years early.
"I've enjoyed the campaign," she said. "There is a very clear choice for people when they come to vote, between the coalition of chaos of Jeremy Corbyn, or the strong and stable leadership with me and my team."
Asked what would constitute success, the 60-year-old vicar's daughter said: "I never predict election results."
Corbyn, a 68-year-old leftwinger who has never held ministerial office and defied the odds to win the Labour leadership two years ago, urged supporters in Glasgow to think big.
"Wouldn't it be great if on Friday we woke up to... a Labour government that will be a government for all of our communities across the whole of the country, to deliver that social justice that we all crave?" he said.
The election is May's first since taking office after Britons voted by 52 percent to leave the European Union, plunging their country into an uncertain future.
May has accused Corbyn of being unprepared for negotiations set to begin on June 19, and unwilling to curb mass migration -- a key driver of the Brexit vote.
But her government's record on cutting funding for health and education have also featured strongly in the campaign, to the benefit of Labour.
"Jeremy Corbyn just seems more for us," said 38-year-old Debbie Worthy, a mother-of-two in Middlesbrough, northern England.
The Conservatives were also damaged by a manifesto plan for elderly care that would see many people pay more.
Then came the suicide bombing at a Manchester concert on May 22, which killed 22 people including seven children, followed by Saturday's knife and van attack in London, which left eight dead.
Campaigning was twice suspended in the aftermath of the attacks, which May blamed on "evil" Islamist ideology.
The Conservatives have always been strong on defence and security, and they have sought to exploit Corbyn's anti-nuclear stance and his alleged past support for Irish paramilitaries.
"They're more experienced -- Jeremy Corbyn can't be trusted on security," said Talib Hussain, 46, a postmaster from Bradford in the northwest of England.
But May also faced uncomfortable questions over cuts to police numbers during her time as interior minister, amid accusations that the attackers in Manchester and London Bridge had slipped through the intelligence net.
Security on voting day was reviewed following the London attack, with the city's Metropolitan Police force implementing a "specialist and highly flexible operation" which it said could be deployed as needed.
Polls opened at 7:00am (0600 GMT) and will close at 10:00pm.
An exit poll will give an indication of the outcome, although final results will not emerge until early Friday.
"When people ask me for a prediction, I have to say I know that I don't know," veteran BBC pollster David Butler said.
Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at the University of London, predicted that May would increase her parliamentary majority by 25 seats -- not as much as she had hoped, but still a "pretty solid" win.
A final poll by YouGov on Wednesday put the Conservatives seven points ahead of Labour, while ICM gave May's party a 12-point lead over its rivals.
Such predictions stand in stark contrast to a Monday poll by Survation, which gave a narrow one-point gap.
As the Conservatives and Labour trade blows, the smaller pro-European Liberal Democrats and the pro-Brexit UK Independence Party (UKIP) have failed to gain much traction.
However the Scottish National Party, which has called for a new independence vote after Brexit, again looks set to dominate north of the English border.


ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - East African heads of state admitted South Sudan as a member the regional bloc Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on Friday, some four months after the nation proclaimed independence.
“The Republic of South Sudan ... have taken a pro-active measure for membership to IGAD, and their membership was approved by the summit,” Mahboub Maalim, IGAD executive secretary, told reporters following a meeting of heads of state.
South Sudan was admitted to the African Union some two weeks after its independence on July 9, the culmination of a peace agreement following a brutal two-decade civil war.
The country is one of the world’s poorest and has inherited a string of disputes with its northern neighbour after its people voted in a January referendum to break away from Sudan — a decision accepted by Khartoum.
Representatives of the two countries have resumed AU-mediated talks this week on solving outstanding issues such as demarcation of their porous border and oil revenue-sharing.
The U.N. General Assembly admitted South Sudan on July 14 as the 193rd member of the United Nations.


We’ve all experienced the impact of extraordinary technological change over recent years. All of our clients are impacted by digital advancements, and so our propositions need to respond to that. We’re also seeing that our clients are changing how they work; increasingly working remotely and across multiple locations. For PwC, this means designing an operating model where we’ll improve quality, deliver outstanding value to our clients, and create a better experience for our people.
