A truck carrying a container drives past cranes at the Yangshan Deep Water Port in Shanghai, China, Oct. 23, 2013.
Good morning. Company executives concerned about escalating tensions between the U.S. and China might breathe a sigh of relief, report the WSJ’s Lingling Wei and Bob Davis. The two governments have quietly started to negotiate better U.S. access to Chinese markets, potentially avoiding a trade war.
The talks come after the Trump administration last week set out specific requests that include lower Chinese tariffs on U.S. cars, higher orders for U.S. semiconductors from China and greater access to China’s financial sector for American firms.
President Trump on Thursday threatened to impose tariffs on as much as $60 billion of Chinese imports, while China on Friday rolled out penalties against $3 billion in U.S. goods as Washington’s levies on imported steel and aluminum took effect.
Business leaders over the weekend warned about additional punitive trade measures. Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook urged the U.S. to embrace open trade, while Larry Fink, chief executive of investment firm BlackRock Inc., said the U.S. and China should not fight a trade war.
Meanwhile, governments across the globe scrambled to lessen the impact of the steel and aluminum tariffs on their industries. The WSJ’s William Mauldin and Rhiannon Hole explain how some countries managed to get temporary exemptions.
Fed’s Dudley speaks in Washington. Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William Dudley will discuss financial regulation and the economy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, days after the U.S. central bank decided to raise its benchmark interest rate and signaled it could move faster on rate increases in the years ahead.
U.S. GDP, Japanese unemployment, Chinese factory output. On Wednesday, the U.S. Commerce Department releases its third estimate of fourth-quarter gross domestic product and corporate profits, followed by data on U.S. personal income and consumer sentiment (Thursday), Japanese unemployment (Friday) and China’s factory activity (Friday night EDT).
New York Auto Show puts spotlight on Cadillac, Lincoln. This week’s New York Auto Show -- commencing Friday -- presents a chance for General Motors Co.’s Cadillac and Ford Motor Co.’s Lincoln to play catch up to foreign competitors.
Statoil to shed finance jobs. Norwegian oil giant Statoil ASA will slash the number of workers in its finance department as part of a wider push to automate tasks, according to the company’s finance chief.
Statoil last year launched its first robot, named “Roberta,” to automate tasks in the treasury department, such as sending payment reminders. Since then, around 10 different robots have joined her in the finance department, including one called Rob, said Chief Financial Officer Hans Jakob Hegge. The robots reconcile accounts, collect data and document payments made by the company to its suppliers, among other tasks.
The company had 897 finance employees at the end of 2017, down from 1400 at the end of 2013, Mr. Hegge said.
A SoftBank store in Tokyo, Japan, Feb. 22, 2018.
SoftBank probes shareholder campaign. The board of Japanese tech firm SoftBank Group Corp. is investigating a shareholder campaign that sought to remove two of its executives, people familiar with the matter said. Meanwhile, the company is looking to invest $1 billion in a truck-hailing company backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd.
Facebook tries to calm advertisers. A handful of marketers suspended advertising on Facebook Inc. as the company rushed to allay concerns about its platform. This comes in the wake of revelations that an outside company improperly handled data on tens of millions of its users.
Waymo chief trusts own self-driving technology. The head of Alphabet Inc.’s self-driving car unit said he is confident its technology would be able to detect someone crossing the street, avoiding an accident such as the one in which an Uber Technologies Inc. self-driving car killed a pedestrian in Arizona.
Uber sells Southeast Asia business. Uber said Monday it would no longer compete with Grab Inc. by selling its local operations in exchange for a minority stake in the Singapore-based company. Uber has left other markets where it was struggling against local rivals, for example Russia and China, reports the BBC.
Citigroup focuses on purely digital services. After years of shrinking its retail banking unit, Citigroup Inc. is aiming to become a national player once again -- through an expanded mobile app.
Qualcomm directors get less than 50% re-election vote. Six of Qualcomm Inc.’s directors failed to win support from a majority of the company’s shares Friday, a protest vote that signals investor discontent after the chip-making giant rebuffed a hostile takeover from Broadcom Ltd.
Glaxo CEO dispenses bitter pill. Emma Walmsley is making sweeping changes at GlaxoSmithKline PLC, replacing nearly half the company’s top 125 executives and shutting down two dozen clinical trials.
Smurfit Kappa rejects revised bid. Smurfit Kappa Group PLC has rejected another bid from International Paper Co. which offered shareholders a total of €37.54 ($46.37) a share. The packaging-and-paper company said it received a revised offer from the U.S. company on March 22, after it had rejected an unsolicited offer on March 6, reports MarketWatch.
Volvo to build Chinese SUVs in Europe. Zhejiang Geely Group Co.’s Volvo Cars confirmed on Monday that starting next year it would produce Lynk & Co.’s sport-utility vehicle in Ghent, Belgium, marking the first production of a Chinese automotive brand in Europe.
Remington seeks bankruptcy protection. Firearms maker Remington Outdoor Co. filed for chapter 11 protection, with plans to hand over control of the company to its creditors in exchange for wiping much of its debt from its balance sheet, reports Bloomberg.
New tax on overseas earnings hits unintended targets. A new tax aimed at overseas income earned by U.S. technology and pharmaceutical firms is hitting unexpected places, including Kansas City Southern, a U.S. railroad company.
Auto dealers worry about rising prices. Car dealers across the U.S. worry that higher prices will put off potential buyers. Consumers on average paid around $32,200 through February, about $500 more than last year.
A Toshiba logo is seen on a printed circuit board, July 31, 2012.
Toshiba awaits approval for chip deal. Toshiba Corp. said Monday it has yet to gain approval from Chinese authorities for the $19 billion sale of its chip unit, putting pressure on the company ahead of a March 31 deadline to close the deal.
New FCC rule could curb U.S. sales of Chinese equipment makers. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is considering a new rule to further limit the U.S. business of Huawei Technologies Co., raising the bar for small and rural carriers to buy equipment from Chinese companies.
Wells Fargo overhauls risk management as probes continue. Wells Fargo & Co. is overhauling its risk management amid ongoing regulatory scrutiny of the U.S. bank by the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
China to name reformer as party secretary of PBoC. China has picked Guo Shuqing, a reform-oriented regulator, to be the party secretary of the central bank, a move that could bolster momentum for financial overhauls.
China’s oil futures surge on debut. China’s yuan-denominated crude-oil futures jumped on their first day of trading on Monday, indicating positive sentiment toward the new market, which Beijing hopes will give the country an oil benchmark to rival those in the U.S. and Europe.
Foreign trade houses dominate U.S. crude exports. A handful of foreign commodity trading firms are dominating the buying and selling of U.S. crude exports, two years after Washington lifted its ban on sending oil abroad.


Melton just about deserved victory for a first half display in which they dominated the scrum and moved the ball well through the backs and forwards.
Wonderful line breaks by Martorano, Evans, Spence and Williams put Melton on the front foot, while the scrum drove Oakham back, allowing Wade to take several balls against the head.
Skipper Greaves bounced several would-be tacklers out of his way, while back row partners Peters and Prior added the more delicate touches. The front row of Kerr, Wade and Spence belied their combined age of 150-plus years with great performances.
Young half-backs Haywood and Grindey probed with useful breaks, and several times Grindey turned the Oakham team with good rolling kicks.
Clemmons drew his centre partner Freeston on to some lovely lines of running, and allowed wings Clarke and Forfar chances to run at Oakham, while full-back Williams ran the ball back strongly.
The forwards nearly got a pushover try, but moved too quickly to control the ball. But from the next scrum Wade took one against the head and the pack drove Oakham over the line.
Melton went further ahead when good handling from forwards and backs allowed Prior to score.
Just before half-time Oakham replied with a breakaway try to turn round at 17-7.
Both teams made several changes with Blagburn, Underwood and Farrish coming on in the backs and O’Reilly and Broughton came on in the forwards.
Melton struggled to get their game back together in a much tighter second half, and an Oakham try with 10 minutes left set up a grandstand finale.
But Melton held out to shade a keenly-fought and enjoyable match.


Howard Dean formally announced on January 11 that he was officially entering the race for chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) which will be voted on in early February. The ex-governor of Vermont had been unofficially campaigning for the position since the Democrats’ loss to the Republicans in November’s presidential election.
Dean joins a field of contenders that includes Democratic activists Simon Rosenberg and Donnie Fowler, former Texas Representative Martin Frost, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, former Representative from Indiana Tim Roemer, and former Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Leland. Dean’s decision to enter the race so late in the game reflects his fears that if he had peaked early as a contender, he would have deflated by nomination day.
Roaming the blogs of Dean’s ardent supporters reveals mixed emotions about his decision to run. Many Deaniacs are glad their man is attempting to take on the stalwarts of special interest, but others are upset that Dean’s bid could jeopardize another race for the presidency in 2008.
So what are Dean’s chances of winning the DNC chairmanship? Well, if the presidential contest in 2004 was an accurate indicator, his chances don’t look good.
The DNC chair, unlike the Democratic presidential primaries, is voted on by only 440 members of the DNC, not thousands of registered Democratic voters. Dean however, is a rhetorical threat to party brass, as his grassroots constituents are not happy with the corporate takeover of their party. So insiders are not likely to support his candidacy for fear Dean’s base could disrupt party business. Despite these worries among DNC members, there is little to indicate that Dean would perform his duties any different than the current DNC maestro, Terry McAuliffe.
Certainly the support for Dean is coming from the left end of the Democratic mainstream, including organizations like MoveOn.org, among others. But this outside support is irrelevant; for it is unlikely to sway DNC members to vote for Dean as a result.
Although there is some debate as to what direction a DNC head would steer the party, historically the leader of the DNC has been a corporate fundraiser, not a platform creator. And Howard Dean is not likely to satisfy these deep-rooted Democratic requirements in the eyes of the voting delegates. As a consequence Dean is unlikely to win the nomination.
Sad to say, hope for the Democrats is not on the way, regardless of who wins the DNC position next month.
Joshua Frank is author of the forthcoming book, Left Out!: How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, to be released in early 2005 by Common Courage Press. He can be reached at: frank_joshua@hotmail.com.
* No Time for Democracy: This is an Emergency!
* Homes Destroyed, Death Toll Mounts: Where's Kerry?


Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? has done more to define later generation’s ideas about who Crawford was than perhaps any other movie that she was actually in. Unfortunately, most of those ideas center around Crawford’s supposed feud with co-star Bette Davis, which began as a marketing ploy and turned into something quasi-real - or, at least as real as certain celebrity “feuds” of today.


There is no easy option for Northern Ireland after Brexit.
Deciding on post-Brexit border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic is becoming an issue for which the phrase "the devil is in the detail" could have been coined. Finding a satisfactory solution that delivers a border flexible enough not to damage international trade and commerce and doesn’t undermine the spirit, or the letter, of the Good Friday Agreement settlement is foxing Whitehall’s brightest.
The dial seemed to have settled on David Davis’s suggestion that there could be a "digital border" with security cameras and pre-registered cargo as a preferred alternative to a "hard border" replete with checkpoints and watchtowers.
However the Brexit secretary’s suggestion has been scotched by the new Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, who says electronic solutions are "not going to work". Today’s Times quotes him saying that "any barrier or border on the island of Ireland in my view risks undermining a very hard-won peace process" and that there is a need to ensure the "free movement of people and goods and services and livelihoods".
The first is to ignore Dublin (and just about everybody in Northern Ireland for that matter) and institute a hard border along the 310-mile demarcation between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Given it takes in fields, rivers and forests it’s pretty unenforceable without a Trump-style wall. More practically, it would devastate trade and free movement. Metaphorically, it would be a powerful symbol of division and entirely contrary to the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement. The Police Federation in Northern Ireland has also warned it would make police officers "sitting ducks for terrorists". Moreover, the Irish government will never agree to this course. With the EU in their corner, there is effectively zero chance of this happening.
The second option is to actually keep Northern Ireland inside the EU: offering it so-called "special status". This would avoid the difficulty of enforcing the border and even accord with the wishes of 56 per cent of the Northern Irish electorate who voted to Remain in the EU. Crucially, it would see Northern Ireland able to retain the £600m a year it currently receives from the EU. This is pushed by Sinn Fein and does have a powerful logic, but it would be a massive embarrassment for the British Government and lead to Scotland (and possibly London?) demanding similar treatment.
The third option is that suggested by the Irish government in the Times story today, namely a soft border with customs and passport controls at embarkation points on the island of Ireland, using the Irish Sea as a hard border (or certainly a wet one). This option is in play, if for no other reason than the Irish government is suggesting it. Again, unionists will be unhappy as it requires Britain to treat the island of Ireland as a single entity with border and possibly customs checks at ports and airports. There is a neat administrate logic to it, but it means people travelling from Northern Ireland to "mainland" Britain would need to show their passports, which will enrage unionists as it effectively makes them foreigners.
Unpalatable as that would be for unionists, the fourth option is simply to recognise that Northern Ireland is now utterly anomalous and start a proper conversation about Irish reunification as a means to address the border issue once and for all. This would see both governments acting as persuaders to try and build consent and accelerate trends to reunify the island constitutionally. This would involve twin referendums in both Northern Ireland and the Republic (a measure allowed for in the Good Friday Agreement). Given Philip Hammond is warning that transitional arrangements could last three years, this might occur after Brexit in 2019, perhaps as late as the early 2020s, with interim arrangements in the meantime. Demographic trends pointing to a Catholic-nationalist majority in Northern Ireland would, in all likelihood require a referendum by then anyway. The opportunity here is to make necessity the mother of invention, using Brexit to bring Northern Ireland’s constitutional status to a head and deal decisively with the matter once and for all.
In short, ministers have no easy options, however time is now a factor and they will soon have to draw the line on, well, drawing the line.
Kevin Meagher is a former special adviser at the Northern Ireland Office and author of "A United Ireland: Why unification is inevitable and how it will come about"


Camp Laughing Loon 100th anniversary/reunion, noon to 4 p.m. July 28, 52 Laughing Loon Lane, East Waterboro. Past and present campers, staff and families are invited. Attendees are asked to bring a lunch, swimsuit and towel. Anniversary cake will be served and bottled water provided. Contact is Liz LaFountain at 885-1331.
Portland High School Class of 1948 70th reunion, social hour from 11 a.m. to noon Sept. 14, followed by luncheon at Clarion Hotel, 1230 Congress St., Portland. Ordering from menu. For reservations, call Art Smith at 883-3731.
Portland High School Class of 1965 reunion luncheon buffet, 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Aug. 4. DiMillo’s Restaurant, Commercial Street, Portland. $31. Contact Cathy (Banks) Harrington at 887-9045 or [email protected] Register by July 27.
Portland High School Class of 1973 45th reunion, 5 to 10 p.m. Aug. 4. DiMillo’s Restaurant, Commercial Street, Portland. $40. Contacts: Joni Gordon Beliveau at [email protected]; Dana Neuts at [email protected]; Val Grzyb Stefanski at 878-3007; and Gloria Giordano Lax at 892-2932. Mail checks to: Val Grzyb Stefanski, 115 Blackstrap Road, Falmouth, ME 04105.
Portland High School Class of 1978 40th reunion, 1 p.m. Aug. 25, Casablanca Cruises. $20. Tickets available online. Lunch on your own at Porthole Restaurant at 11 a.m., followed by a tour of Portland High School.
South Portland High School Class of 1948 70th reunion, 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 11. DiMillo’s Restaurant, Commercial Street, Portland. RSVP by Aug. 29. For planning or more details, call Bob MacVane at 657-3856.
South Portland High School Class of 1983 35th reunion, 1 to 5 p.m. Aug. 4, Two Lights State Park group site, 7 Tower Drive, Cape Elizabeth. Featuring music, activities and a meal. Cost is $10 to $20+. Donations appreciated . RSVP required by July 28. Contact is [email protected],org.
97th annual reunion, Second (Indianhead) Division Association of Olivia, North Carolina, is searching for members who served in the Army 2nd Infantry Division to attend a planned 97th reunion. Sept. 19-23 in Jacksonville, Florida. Contact Mike Davino at [email protected] or 919-498-1910, or go to 2ida.org/2018-reunion.


Friends, we've gathered today to say, Yes! Yes to not just the good things about Memphis, but the BEST things about Memphis. The things that make you the happiest to live here. The best taco and the best vet and the best local band. Yes!
The art in this issue was designed by Memphis Flyer Graphic Designer Jeremiah Matthews to bring to mind video games — of the '80s zam! pop! wow! sort. Did you know in the Ms. Pac-Man game, the ghosts can go into the center square? We've seen it with our own two eyes. We were always the type of player who ate all the pills leaving us vulnerable to the ghosts. But you can go into that square if you're really good. If you're the BEST.
Shall we drop the quarter in the slot? Let's all play. Let's all get into that square. Game Over? No, it's Game On. Yes!
A few things to note about this issue. We got the biggest number of voters ever this year. We thank you, as the Best of Memphis wouldn't be so good — actually, the BEST — without you. A lot of people worked on this issue. It was written by Jackson Baker, Julia Baker, Olivia Bates, Samuel X. Cicci, Shara Clark, Chris Davis, Jesse Davis, Michael Donahue, Susan Ellis, Michael Finger, Alex Greene, Chris McCoy, Toby Sells, Maya Smith, Jon Sparks, and Bruce VanWyngarden. It was designed by Carrie Beasley, with images by Justin Fox Burks.
We thank our advertisers as always, because without them, this paper wouldn't be free to you each week.
A BOM designation means the winner won by a vast majority of votes.