PwC Assurance Centres of Excellence (CoEs) are one of our key priorities to respond to this challenge.
As part of the Assurance CoE you will utilise cutting edge technology to execute delivery of more complex and judgmental Assurance activities virtually. Working closely with PwC Assurance teams from across the country you will improve the quality, efficiency, and innovation in the more complex areas of the audit, and have exposure to a wide range of clients from FTSE 100 to owner managed businesses across a variety of industries. The work is location agnostic with the majority of work being office based, and as such we are looking for individuals to be based in any regional UK office (with a nucleus of individuals in our Manchester and Glasgow offices).
The list of areas delivered by the CoE is expected to grow rapidly, in line with the firm’s strategy, over the next 5 years. Which will create opportunities to experience new areas of the audit, to build expertise in more than one technical area and to support the growth and development of this part of our business. The Assurance CoE will provide initial training and ongoing coaching and support on the technical areas you are assigned to through weekly lunch and learns, professional skills courses, and activity leaders who act as coaches for the team.
A drive and aptitude to build deep accounting and auditing specialisms in more complex areas.
Excellent written and oral communication skills, at all levels.
An ability to work under own initiative, and under pressure.
This role offers the potential for flexible working. It is expected, at most, only very minimal travel will be required with the vast majority of interactions (with clients and core engagement teams) being virtual in nature.


Nigerian writers and publishers met with Global Storymakers' Chief Innovation Officer, Sherry Sacino, to find ways of writing, publishing and selling stories across the world. This took place early this week at City Library in Zone 4, Abuja.
Malam Denja Abdullahi, president of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), said the meeting was "largely exploratory, to see how there could be a collaboration between Nigerian writers, artists, illustrators and publishers with Sacino's organisation, towards developing a model that will enable the writing and publishing of stories for markets across the world.
Abdullahi added that there was a need to understand how Global Storymakers works, so an alliance can be built.
Sacino described Nigeria as a very progressive country, with citizens who care about having children learn, in mother tongue and other languages. "I hope the writers would want to write, share and sell their books around the world, and also encourage children to write as well. They can do that through the Global Storymakers platform.
Writers at the gathering included Salamatu Sule (author of a children's storybook, 'Oma' the Drummer Queen), Chinyere Obi-Obasi (The Loyal Queen), Dame Joan Oji, also an author and President/CEO of Josiah and Joan Oji Foundation for Girls and Teens.
Global Storymakers is an online storytelling community. It is a network of illustrators, writers, photographers, teachers and technicians committed to giving children a voice in their world by creating their own stories.


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Foreign central banks' overall holdings of U.S. marketable securities at the Federal Reserve fell in the latest week, data from the U.S. central bank showed on Thursday.
The Fed said its holdings of U.S. securities kept for overseas central banks fell $767 million in the week ended August 7, to stand at $3.3 trillion.
The breakdown of custody holdings showed overseas central banks' holdings of Treasury debt fell by $541 million to stand at $2.9 trillion.
Foreign institutions' holdings of securities issued or guaranteed by the biggest U.S. mortgage financing agencies, including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac , fell by $340 million to stand at $308 billion.
The Fed said its holdings of so-called "other" securities held in custody and reported at face value rose by $114 million to stand at $37.3 billion. These securities include non-marketable U.S. Treasury securities, supranationals, corporate bonds, asset-backed securities and commercial paper.
Overseas central banks, particularly those in Asia, have been huge buyers of U.S. debt in recent years and own more than a quarter of marketable Treasuries. China and Japan are the biggest foreign holders of Treasuries.


Laguna Beach lost an icon Sunday when Harry James Lawrence died, with his wife, Zahide, holding his hand. He was 98 and in ill health for several years.
"It was time," said Zahide, who Harry married in 1996.
Services will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Laguna Presbyterian Church to celebrate the life of the man dubbed "Mr. Laguna" in honor of his contributions to the city.