ROCK CREEK -- From calling in Craig Robinson to host the Hollywood-themed 20th annual gala this Saturday, to implementing a new strategic plan, the Washington County Museum is exploring all avenues in a quest to become a community focal point.
The transformation started with a renovation to the building on the Portland Community College Rock Creek campus in 2007. A year later, the board of directors hired interim director Sam Shogren with a mission for the museum to offer a more diverse array of programs and events incorporating art, culture and history.
The Washington County Historical Society and Museum then became the Washington County Museum.
With the help of Shogren and consultant, Susan Suran, community interviews and surveys were conducted to get an understanding of the people the museum serves.
"Really what's driving the transformation is recognition by the board of the transformation in Washington County," Shogren said.
Increasing minority populations is a reason behind programs like the Latino Mobile Museum – a traveling exhibit that aims to teach local children about the history of Latinos in the county, he said.
In July, the museum officially partnered with Print Arts Northwest, which was struggling to survive. In what PAN interim director Barbara Mason calls a "natural" partnership, the lobby of the museum was converted into an art gallery for monthly exhibits. Now on the third Thursday of each month, the community is invited to sip wine at exhibit openings.
The museum hosts Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts two Saturdays a month and holds a Crossroads Lecture on regional and cultural history every third Wednesday.
Shogren said museum visitation has increased since his arrival. In 2008, 1,666 visitors walked through the museum doors and so far, 2,455 people have visited this year.In September, the first free Family Day lured in more than 200 people, who Shogren said came from all throughout the Portland metro area. The monthly Family Day events are being funded in part by a grant from the PGE Foundation.
Museum membership has also increased in the past year, in fact, it's doubled, he said. As of Jan. 1, the museum had 118 members. Eight months later, that number jumped to 314 members, Shogren said.
And those members are donating more money than ever before.
Shogren said he's seen a significant portion of members who donated between $30 and $50 last year bump up their gift to the "supporter" level to $100 or more.
Last year, members donated a total of $1,252 to support the annual gala and with just a few days before this year's event kicks off, donations have already reached $4,470, he said.
"Despite the economy, our members are making a bigger investment in the museum," Shogren said.
Tickets are selling well for Saturday's annual benefit, featuring Oregon State University basketball Coach Craig Robinson acting as master of ceremonies.
Proceeds from of the gala titled "A Swank Affair: Lights, Camera, Action!" which is sponsored by Reser's Fine Foods, will help finance the museum's educational programs and events.
With tickets priced at $150 a person and $270 a couple, the museum's programs should also be fairing well.


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March 30, 2007: While the users of suicide bombers may not have noticed, the track record of such tactics shows that it doesn't work. In fact, this particular weapon actually backfires. Consider the facts.
The Tamil separatists of Sri Lanka (the LTTE) pioneered the modern use of suicide bombers over twenty years ago. The LTTE was particularly effective at attacking senior politicians and security officials. But each attack just made their opponents angrier. The LTTE is now being defeated, partly by an enraged Sri Lankan population, and partly dissention and demoralization within their own ranks.
Hizbollah was the next to pick up on suicide bombers. While Hizbollah claims to represent the Shia minority in Lebanon, it has brought itself increasing resistance from the majority of Lebanese by acting in support for foreign nations. Actually, Hizbollah has largely abandoned suicide bombing, apparently noting the downside of the tactic.
Palestinian terrorists adopted the use of suicide bombing against Israel in 2000. The Israelis eventually developed tactics that defeated this weapon, The Palestinian attacks destroyed the substantial support within Israel for a Palestinian peace deal, and increased support for stronger measures against Palestinian terrorism. The Palestinian terrorists are still at it, although many Palestinians admit that the tactic has failed, and been counterproductive.
Al Qaeda also adopted suicide bomber tactics, particularly in Iraq. This turned out to be a major error. So many Moslems were killed, particularly women and children, that Arab public opinion turned against al Qaeda. Even Sunni Arabs in Iraq have been fighting al Qaeda, despite the fact that al Qaeda is committing all this mayhem in the name of Sunni Arabs.
Al Qaeda began using suicide bombers in Pakistan four years ago, and were promptly taken apart by an enraged Pakistani government, with much public support. This, despite many Islamic conservatives in the government. Al Qaeda was largely driven out of most of Pakistan, and confined to the tribal areas along the Afghan border. Here, the Taliban had a lot of influence, and al Qaeda has convinced the Taliban to support a suicide bomber campaign in Afghanistan. In the last six months there have been nearly 80 suicide bombing attacks in Afghanistan, over fifty percent more than in the previous six months. This campaign has been even less successful than previous ones. The Taliban do not have the experienced support personnel (bomb makers and bomber handlers) to make most of the attacks successful by any measure. Meanwhile, most of the victims are Afghan civilians. Naturally, Afghans see these foreigners (Afghans are difficult to recruit as suicide bombers) as murderers who do not have Afghan interests at heart.


Many in the media and tech industry see Uber’s decision to sell its Chinese business unit to rival Didi Chuxing as a failure for the U.S. ride-hailing giant. It’s easy to believe that the sale of Uber China’s operations to its closest rival is a face-saving exercise, an inevitable outcome for a U.S. company that tried to beat the odds and succeed in China.
But the more you chew over the finer points of the deal, the more it looks like an astute piece of business for both parties.
Don’t believe that this deal was created in haste. The rumor of a merger had been circulating for a month — with both sides denying it — and one source close to negotiations told TechCrunch that the two parties had tried to engineer a deal two previous times without success. So it was third time lucky but, more importantly, ongoing discussions suggest that this is more than Uber saving face — this is an alliance.
Likewise, don’t believe that Didi acted out of kindness. Didi showed it can raise capital easily when it closed a colossal $7.3 billion funding round that even included money from Apple. It could have let Uber continue to spend billions in China and wither, but it wanted to remove its threat from China and perhaps elsewhere. This was two-way; not merely a tactical Uber exit.
So, how does the deal play out?
Firstly, and most obviously, Uber swaps its capital-intensive business unit in China that its own CEO said was costing it $1 billion per year, for a (potentially) near-20 percent stake in the country’s dominant ride-sharing company, valued at $35 billion. That’s a near-11 fold increase on Didi’s valuation when it was formed by a merger in 2015.
But there’s certain to be a lot more growth.
Earlier this summer, Li Zijian, senior director for international strategy at Didi, estimated that his company is taking just 1.1 percent of China’s taxi market. China’s new regulations, which will legalize Uber and Didi from November, combined with this merger are sure to mean that Didi’s business grows multiples more — all with Uber as its largest single shareholder.
That stake not only allows Uber to move towards a much-anticipated IPO by removing the China cash burn from its balance sheet, but it is likely to be a very lucrative holding in a business with vast potential to grow. Even if Didi has so far denied reports of IPO plans of its own.
There are some who argue that Uber could have saved time and money and simply invested in Didi earlier if it wanted this kind of financial return potential. For one thing, it would have needed to choose between Didi Kuaidi and Didi Dache, which eventually merged. But, more than that, it is foolish to believe that Didi Chuxing would have grown into the company that it is today without rivalry from Uber.
Uber, for example, pioneered peer-to-peer in China when it introduced People’s Uber in late 2014. It hadn’t been done before at scale. Didi was unprepared and late to the party, introducing its take on the service some six months later. The company started out working exclusively with licensed taxis, and this example shows that competition with Uber clearly sharpened its business and helped shape its growth.
The real negative here looks to be for Didi’s allies: Lyft in the U.S., Ola in India and Grab in Southeast Asia.
The four companies formed a coalition, dubbed the ‘Anti-Uber Alliance’, last year for business synergies such as enabling users to roam between services when they travel, and sharing know-how. Alongside that, Didi made investments in its three allies: putting $100 million in Lyft, and contributing undisclosed minority amounts to Ola’s $500 million round last year, and Grab’s most recent $350 million raise one year ago.
While it often seemed like a PR play, the coalition does give Didi’s cohorts solidarity and support, and likely increased confidence to investors, all of which is important when you are battling a global giant like Uber, which is seemingly capable of raising billions in fresh funding on a whim.
Well, that alliance looks uncertain at best, or messy at worst, following Uber’s deal with Didi.
Not only has Didi struck a deal with the sworn enemy and given it a sizable chunk of its business, but it made an undisclosed investment in Uber’s global business which Bloomberg pegged at $1 billion. That’s a drop in the ocean for Uber given the numbers it has raised, but, if the figure is correct, then that investment is multiples larger than the money Didi put into its fellow alliance members.
Not only that, but Uber CEO Travis Kalanick will sit on the Didi board, no less, while Didi Chairman Cheng Wei will join the Uber board.
Many, including yours truly, saw the alliance and those Didi investments as a possible first step to acquisitions to expand Didi overseas as and when it saw fit. But this deal with Uber throws all of that into contention. Who is to say that, in Southeast Asia, for example, Didi will back Grab with any vigor now that it is also aligned with Uber. It could let the market play out and then befriend the company that wins.
That’s a hypothetical scenario, of course, but it was unthinkable prior to yesterday.
Grab was bullish on the news, with CEO Anthony Tan coming out positively before the deal was even confirmed. Tan said in a company-wide memo that we obtained that Uber’s exit was proof a regional rival could defeat Uber.
“They’ve lost once, and we will make them lose again,” he told his staff.
Fighting words indeed, but the conditions that forced Uber’s exit from China simply don’t exist in Southeast Asia which weakens the comparison. The subsidies war is almost certainly multiples more modest than China, and Uber is only just getting round to putting the pedal to the floor in the region.
While Tan publicly rallied his troops, you’d imagine that he was privately disappointed at the way this incident has played out.
Lyft, for one, was more measured with its comment on the Uber-Didi deal.
Ola of India declined multiple requests to comment publicly on the deal.
It’ll take some time before the smoke clears and we understand more about how this deal impacts the global ride-sharing economy, but right now it looks like Uber is sitting a lot prettier than many people believe.


Welcome to my blog!! Here’s a little bit about me.
I’m a feminist and a Christian social ethicist. I studied at Union Theological Seminary in NY with this amazing woman, Beverly Wildung Harrison. She pioneered the field of feminist Christian ethics and she taught me how to do ethics and how to be a good mentor and a passionate and caring colleague. I’ve written and edited several books which you can find on the “books” page.
In my most recent book, Trust Women: A Progressive Christian Argument for Reproductive Justice (Beacon Press, 2018), I outline how the justification framework shaping current American discussion of abortion is fatally flawed and argue that the framework of Reproductive Justice offers a more ethically robust opportunity for public dialogue. Buy it, read it, study it in your church or with friends. Then, let me know what you think!
What do I do? Well, lots of things but I get paid to be a Professor of Religious Studies at Elon University in NC. I’m starting my 18th year this fall and feel incredibly fortunate to have a great job at a great institution. This photo is of a Wealth and Poverty course that I teach during our three-week winter intensive where I take students to NY for a week to visit the UN and to look at anti-poverty grassroots organizing in the City. I helped start a Poverty and Social Justice program at Elon and also teach environmental ethics and feminist and other liberation theologies.
I also am very active ecumenically. Ten points for Gryffindor if you can find me in this photo! It was taken at the most recent meeting of the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission. I represent the Presbyterian Church (USA) on Faith and Order, which a commission of representatives from churches around the world that meet together to talk about issues that continue to divide us from one another. It is the only place where official representatives of Orthodox churches, Protestant churches, and the Roman Catholic church work together on issues of Christian unity.
I have been active in the international ecumenical movement for 25 years and am passionately committed to the WCC and the World Student Christian Federation. If you are a college student and a progressive Christian or progressive college student trying to figure out what you think about Christianity – you should definitely check on the Student Christian Movement (or SCM) in the US. Here is a photo of me and some colleagues at a recent SCM-North America event.
I’m an ordained minister of Word and Sacrament in the PCUSA and here you can see me with my family one Sunday when I preached, my husband played his guitar in the church band, our oldest daughter read the scripture, and our youngest lit the candles.
I’m a drinker of tea, a lover of wine, a cyclist, a mom, a wife, a daughter, and a seeker of justice. I’m a Christian who struggles with the history of Christianity and many of the people who claim to be Christians yet understand what that means in very different ways than I do.
I am passionately committed to inclusive language for all peoples and expansive language for God and I am always seeking worshipping communities that can speak to my deepest spiritual needs – inclusive language, progressive Christianity, and embodied justice. I am even lucky enough to find these spaces on rare and miraculous occasions, it’s how I continue to know there is a holy presence in the world.
In this blog, it is my fervent hope to think with you about what it means to live faithfully as a Progressive Christian in the world today. Seeking “to do justice” is how I understand my Christian calling in the world. I hope you will follow my blog and walk with me on this journey.


Published: Dec. 31, 2018 at 09:13 a.m.
Updated: Dec. 31, 2018 at 01:51 p.m.
Steve Wilks is out after one season.
The Arizona head coach was fired by the Cardinals on Monday, the team announced. Wilks told his staff during a meeting that he expected to be fired before the Cardinals later made it official, a source told NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport.
During a news conference Monday, team owner Michael Bidwill said he has "a lot of confidence" in general manager Steve Keim, who echoed his boss's sentiments.
"I have confidence in myself to get this turned around," Keim said.
The expectation that Wilks would be one-and-done escalated in recent weeks as the Cardinals fell to 3-13.
Arizona owned the worst offense in the NFL in Wilks' first season, ranking last in points per game (14.1), total yards per game (241.6), passing yards per game (157.7) and rushing yards per game (83.9). Wilks fired offensive coordinator Mike McCoy midway through the season, but still, the struggles remained. Perhaps one of the coach's biggest mistakes was hiring a retread like McCoy in the first place.
If it was only the offense that took a step back with rookie quarterback Josh Rosen going through growing pains, perhaps a dismal first season could have been overlooked. However, Wilks' defense also cratered. The Cards' run defense went from allowing 89.6 yards per game and 12 rush TDs in 2017 to 154.9 yards per tilt and 25 rush TDs in 2018.
Worse still were the reports from Arizona that players didn't play hard for Wilks and appeared to give up when the going got tough. If a head coach can't motivate players, his goose is cooked.
Wilks becomes the first one-and-done coach since Chip Kelly was fired by the San Francisco 49ers in 2016.
The 49-year-old Wilks should not find trouble landing a defensive coordinator gig should he so choose. Perhaps a return to Carolina, where Ron Rivera fired his DC this season, could be in order.


- Both phones to have wireless charging?
Huawei will unveil its much-rumoured Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro smartphones on 16 October and yet another feature has seemingly been revealed ahead of time.
As well as hands-on images of what is thought to be the Pro, pictures of the front glass panels for both devices, and the posting of more specs than an optician's, an official FCC filing has been found for a wireless charger from the firm.
That points to the new phones potentially having glass backs rather than aluminium, as it is likely you will be able to charge them wirelessly.
The Huawei CP60 wireless charger has gained certification by the Federal Communications Commission - mandatory for technology destined to be sold in the US. It ensures the wireless performance complies with set standards and is safe.
Its appearance in an FCC document both confirm that the charger is real and that it is coming soon. Say, for example, 16 October.
What we can glean about the charger itself is that it supports 5V-12V 2A fast charging. And it looks to be powered itself through USB Type-C.
Other than that, it's fairly similar to many other Qi-chargers out there.
You can catch up with all the latest about the Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro here: Huawei Mate 20 and Mate 20 Pro specs, release date, rumours and news.