The Patriots Day Parade Committee named him grand marshal in 2008, referring to him in the program as one of Laguna's most distinguished residents. He had previously been named in 1981 as the Citizen of the Year.
In 2001, Harry received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chamber of Commerce and a Person of the Year Award, which was subsequently named for him and presented annually at the chamber's Spirit of Laguna awards. He was also the recipient of the chamber's Mermaid Beautification Award.
"Business in Laguna Beach stands on the broad shoulders of Harry Lawrence," said Michael Kinsman, 2012 chamber president. "His contributions to the community are legion, and we are proud that the chamber's Citizen of the Year Award bears his name.
Harry was the consummate volunteer. His fingerprints are all over some of the town's most cherished institutions.
In a one-on-one interview, released this week, with family friend and former Chamber of Commerce Director Rose Hancock, Harry was quoted as saying, "Things needed to be done, and I do my best to help. I have great joy being surrounded by good people, unselfish people with good objectives. You'd be surprised. God has always looked out for me in impossible situations. I know if I do the right thing, all will be well."
The city recognized his accomplishments in 2009, declaring Oct. 1 "Harry Lawrence Day," which was celebrated each year thereafter on Main Beach, his most enduring legacy to the city.
However, the "Window to the Sea" was neither Harry's first nor his last major achievement on behalf of Laguna since moving here with his first wife, Maxine, and their daughter, Susan, in 1947.
Shortly after arriving here, Harry became secretary and then president of the Laguna Playhouse and decided the theater needed a new venue and helped raise the funds for it, as recorded by Jack Smith in a decade-by-decade resume of Harry for the presentation of the Exchange Club's Book of Golden Deeds.
In the 1950s, Harry founded the Beatification Committee and the Holiday Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce to bring tourists to Laguna in the winter, and raised revenue by an innovation called bed taxes.
The next decade saw Harry founding the Civic League, dedicated to preserving the "Village Atmosphere," and helping reduce sign clutter, which resulted in one of California's toughest sign ordinances.
He was a founder and board member of Lyric Opera, which morphed into Opera Pacific; board member of the Festival of Arts; twice president of the Chamber of Commerce, which he helped resuscitate from its near-moribund state after World War II; he served as area district governor of Laguna's Rotary; and he was on Laguna's 1980 Committee, which forged the city's General Plan. He was very involved in fundraising for the construction of South Coast Hospital, the first one in South Orange County.
Harry served on the Laguna Art Museum board, twice as vice president. He chaired the "Confidential Committee," which worked to resolve the rampant drug-related activities in town.
In 1980, the Rotary Club gave him the Paul Perris Award, its highest honor, and he was named to the advisory board of Woodbury University, his alma mater.
Throughout the years, Harry supported local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5868.
As reported in the Coastline Pilot, a plaque celebrating his membership was presented to Harry last July by Post Commander Bill Sandlin at a ceremony honoring war heroes. Senior Vice Commander Arnie Silverman organized the tribute, which included a recap of Harry's military service.
"Harry's history of achievements is overwhelming," Silverman said. "A World War II veteran, he commanded an LSI-329 amphibious ship that made numerous beach landings of Marines in the thick of fighting in the battle-torn Solomon Islands. Often under attack by Japanese torpedo bombers, he once came close to losing his ship. He rose from Ensign to Lt. Commander and by war's end, he captained his own ship."
Harry was also a savvy businessman.
In 1947, Harry and Maxine bought Warren Imports, a small gift shop in the French Family's enclave on South Coast Highway that featured works by local artists and potters. They had gone into the shop to buy a wedding gift.
Over the next half century, Warren Imports, the name of which was never changed, gained international renown for its inventory of Asian art and furniture and the owners expertise. Harry also guided tours to Asia, while Maxine and Susie took care of business at home.
Warren Imports was later moved to larger quarters on the corner of South Coast Highway and Center Street. It closed in 2009.
Harry's annual trips to the Orient made such an impression on him that he completed and presented numerous slide shows and lectures throughout the U.S. on the art, religious and cultural background of China.