Jerry Cao is a UX content strategist at the wireframing and prototyping app UXPin. For advice on how to conduct 30+ different types of usability tests, check out The Guide to Usability Testing.
Natural and near-natural tests minimize the amount of interference from the observer, who is more interested in what the user does of their own will. These tests are great for broad data, especially ethnographic, but sacrifice control in exchange for greater data validity.
Because the goal is to minimize interference from the study, natural tests are usually conducted remotely and without a moderator. The most common natural tests (A/B testing and field/diary studies) and near-natural tests (first-click tests and eye-tracking tests)— are intended to understand user behavior and attitudes as close as possible to reality.
In an A/B test, different groups of participants are presented with two choices or variations of an element. As explained in The Guide to Usability Testing, these are generally scientific tests, where only one variable differs, while the rest are controlled. Mostly conducted with websites to test if a certain layout, placement, or messaging will result in better conversions, A/B testing is considered a natural test because users are not notified nor provided a set of tasks.
Call to actions — This piece by Hubspot explains how Friendbuy more than doubled their response rate to their CTAs using A/B tests.
Headlines — In this A/B test, it was discovered that a single line of text for headlines increased signups by 38 percent compared to longer ones.
Forms — A unique style of form field input, the “Mad Libs” style, has been proven to increase conversions by 25-40 percent.
Pricing and promotional offers — Another A/B case study shows explicitly stating “it’s free” increased sign-up conversions by 28 percent.
Images on landing and product pages — A specific study involving A/B tests shows the surprising impact of using a human photo on conversion rates.
Amount of text/pages — show that users prefered a single-page checkout by 21.8 percent.
There are also other usability testing tools like Optimizely (great for everything) and Unbounce (more landing page focused) that make it extremely easy to get started with A/B testing. These usability tools handle the distribution and collection of data for you, so all you have to do is wait for the results. If you’re interested in a comprehensive list of website elements to test, you can also check out this detailed explanation of 71 things to A/B test.
Run both variations at the same time — Time is a control, so doing version A first and then version B later may skew the results. Running both tests simultaneously and evenly will ensure the most accurate results.
Test with enough people for statistical significance— As shown with this sample size calculator, you should test each variation with enough people for a 95 percent significance rate.
Test new users — Regular users will be confused if they see a new variation, especially if you ultimately choose not to use it. Plus, there’s the mere-exposure effect, in which people prefer what they’re used to.
Be consistent with variations on all pages — For example, if you are testing the placement of a call to action that appears on multiple pages, a visitor should see the same variation everywhere. Inconsistency will detract from accurate results, so don’t show variation A on page one and variation B on page two.
Tailor your test length to statistical significance — Cancelling the test too early will reduce accuracy. Decide your statistical significance, then you can use this test duration calculator to get a rough timeline. Many paid online usability tools (especially Optimizely) also have a feature for calculating optimum time based on the goals.
To see some of these best practices put to use, check out this site containing hundreds of free A/B test case studies. Hubspot also provides a highly visual and easily digestible 27-page guide to A/B testing.
In the late 2000s, Dr. Bob Bailey, UX Designer and Researcher, conducted a series of studies around what he called the “first click” concept. The results of the studies were surprising, and very advantageous to anyone looking to improve their website. As it turns out, for any given task, a user’s success rate is 87 percent as long as their first click is correct. If their first click was not correct, the chances for success fell to below 50 percent.
This type of usability testing is even more relevant if your site gets a large volume of search traffic — because your homepage probably won’t be the first page users find, first click testing should ideally be done across your entire site.
We would consider this a “near-natural” test because users are still assigned tasks (instead of just using the site for whatever purpose they please), but these tests are usually unmoderated and ran remotely in the comfort of the user’s home.
The test itself is simple, and can be conducted with online testing tools like Chalkmark by Optimal Workshop. The software presents the user with a screenshot and a task, and then records their first click. For example, as we discuss in User Testing & Design, we asked users to find a local mechanic on Yelp and found that 24 percent of them first clicked on the Search bar (suggesting that the existing information architecture may not be clear enough).
Write clear task scenarios — Just like you would for a scripted usability test, make sure the participant is thinking about how to solve a problem instead of just where to click. Detail isn’ required, but clarity is.
Define the best paths to success — Start from the homepage and plot all possible paths that will correctly accomplish each task.
Time each task — A 90 percent first click rate on the correct label might deceptively indicate that your navigation is effective, unless you timed the test and saw it took an average of three minutes to make that first click.
Measure user confidence — After each task, you can ask participants to rate on a scale of 1 to 7 regarding their confidence of task completion. Any 3s and 4s will indicate navigation problems.
For more information on how a first click test might help, the customer experience newsletter Neo Insight wrote about the three biggest usability problems that first click testing can help solve.
It doesn’t get more “natural” than field and diary studies. Both are designed to observe a user as they behave naturally, without the interference of a testing process. The beauty of these tests is that the user never leaves their natural environment and are encouraged to act normally. The difference between the two is that field studies involve an observer going on location, and diary studies involve the participant recording their own thoughts, feelings, and opinions.
A field study provides data you can’t find anywhere else by letting you observe users in their own environment. Jared M. Spool, Founder of User Interface Engineering, believes that while standard usability tests can lead to valuable insights, the most powerful tool in the toolbox is the field study.
Witness real user behavior in their everyday lives — In an interview setting, a user may not be aware of how they behave or how they would talk about a product in their everyday lives. However, in the field study, these behaviors are witnessed without a need for explanation.
Understand the context for decisionmaking— Users aren’t always aware of how external factors, like timing for example, affect their decisions. Field studies mark the times and environments of the user, and their impact can be seen during the analysis of the data, even if the user themselves doesn’t know.
Scope out the competition — By observing how the user interacts with different products, you can start to notice similarities and differences, which will flesh out your data to enormous degrees.
The biggest downside is primarily the cost of organization and time required (they can last anywhere from a few weeks to several months). Workers have to leave the office for large periods of time, plus scheduling these studies can be troublesome.
However, if you still think field studies could help with your usability goals, take a look at this helpful list of tips from the Nielsen Norman Group, and you can also follow this process for field research that helped companies like Apple, Yahoo, DirecTV, and others.
A less-involved study of a user in their natural environment is the diary study. In this study, participants are asked to keep a diary and account for their experiences with a type of product or system. As Carine Lallemand, Researching Engineer and UX Scientist, explains in her piece for User Experience Magazine, the diary study is similar to surveys and interviews, yet is distinguished by its length and depth of user-generated research.
A diary study captures the expectations, mindsets, moods, and social contexts that affect the user experience. A diary study might reveal that a bad mood or criticism read on the web impacted the user’s assessment of the product experience, independent of the product itself.
Let’s say that you’re asked to improve a web application that helps product managers track progress. You could provide tape recorders and/or journals to five product managers and ask them to document anything odd or frustrating they experienced when using the application. After a few weeks, you would analyze the data and make specific recommendations.
Significance of participant — The quality of results depends on the quality of the participant. Because this takes a good deal of effort on their part, the participant’s commitment to the project influences the outcome whether positively or negatively. On top of that, the participant’s self-awareness, self-expression, and writing skill can all sway the results.
Training sessions — While it may sound like the participant acts independently, the truth is that a thorough training session is necessary to ensure the participant understands exactly what is expected before starting.
Analysis — The analysis of an entire diary is time-consuming, especially if it is hand-written.
Include contextual and open-ended questions in the writing prompt — Contextual questions like, “What prompted you to use the app?” give you direct insight, but open-ended questions like, “What would you have done differently in this situation?” can uncover new solutions.
Let users decide how to record themselves — Text, online photo galleries, voice recording, even Twitter can all work. It also helps the process feel more natural and makes participants less self-conscious.
Keep size in mind — The diary (whatever form) can be as small or large as needed. On paper, space for forty entries can be overwhelming, while ten might be more encouraging. That’s also why digital methods might be better since users can use as much space as they want.
For a more detailed explanation, complete with hypothetical examples, check out this extensive post by UserTesting and this list of Dos and Don’ts.
While diary and field studies let you see the context for how and why products are used in everyday life, an eye tracking test goes into almost microscopic detail.
An eye tracking test is just as it sounds, tracking a user’s eye movement, and more to the point where specifically they are looking. The eye tracking test is usually done in a lab environment in which hardware tracks eye movement, while heat mapping remotely tracks where users click (through software like CrazyEgg).
Users are predictable — As we can see by the eye tracking patterns above, people’s sight follows similar trends, allowing us to plan our visual layouts for the masses. In Web UI Best Practices, we explain how to lay out a site in accordance to the popular F pattern and Z patterns.
Users search pages differently depending on goals — A user’s eye pattern will differ depending on why they are searching a screen; for example, browsing and searching for something in particular have two different modes.
Users are drawn to visuals — Visuals like thumbnails or vibrant colors will attract a user’s attention more than plain text, so use this accordingly.
People ignore ads — In a phenomenon that Jakob Nielson calls “banner blindness,” people will neglect ads habitually, so online advertisers will have to work harder.
Unconventional products cause confusion — Being creative with the color of a link or the placement of your menu may set you apart from other sites, but it will also take the user longer to figure out how to use your product, which can be risky.
If you’re interested in using eye tracking to help your website, it’s a lot more achievable than it might seem. This instructive guide will explain how you can make eye tracking work for you. If you’re more interested in a more natural test, SumoMe explains how to run a heat map study based on over 1,000,000 tests that they’ve run.
Tests that observe the users in their natural (or near-natural) environments provide a specific type of data that other, more controlled tests can’t access. An A/B test lets you make decisions that are informed by more thorough and statistically significant results (since you have a huge sample size).
Similarly, field and diary studies can provide you with unique information about your target users — namely external factors such as timing, environment, mood, etc. — that more direct card sorting or tree testing cannot.
As for first click and eye tracking tests, they literally let you see your website as your users do, but make sure you run other types of tests for the right context. While each of the different test types has its own advantages and disadvantages, sometimes its best to mix-and-match them to achieve results more specific to you.
For explanations and practical tips for 30 different types of usability tests, check out the free 109-page Guide to Usability Testing. Best practices are included from companies like Apple, Buffer, DirecTV, and others.