Harry was not always a store-owner or an expert on Asian culture.
He was born Oct. 1, 1914, in San Bernardino and raised in Long Beach where he graduated from Wilson High School with five athletic letters. He went on to Long Beach City College, Smith recounted in the Book of Golden Deeds.
However, Harry was a traveling man, eventually able to boast of visiting 155 countries. His travels started with the Merchant Marines, and he sailed around the world as a young man, Hancock said.
Sometimes he took menial jobs until he went back to school to get a degree in International Trade of the Far East from Woodbury College in Los Angeles. He was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 2001.
After graduation, Harry founded the Junior International Trade Assn. in Los Angeles and worked at a steamship company and as a trader for an import-export company before settling on a job with Fireman's Fund, until Dec. 7, 1941.
After World War II ended, Harry went back to work for Fireman's Fund, but soon thereafter the Lawrences bought the shop from Earl and Florence Warren, where he spent the next 61 years. Maxine died in 1993, and Harry married his second wife, Zahide Adam, in 1996.
He is survived by Zahide, his daughter Susan, his step-children, Alan and Anil Adam, daughter-in-law Kim, and two-month-old granddaughter, Ella.


Chris Duncan battled for five years in major league baseball. But his toughest fight is ongoing.
The St. Louis Dispatch is reporting that the former Cardinals outfielder — who was traded to the Red Sox in 2009 and later released — is suffering from glioblastoma, a malignant tumor in his brain.
Duncan first noticed a problem when he started experiencing sporadic seizures, including one that caused him to black out during a radio appearance. He received his official diagnosis about eight weeks ago.
But Duncan is trying to lean on the same competitive approach that fueled him to the big leagues to conquer this situation.
During the first week of October, Duncan underwent a six-and-a-half hour surgery that included partial removal of his skull. After being placed in a coma for a few days, the outfielder needed a week before he could utter his name again.
At this point in his battle, Duncan still needs two-plus weeks of radiation and chemotherapy. The former outfielder also administers daily shots to his stomach because a blood clot formed in his left arm.
His father, Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan, is trying to stay strong along the way.


WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (APP): Kashmiris living in the United States have expressed their disappointment over the silence of the Obama administration on the ongoing brutalities in the Indian held Kashmir and termed its insistence on Kashmir being a bilateral dispute between Pakistan and India as “unfortunate”.
“It is quite unfortunate that the Obama administration and the United Nations both have chosen to adopt India’s view that this is simply a bilateral issue,” Dr Ghulam Nabi Fai, Secretary General of the US-based group World Kashmir Awareness in a statement here.
“Unfortunately, it is the big lie, and an extremely dangerous one.
As long as India continues to blame Pakistan for problems in Kashmir, India and Pakistan remain on the verge of war with each other, and this is a threat to international peace,” the Kashmiri leader said.
He said when the two nuclear powers were facing each other for 70 years on the issue, that was not a bilateral issue.
triggered by the killing of a young Kashmiri leader Burhan Wani in July.
70 people have been killed as Indian forces tried to suppress the protests which are now calling for freedom from the Indian yoke.
Demonstrations have occurred across the globe by non-resident Kashmiris and other human rights activists. The curfews and clashes have now been sustained for over five weeks, with limited or no access to the basic necessities of life, including food, power and fuel.
On August 30, non-resident Kashmiris submitted a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry in which they expressed their disappointment over US silence on the atrocities in Kashmir.
“This latest situation has been met with inexplicable silence by the United States. This has given a sense of total impunity to India to exercise the use of unprecedented force on unarmed Kashmiri civilians,” they wrote in the letter.
selective about the application of the principles of human rights and democratic values. What is the significance of an alliance between the great democracy (USA) and the so-called largest democracy in the world (India), when universal principles, democratic values, and human rights are knowingly ignored?” they questioned.
He said there had not been a word mentioned by President Obama or other US officials that would indicate that some pressure is being applied toward India to exercise restraint in Kashmir and permit an airing of grievances by the angry population.
in the US administration, who undoubtedly know the truth on the ground, but instead have chosen to play politics with the facts,” he added.