Hackers extracted lists of files from computers that they contaminated with the virus that triggered cyberattacks last week in the United States and South Korea, police in Seoul said Tuesday.
The attacks, in which floods of computers tried to connect to a single Web site at the same time to overwhelm the server, caused outages on prominent government-run sites in both countries.
The finding means that hackers not only used affected computers for Web attacks, but also attempted to steal information from them. That adds to concern that contaminated computers were ordered to damage their own hard disks or files after the Web assaults.
Still, the new finding does not mean information was stolen from attacked Web sites, such as those of the White House and South Korea's presidential Blue House, police said. It also does not address suspicions about North Korea's involvement, they said.
Police reached those conclusions after studying a malicious computer code in an analysis of about two dozen computers - a sample of the tens of thousands of computers that were infected with the virus that triggered the attacks, said An Chan-soo, a senior police officer investigating the cyberattacks. The officer said that only lists of files were extracted, not files themselves.
"It's like hackers taking a look inside the computers," An said. "We're trying to figure out why they did this."
Extracted file lists were sent to 416 computers in 59 countries, 15 of them in South Korea. Police have found some file lists in 12 receiver computers and are trying to determine whether hackers broke into those systems and stole the lists, An said.
Investigators have yet to identify the hackers or determine for sure where they operated from. Dozens of high-profile U.S. and South Korean Web sites were targeted.
There have been no new Web attacks since the last wave launched Thursday evening.
South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, lowered the country's cyberattack alert Monday as affected Web sites returned to normal.
North Korea is suspected of involvement. The spy agency told lawmakers last week that a North Korean military research institute had been ordered to destroy the South's communications networks, local media reported.
The agency said in a statement Saturday that it has "various evidence" of North Korean involvement, but cautioned it has yet to reach a final conclusion.


Sudan: Military Leadership Challenged by Ongoing Protests | Democracy Now!
In Sudan, the head of the newly installed military council resigned Friday, just one day after he was sworn in following the ouster of longtime President Omar al-Bashir. The ouster came after months of public protests demanding al-Bashir’s resignation. The military’s chief of staff also stepped down from his post Friday. Protesters celebrated the news and mounted calls for the creation of a civilian transitional council, rejecting the military’s proposal to lead a two-year pre-election transition period.
Meanwhile, the United Nations has called on Sudanese authorities to release anyone arrested for demonstrating against the government. It also called on Sudan to cooperate with the International Criminal Court , which issued an arrest warrant in 2005 for ousted leader al-Bashir over possible war crimes. Sudan’s military council said they would not hand over al-Bashir to the ICC but instead would put him on trial in Sudan. Local reports emerged Monday that other top officials from al-Bashir’s government were arrested by the military council and could also face prosecution.


MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) - As our world continues to advance with the help of technology, artificial intelligence (AI) has generated a lot of buzz lately in healthcare. AI healthcare providers share the goal of treating more patients, cutting down the cost of healthcare, and ultimately aim to achieve better outcomes.
Artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry uses human-created algorithms through a computer-driven system to break down complex medical data, and helps with decision support around treatment. Healthcare providers can then easily sift through large amounts of data to identify infections sooner, improve preventative medicine and enhance diagnostics. Results from an Accenture report estimated that AI applications in healthcare could save up to $150 billion annually for the U.S. healthcare economy by 2026.
Local hospitals like Conway Medical Center are already using forms of AI in their electronic medical records, such as a sepsis monitoring system used to alert doctors and nurses. With these advancements in the healthcare industry, doctors say it can reduce human error and boost overall outcomes.
“It can be a second set of eyes. The other thing you have to look at too is when we’re looking at big data. We can have computers that can read thousands of studies in seconds," said Dr. Paul Richardson, chief medical officer at Conway Medical Center.
In the next few months, Richardson says Conway Medical Center will launch robotic surgery in several departments. The robots will still have a human touch - surgeons will be able to direct movements of the robot, resulting in faster recovery times and fewer risks. Additionally, in the next few weeks, the hospital will launch a 3T MRI scanner, which Richardson says is a higher resolution MRI that will allow staff to conduct high-tech imaging studies.
“My hope for the future is - our number one goal is to deliver the best healthcare to each patient every time, and if we can utilize or leverage technology to do that, then I think we’re all the better for it," said Richardson.


Aldar Investment Properties, a fully owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s biggest listed developer Aldar Properties, is commencing a round of fixed-income investor meetings for the issuance of an Islamic bond to repay its $750 million (Dh2.75 billion) existing sukuk.
“The objective of these [investor] meetings is to issue a fixed-rate US dollar-denominated sukuk (the New Aldar Investments Sukuk) with a tenure of five to 10 years,” the company said in a statement to Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, where its shares are traded.
Aldar will meet investors in the Middle East, Europe and Asia it said, without disclosing the size or the timing of the potential sukuk issue, adding that the outcome of the transaction is subject to market conditions.
Earlier this month the company announced the spinning-off Dh20bn of revenue-generating assets into Aldar Investments, a new entity able to raise capital independently. About 5,000 residential units and 500,000 square metres of retail and commercial space will be transferred into the new vehicle over the coming weeks, along with Dh6bn of existing debt.
Before the new vehicle was established, Aldar comprised two parts – a real estate development business and an asset management business whose revenues came predominantly from residential and commercial rents.
Aldar is also launching a tender offer for the repayment of $750m sukuk, which is due to mature on December 3 of this year.
“The offer is being made as part of Aldar’s proactive liability management strategy to optimise its debt profile and aggregate costs of funding,” the company said.
The offer will be funded through the proceeds of the potential new issue, and the outcome of the tender offer is contingent on the successful pricing and completion of the new sukuk.
The tender offer is expected to close on September 26. First Abu Dhabi Bank, JP Morgan Securities and Standard Chartered Bank are the managers for the deal, Aldar said.


West Ham manager Manuel Pellegrini has confirmed he hopes to sign Samir Nasri in January and insisted Marko Arnautovic is going nowhere.
Midfielder Nasri, who played for Pellegrini at Manchester City, is training with the Hammers to build up his fitness following an 18-month doping ban.
Pellegerini needs reinforcements to his injury-hit West Ham squad and he will offer Nasri a contract if the 31-year-old Frenchman can get up to speed.
"Samir Nasri is working here with us," said Pellegrini.
Arnautovic, meanwhile, is the subject of fresh transfer speculation after his brother and representative hinted during the international break that the Austrian forward, 29, should be at a club higher up the table.
But Arnautovic is a key figure at West Ham with five goals to his name this season and Pellegrini is determined not to lose him.


▪ The wine salesperson on the floor might actually have tasted the wines and be able to point out intelligently which ones are fit for tonight’s dinner and which ones should be socked away.
▪ Some wine critics note or imply whether a wine be drunk now or held.
▪ Other hints for telling whether a wine is best consumed now or is meant to age: Screwcaps indicate a wine is intended for early consumption, while corks indicate that the wine should be aged. Also, the lower the alcohol the more likely the wine should be drunk young. Furthermore, price can be a guide; the higher it is, the longer the wine likely will age, or at least that’s the implication. There are, however, enough exceptions to these guidelines to send consumers back to the advice of a knowing wine merchant.
What put me in mind of two types of gold-medal sticker was a class of cabernet sauvignons our panel judged at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition in Cloverdale earlier this year. There were 66 of them, all priced between $39 and $43. Yes, we were lucky, for cabernets in that price niche should be models of varietal typicity, energy, balance and length. We gave 16 of them gold or double-gold medals, the latter being granted when all judges of a panel agree that a wine merits gold.
Le Casque Wines 2012 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($40): Get this: Our best-of-class cabernet sauvignon came from Le Casque Wines in little ol’ Loomis. While Le Casque is identified largely with varietal wines and blends based on Rhone Valley grape varieties grown in the Sierra foothills, owner-winemaker Kevin Stevenson knows where to go for cabernet sauvignon, and that’s Napa Valley. The result is a 2012 that comes down proudly and expressively on the herbal side of the cabernet spectrum, a well-proportioned throwback to the days when Napa Valley cabernets could be drunk immediately as well as laid down to age handsomely.
Ecluse Wines 2013 Paso Robles Lock Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon ($40): For its silken texture and seductive cherry flavor, this entry won a rare spontaneous double-gold medal. Usually, a double-gold is a negotiated medal; that is, a panelist who thought it warranted silver but not gold had to be persuaded of the wine’s grandeur. With this elegant and balanced interpretation there was no question that it deserved gold.
DeWitt Family Wines 2012 Sonoma County Alexander Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($42): Cabernet sauvignon out of Alexander Valley long has been recognized for its dark lush fruit, supple tannins and graceful presentation, characteristics captured here in a readily accessible representative. It was one of six double-gold medal winners in the class.
Speedy Creek Winery 2013 Knights Valley Speedy Creek Cabernet Sauvignon ($40): After a stretch of especially rigid cabernets during the judging, this entry was embraced not only for its vivid fruit but its tangy acidity, modest tannins and all-around drinkability.
Hood Crest Winery 2013 Columbia Valley Waving Tree Cabernet Sauvignon ($42): From northern Oregon comes a cabernet that while lithe in build nonetheless is hung with ample sweet fruit that is welcoming at first sip and refuses to give up its embrace until long after the last swallow.
Boatique Winery 2012 Lake County Red Hills Cabernet Sauvignon ($40): This is why the volcanic soils of the Red Hills rising from the west shore of Clear Lake are generating so much buzz – a cabernet sauvignon complex, graceful and persistent, with a note of sarsaparilla and the kind of firm tannic build that will have it drinking best in five or so years.
Longboard Vineyard 2013 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon ($42): In my notes, I call this “a conversation piece,” code for a certain alluring eccentricity. It won’t be everyone’s cup of cabernet sauvignon, primarily for its young stiffness and brooding attitude, but lurking behind all that is fresh dark fruit, spice, silk and a lingering finish, all of which is bound to build upon itself with a few years in the cellar.
Vina Moda 2013 Sierra Foothills Cabernet Sauvignon ($40): Though gold-medal cabernets out of the Sierra foothills are rare, and double-gold medals even more rare, which this was, the Vina Moda won over the panel for its faithful juiciness, insinuations of tea and complications of earthiness and oak. It’s hard right now, but should continue to evolve into a wine of suppleness and balance.
V. Sattui Winery 2012 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($39): V. Sattui is recognized for wines faithful to breeding, accessibility and value, and while this cherry- and oak-saturated release can be enjoyed right now with appropriately marbled beef, it should evolve into a more open take on the genre with a few years of age.