He said trade and commercial deals were important but not at the expense of the high moral ground American exceptionalism had always claimed.
Nations and other allies to sit up and take heed,” he said.


Put together four (B) boards in a square, with two screws for each corner. Drill a pilot hole before drilling in the screw. Repeat for each corner.
Attach the (A) boards to the corners of the square base as pillars.
Put together another square using 4 more of the (B) boards, then attach to the pillars.
Paint the whole structure. Let dry.
Measure out so that there would be 5 inches between each hook. Drill pilot holes, then screw the Eye Screws into the pilot holes. Do 8 sets of 5 hooks each on each edge, for a total of 20 hooks.
Thread the nylon rope through the top and bottom hook, then tie a knot on one end. pull tight, and tie the knot on the other end. Cut, then seal the end with hot glue to keep from fraying.
Paint wooden letters and the extra (B) Board and let dry.
Place the Last (B) board face down on the top front of the 'Zoo'. Make pilot holes and drill.
Make pilot holes in the wooden letters after positioning them on the front of the 'zoo'.
Drill the letters in. Hot glue ceramic animals onto the (B) board placed on top.


This detached, freehold bed and breakfast in Rustington currently provides eight letting bedrooms along with generous owner’s accommodation.
This delightful property, in Claigmar Road, occupies a good-size corner plot within a few hundred metres level walk of Rustington’s village shopping centre and approximately half a mile level walk from the beach.
The property has been a successful guest house for the past four decades and, during the current owner’s ownership, has been extensively and sympathetically refurbished throughout the past eight years to create a profitable business, with many guests returning frequently for repeat bookings throughout the year.
Included in the sale of the business are the chattels and goodwill along with bookings already received for the remainder of 2018 and into 2019, so the new owners are literally able to take this venture over as a going concern, with the current owners happy to be involved during the transition period, should the need arise.
Rustington is a delightful coastal village retaining the traditional Sussex village feel, with the centre providing a wide selection of amenities including banks and a Waitrose store.
The village also received a coveted gold award at the annual awards ceremony for the South and South East in Bloom Competition 2013, while Rustington Golf Course and the exclusive Ham Manor Golf Club can be located approximately a mile away.
The mainline railway station at Angmering, about one and a half miles away, provides useful links along the coast, to Gatwick Airport, Brighton and London Victoria.
For racing enthusiasts the nearby Fontwell and Goodwood racecourses are within a short drive, as is the motor circuit at Goodwood.
The peaceful beach and calming pace of the village environment provide the perfect atmosphere for any visitors wishing to escape the hustle and bustle of the busy capital.


When you're a bit player in the ultra-competitive mobile phone market, you can't afford to make a lot of mistakes. But that's what Microsoft did this week when it delivered a buggy software update of its Windows Phone 7 operating system to its mobile phone customers, an upgrade that unfortunately bricked a small number of Samsung handsets.
Microsoft quickly pulled the update and owned up to the snafu. In a statement, the company said that it had identified the technical glitch, and that would reissue the upgrade "as soon as possible." The troublesome patch had been delivered when users connected their Windows 7 Phones to their computers via USB cable.
The software bug comes at a sensitive time for Microsoft's fledgling mobile OS, which debuted in October 2010 and is just now starting to gain market share, albeit at a slow pace.
According to research firm The NPD Group, Windows Phone 7 held a 2-percent share of the U.S. smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2010. And while that may sound reasonable for a new platform-after all, Windows Phone 7 bears little relation to Microsoft's older mobile OS--it's a lower market share than that which was enjoyed by Google's Android and Palm's WebOS after their respective launches.
Meanwhile, Android's worldwide growth appears unstoppable. Britain's Sky News Online reports that half of the top ten mobile phones in the UK now run Google's OS, according to comparison site uSwitch.
One bad update won't ruin Windows Phone 7's chances of success, of course, but it also won't inspire confidence among tech's early adopters, the folks who could spread the word-of-mouth gospel praising Windows Phone 7, and the type of support that Microsoft needs to slow the Android juggernaut.