The bonkers projector-packing Samsung Galaxy Beam is coming this summer, and will cost just shy of £400 SIM-free.
Samsung's Galaxy Beam -- the phone with a projector built-in for no reason other than "hey, why not?" -- will cost just short of £400 when it goes on sale this summer.
Unlocked Mobiles has priced it up at £385 including VAT. The handset will go on sale in July -- not an ideal time of year to use a projector, with all that pesky daylight about, but there you are. At least it'll be a good test for Samsung's 15 lumens projector-in-a-phone.
Luke went hands-on with the Beam out at MWC, so have a read of what he thought here, or watch his preview video below.
The Beam shoots out images at up to 50 inches across, so you can have the equivalent of a very large telly in your pocket wherever you go. It's HD too. You control the projector through a dedicated app on the 4-inch, 480x800-pixel screen. On the back is a 5-megapixel camera, and it'll record and playback movies in 720p HD at 30fps.
Software-wise, we're looking at Android 2.3 Gingerbread as opposed to Ice Cream Sandwich, so you won't be able to unlock it with facial recognition, or resize your widgets. On board storage is 8GB, but you can add another 32GB via microSD. And a 1GHz dual-core processor powers the phone.
The projector makes the handset a little fatter than most, and has undoubtedly bumped up the price as well. It's cheaper than the HTC One X, for example, but a lot less powerful.
Though it may seem quite innovative, Samsung actually demoed the Beam back in 2010, when it was just a protoype.
We're still pounding the halls at Mobile World Congress, so for everything mobile check out mwc.cnet.co.uk. Let me know if you'll be buying the Galaxy Beam over on our Facebook page, or in the comments below.


"We are going (to Michigan) with a lot more confidence, because we ran well there last year," Earnhardt said. "I looked through the notes from last year, and we didn't unload perfect. We had to work to get it right. You don't go in with confidence that you are going to go there, and it will be perfect. You have the confidence to know that we will get it dialed in."
When the series competed at Michigan in June 2012, it was the first time on the track's new pavement. The repaving began after the August 2011 race and concluded in November, giving the asphalt enough time to settle and cure during the winter months. The new surface on this 2-mile track produced record speeds. Marcos Ambrose won the pole at Michigan one year ago when he easily shattered the track qualifying record with a lap at 203.241 mph. Forty drivers in that qualifying session posted a faster speed than the previous track record of 194.232 mph, set by Ryan Newman in 2005. Nineteen drivers topped 200 mph.
However, teams were faced with a huge tire issue in the days leading up to the race. Several teams experienced tire blistering during Friday's practice session as well as on the extra day of practice on Thursday. NASCAR and Goodyear made the decision to use a tougher left-side tire for the race. The higher than expected speeds at Michigan caused significantly higher left-side tire temperatures and therefore blistering.
An additional practice was held the day before the race. Teams had 75 minutes to familiarize themselves with the new tires and make further adjustments to their race setups. Earnhardt Jr. was one of those drivers who was limited on his practice time due to engine concerns. He complained that his car wasn't as good as he wanted it to be after completing just 26 laps in the last practice.
But Earnhardt put on a dominating performance in the 400-mile event. He led a total of 95 laps and crossed the finish line ahead of his closest competitor, Tony Stewart, by more than 5 seconds for his 19th career Sprint Cup victory.
Right now, Earnhardt sits fourth in the point standings. He moved up two positions after his top-five run at Pocono.
"We have been carrying momentum for a good solid year now," he said. "We are alright, and we know what we need to do."
Earnhardt trails leader and Hendrick teammate Jimmie Johnson by 82 points. Johnson claimed his third win of the season at Pocono, placing him in a tie with Matt Kenseth for most victories in the series this year.
Michigan is one of five tracks on the current Sprint Cup schedule where Johnson has yet to win. Chicagoland, Homestead, Kentucky and Watkins Glen are the others.
Last June at Michigan, Johnson nearly ran out of gas but managed to pull off a fifth-place finish. But that was followed by a 27th-place result in August due to engine failure just before the finish.
"The Michigan track surface has had summer and winter on it, and we'll see how much grip is just in the surface," Johnson said. "I would assume we'll go as fast as we did (last year) if not faster, and with the flatter track, I think the Gen-6 (new Sprint Cup race car) will outperform the Gen-5. The question really comes down to how much grip is still in the asphalt. I would assume it's going to be high.
"On fresh repaves, the grip is always at its highest. I'm not exactly sure how that will play out, but I'm happy that a summer and a winter have been on the track. It will make the racing wider for us, and that's what we're all hoping for. We've had weird things happen at Michigan, but one of these times it (a win) will happen for us. I hope it's this year."
Greg Biffle won the most recent Sprint Cup race at Michigan last August. Biffle is coming off a season-best second-place finish at Pocono. He is now 10th in points.
"I couldn't be happier coming off the run at Pocono going into Michigan," Biffle said. "We finished fourth the first race and got a win there last year at Michigan. We are working hard on our cars, trying to get them better, but we still have a little work to do.
"Michigan is one of my favorite tracks. It's a big fast place and has lots of room to race. We can get strung out a bit, but there is always something going on, someone is always catching someone else. There is always a lot of strategy going on. Fuel mileage and pit stops are very important. I've had a lot of success at Michigan in the past, and I think this will be a good weekend for us."
Forty-four teams are on the preliminary entry list for the Quicken Loans 400. A.J. Allmendinger and Bobby Labonte will switch rides for this race. Allmendinger is scheduled to drive the No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing Toyota, while Labonte is slated for a ride in the No. 51 Phoenix Racing Chevrolet.
2012 Winner: Dale Earnhardt Jr.


THUMBS UP to Frank Kelly, president and chief executive officer of Danbury Hospital, for receiving the prestigious Cecil Previdi Award this year in recognition of his many contributions to the Greater Danbury community. Kelly's heartwarming acceptance speech Friday at the annual Leaders Luncheon of the Greater Danbury Chamber of Commerce brought a standing ovation from the hundreds of people in attendance.
THUMBS DOWN to the acts of thievery in which a person or persons last week raided an untold number of mailboxes along at least a half-dozen streets and outside a pharmacy in New Milford. Opened and discarded mail was found and police say it indicates cash presents and other goods were looted. The frustration for residents of losing items is heightened by the fact that it is difficult to know exactly what was never received.
THUMBS UP to the Crouch quadruplets -- Ray, Ken, Carol and Martina -- who all have been accepted for admission to Yale University. It is a remarkable achievement, and perhaps a first for Yale. The Danbury High School seniors have made their family, school, and community proud of their accomplishments. We look forward to seeing what the talented quads will achieve in their pursuits, no matter which university they ultimately choose.