And considering that few consumers are planning to buy a Windows Phone 7 handset, according to a December survey by research firm ChangeWave, Microsoft faces a daunting marketing challenge.
On the plus side, Redmond's recently announced deal with Nokia, which plans to run Win Phone 7 on its upcoming smartphones, may boost the mobile OS's visibility among consumers. Certainly, Microsoft needs all the help it can get. Windows Phone 7 may be a good smartphone OS, but more glitches and gaffs like this week's Samsung phone screw-up could very well doom it to also-ran status.
Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com.


Sixteen actors, most in bare feet, encircle a chair, telephone and chaise lounge. Vaishnavi Suryaprakash is wearing a black T-shirt and rolled up floral pants. With a sticky-noted script in hand, she is rehearsing as 22-year-old Radha, who – at this point in the play – is at her grandparents’ home in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in 1977.
In this scene, being crafted in a warehouse in Sydney’s Surry Hills, Radha is refusing to marry a man for the benefit of family alliances, and fervently warns of the country’s coming descent into violence and terror. “Everyone is so busy forming their own united fronts that the country itself is united about precisely nothing,” she insists.
The tension builds until family matriarch Aacha (Sukania Venugopal) slaps Radha, accusing her of “shouting out whatever thoughts come into your bloody head”.
When I first meet the cast and crew it is mid-December, and a month until Counting and Cracking will premiere at Sydney Town Hall. This story of identity and secrets, of refugees and humanity, is a grand narrative spanning four generations and 50 characters; it’s also Belvoir Street theatre’s most ambitious undertaking in its 35-year history, as epic and Australian as Cloudstreet or The Secret River.
The play rotates through four eras – 1957 in Colombo, when Radha is an infant; 1977 again in Colombo, when oppression is a harbinger of the civil war to come; 1983, when it finally makes its bloody arrival; and 2004 in western Sydney, where Radha’s past never seems completely left behind.
During performances, Radha’s grandfather – Tamil politician Apah (Prakash Belawadi) – will be chained to an armchair for creating a “public disturbance”; Sri Lanka, he says, will be torn in two by efforts to make Sinhala the country’s sole official tongue, while suppressing the Tamil language.
Apah wants equality between Tamil, Sinhalese and Burgher, but was taught early that democracy is “the counting of heads, within certain limits, and the cracking of heads beyond those limits”.
The scene breaks. Director Eamon Flack questions how this family argument is playing: “I feel like a politically incendiary statement is never met with silence.” But the play’s creator, S. Shakthidharan, known as Shakthi, disagrees, insisting the debate here is not incendiary. He understands these fraught family arguments through his own experience.
The overall piece is a work of fiction, but everything in it comes from something real.
Shakthi describes himself as an “Australian storyteller with Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry”; his own family fled Sri Lanka in 1983. He began writing Counting and Cracking as a means to gather more details about his family’s history: he spent four years listening to a couple of hundred relatives tell their version of events, eventually deciding his play should not take sides but be a “space for many truths”.
Shakthi’s mother thought this play was a “really stupid idea” but, having read the first draft, she began coming to workshops. “Slowly she opened up to talking about Sri Lanka. A lot of what she said has ended up in the play,” he says. Much of this reticence is generational, an unwillingness to discuss traumas of life in war-torn Sri Lanka, but this has left second- and third-generations such as Shakthi with gaps in their understanding of family history.
Three days before opening night, a preview performance in Sydney Town Hall is sold out. Audience members are treated to spicy lamb biriyani or chick pea and eggplant curry in the foyer, then make their way into purpose-built wooden stadium seating with cushions that fills most of the hall, surrounding a generous, long stage.
Up high, right off where the actors enter, three musicians provide a live soundtrack that is joyous and rhythmic, sometimes haunting, with instruments including violin, flute, tabla percussion and a long traditional drum.
Young Radha dances in wearing a stunning red and gold sari, a braided hair extension down her back; actor Suryaprakash, who was born in India, was able to draw on her own traditional dancing skills. The ensemble dance in her wake, tossing white flowers from golden pots and woven baskets.
Writer Shakthi believes Tamil is a “really performative” language; one word can have different meanings “depending on the emotion you say it with”. Hence the actors, who sometimes slip into Tamil and Sinhala during the show – which fellow actors beside the stage immediately translate to English – add to the musicality.
In one scene, a 48-year-old version of Radha (Nadie Kammallaweerra) is confronted by a man raising funds for the guerilla organisation the Tamil Tigers (Rajan Velu), who pushes his way inside her Pendle Hill apartment in western Sydney. He aggressively insists Radha’s son Siddhartha (Shiv Palekar), born in Australia, be sent to Sri Lanka to join the armed struggle.
“I’m not Sri Lankan; I’m Australian,” insists Siddhartha, who becomes the focal point of the play’s theme: searching for identity within and between borders. He calls himself “Sid” to fit in.
Siddhartha comes to understand his place in Australia through his Yolngu girlfriend Lily (Rarriwuy Hick). The character was inspired by a conversation Shakthi had with his erstwhile theatrical collaborator, Yolngu performer Rosealee Pearson, about DNA research that linked south Asians and northern Indigenous peoples of 4,000 years ago.
Shakthi hopes Counting and Cracking “can help people heal”, encouraging a feeling among his community that “we’re part of the Australian story”. He also hopes that it will gently fill “this silence that exists between first- and second-generation migrants … and that the wisdom of the incredible experiences they went through overseas can be passed on to future generations”.
• Counting and Cracking plays Sydney festival until 2 February, before a run at Adelaide festival from 2-9 March.


Yes, it’s 2018 and relying on free video streaming sites to satisfy your binge-watching needs are the norm. Other than watching great selections on Netflix or support paid content on HBO, Hulu, and many other big video streaming sites, people still look for an all-inclusive resource where they can all find and watch their favorite movies and TV shows.
Today, there are a plethora of websites that people can enjoy. A lot of streaming sites can already provide a wide variety of selections. However, only a few have risen to a certain level of popularity. There are only a select few that have survived through these years.
If you’re looking for free movie streaming sites online, we know a few that you trust. Perhaps, these three are the most popular and trusted ones so let’s get to know them, shall we?
If there is a free streaming site that made bigger waves than its competition, then that might as well be SolarMovie. Millions of people all over the world have been relying on this website for many years now. When it comes to accessibility and availability, this website is very much like Putlocker.
Searching for your favorite movies and TV shows is very easy. With its wide selection of titles, you’re mostly going to find what you’re looking for, too. Stream quality provides an HD experience for all. Users can also customize their viewing experience. It’s also an easy site to navigate, therefore, it will not take a genius to begin your streaming experience with SolarMovie.
Another free streaming site that moves up to the roster is YesMovies. You won’t have to think twice about saying Yes to YesMovies. According to popular opinion, it’s the perfect alternative to SolarMovie especially during moments when users will find the website down again.
Like SolarMovie, users can customize any given videos to meet their own viewing preferences from full-screen viewing, high-definition options, to aspect ratio options. So whenever your favorite streaming site, such as SolarMovie, fails and crashes, YesMovies is always ready to save the day.
Most popularly known as 123Movies, this video streaming site is at par with other great resources online. It comes with the best movie categories available. Not only that, users can find titles outside of the United States. Videos are readily available in the best quality possible.
Other than assuring the best video streaming experience, Movies123 or 123Movies provide other services to its users. For one, this trusted site comes with an online music streaming service. Indeed, it has significantly stepped up the standards of free streaming with its 2-in-1 approach. Most of all, the site comes with a very easy user navigation experience for all.
While, in the end, streaming your favorite movies and TV shows on free streaming sites is not always assured, it’s still a great pleasure for millions of viewers all over the world to be able to enjoy watching videos without having to pay for anything.
Keep in mind, however, that there is also no assurance that these sites will always be around. Therefore, it’s always best to enjoy your preferred streaming site while you can.