Insight: Did Conficker help sabotage Iran's nuke program?
(Reuters) - A cyber warfare expert claims he has linked the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010 to Conficker, a mysterious “worm” that surfaced in late 2008 and infected millions of PCs.
Conficker was used to open back doors into computers in Iran, then infect them with Stuxnet, according to research from John Bumgarner, a retired U.S. Army special-operations veteran and former intelligence officer.
While it is widely believed that the United States and Israel were behind Stuxnet, Bumgarner wouldn’t comment on whether he believes the Americans and Israelis also unleashed Conficker, one of the most virulent pieces of so-called malware ever detected. He wouldn’t name the attackers he believes were behind the two programs, saying the matter was too sensitive to discuss.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, which oversees Israel’s intelligence agencies, also declined comment.
If Bumgarner’s findings, which couldn’t immediately be independently confirmed, are correct then it shows that the United States and Israel may have a far more sophisticated cyber-warfare program than previously thought. It could also be a warning to countries other than Iran that they might be vulnerable to attacks.
His account leaves unresolved several mysteries. These include the severity of the damage that the program inflicted on Iran’s uranium enrichment facility, whether other facilities in Iran were targeted and the possibility that there were other as yet unidentified pieces of malware used in the same program.
Bumgarner - who wrote a highly praised analysis of Russia’s 2008 cyber assault on Republic of Georgia - says he identified Conficker’s link to Stuxnet only after spending more than a year researching the attack on Iran and dissecting hundreds of samples of malicious code.
He is well regarded by some in the security community. “He is a smart man,” said Tom Kellermann, an advisor to the Obama Administration on cyber security policy and the chief technology officer of a company called AirPatrol.
The worm’s latent state had been a mystery for some time. It appears never to have been activated in the computers it infected, and security experts have speculated that the program was abandoned by those who created it because they feared getting caught after Conficker was subjected to intense media scrutiny.
If confirmed, Bumgarner’s work could deepen understanding of how Stuxnet’s commanders ran the cyber operation that last year sabotaged an underground facility at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are enriching uranium using thousands of gas centrifuges.
The view that Stuxnet was built by the United States and Israel was laid out in a January 2011 New York Times report that said it came from a joint program begun around 2004 to undermine Iran’s efforts to build a bomb. That article said the program was originally authorized by U.S. President George W. Bush, and then accelerated by his successor, Barack Obama.
The first reports that the United States and Israel were behind Stuxnet were greeted skeptically. There are still a handful of prominent cyber security experts, including Jeffrey Carr, the author of the book “Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld,” who dispute the U.S.-Israel idea. He says that circumstantial evidence paints a convincing case that China was behind Stuxnet.
According to Bumgarner’s account, Stuxnet’s operators started doing reconnaissance in 2007, using Duqu, which spied on makers of components used in Iran’s nuclear and critical infrastructure facilities.
In November 2008, Conficker was let loose and it quickly spread, attacking millions of PCs around the world. Its initial task was to infect a machine and “phone home” with its location. If it was at a strategic facility in Iran, the attackers tagged that PC as a target. The release left millions of untagged machines infected with Conficker around the world, but no damage was done to them.
In March 2009, Bumgarner says, the attackers released a new, more powerful version of Conficker that started the next phase of the attack on April 1 by downloading Stuxnet onto the targeted PCs. After it completed that task, Conficker’s mission on those machines was complete.
He did more digging, comparing date and time stamps on different versions of Conficker and Stuxnet, and found a correlation — key dates related to their development and deployment overlapped. That helped him identify April Fool’s Day, April 1, 2009, as the launch date for the attack.
Bumgarner believes the attackers picked that date to send a message to Iran’s leaders. It marked the 30th anniversary of the declaration of an Islamic republic by Ayatollah Khomeini after a national referendum.
Once Conficker had pulled Stuxnet into computers in Iran there was still one big hurdle, he said. Those infected computers weren’t yet in the target - the underground uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.
Stuxnet was programmed to automatically jump from an infected PC to a USB drive as soon as it was put into a computer. That was the easy part. Getting somebody to be a human “mule” by bringing that USB drive to Natanz and plugging it into the right machine was a logistical nightmare.
That was probably delivered by somebody who regularly visited the facility and had reason to share information electronically - an academic affiliated with an engineering program at one of Iran’s universities or a worker at a company that provided technology to the facility, according to Bumgarner. He or she was almost certainly unaware of what was happening, he said.
“It blew their operation wide open,” says Bumgarner.


BOSTON – Columbus is up after two road wins in Tampa. St. Louis went into Winnipeg at took two from the Jets.
There are upsets in the making that have Nazem Kadri thinking the Maple Leafs can do the same to Boston.
The Leafs won Game 1 Thursday, essentially stealing home ice advantage, with Game 2 tonight (8 p.m., CBC) and a chance to take a strangehold on the best-of-seven series.
“There’s going to be a big difference from Game 1 to Game 2 in terms of that desperate aspect. We’ve got to be ready.
The Leafs expect no lineup changes.
The Bruins said veteran David Backes will play, after having been a healthy scratch for Game 1. Coach Bruce Cassidy did not say who would come out of the lineup, though Jake DeBrusk is a game-time decision after falling into the boards heavily in Game 1.
Leafs coach Mike Babcock does not make too much of Columbus’s surprising two-game lead over Tampa.
“I don’t get that surprised at playoff time,” said Babcock. “As the league has gotten tighter and tighter, the separation between top and bottom is almost nothing. We know every series is going to be ultra competitive.


Plans are gathering pace for Bradford’s new City Library with the arrival of a new temporary children’s library in City Park today.
The opening of the new Park and Read facility coincides with National Bookstart Week, the national initiative supported by Bradford Libraries to encourage children to get into books from an early age.
Park and Read, which will be based at City Park’s pavilion, was officially opened by Councillor Ralph Berry, Bradford Council’s executive member for children's services.
The new City Library is due to open in December following the news that repairs to the old Central Library would take too long and cost too much to stay as the main city centre library.
The children's library will have a wide range of books for babies, children and young people – from birth to 16 years – as well as a programme of story times, rhyme times, events and activities.
Youngsters and their parents from children's centres across the district descended on the park in their rain coats for Bookstart’s Ugly Duckling Splash Event.
There were stories and rhymes, an egg hunt, face painting, balloon modelling and inflatable ducks.
Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, executive member for employment, skills and culture, said: “The new Park and Read will be a great facility for children and young people and ensures they still have access to a library service in the city centre.
“We’re really looking forward to the opening of Park and Read in City Park. It's just the right time of year for it to open. It's a great opportunity for families using the park over the summer to join in with the events in Park and Read.
“It all helps foster that love of reading in children and hopefully encourage them to read more over the summer holidays.
“The project plan for the new City Library is on track. We’ve been working with library staff to make sure that the design of the new library fulfils what our library users have told us they want to see. Our new neighbours, Impressions gallery, have also been really helpful in working with us to achieve the deadline.
Park and Read will run from June to December 2013 (when the new City Library opens) and will be open Monday to Saturday from 9am to 5pm.
Books for adults and computer access are available in the mobile library in City Park, open Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm until the new library opens.


Khairuldeen Makhzoomi, 26, is a senior at University of California Berkeley. Makhzoomi lives with his mother and younger brother in Oakland. His father was an Iraqi diplomat whom Saddam Hussein jailed in Abu Ghraib prison. The dictator’s regime later killed him.
On April 6, Makhzoomi boarded a Southwest Airlines flight at LAX that was headed for Oakland. After boarding, Makhzoomi called an uncle in Baghdad to tell him that he had just heard United Nation Secretary General Ban Ki-moon deliver a speech.
Makhzoomi told his uncle that he asked the secretary general a question about ISIS. The conversation ended with the Arabic phrase, “inshallah” or god willing.
A female passenger in a seat nearby overheard the conversation and told the flight crew she heard him making potentially threatening statements.
The Southwest employee then escorted him off the plane, and Makhzoomi accused the employee of anti-Muslim bias.
Law enforcement officials searched Makhzoomi in the airport terminal in front of a crowd of onlookers, including other officers and a police dog. Three FBI agents then arrived and questioned him in a private room.
Makhzoomi said an FBI agent told him the Southwest Airlines employee said a passenger reported hearing him talk in Arabic about martyrdom, using a phrase often associated with jihadists. Makhzoomi denied the charge and returned to the terminal where the Arabic-speaking employee refunded his ticket.
The Berkeley student booked a new flight on Delta Air Lines and arrived in Oakland eight hours after he had planned. Makhzoomi said he does not plan to pursue legal action, but he wants Southwest Airlines to apologize for the ways its employees treated him.
Zahra Biloo, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said there have been at least six cases of airlines pulling Muslims off flights so far this year. Southwest Airlines released a statement saying it does not condone or tolerate discrimination of any kind.
Hes a student at Berkeley, where does he get the “refugee” status from? This kid was looking for a reaction and he got it! If I say “bomb” anything close to that on an airplane, I’d assume I’m gonna get some attention and be taken off the plane.
He has to pay for his education and he is smart enough to know that someone will do the dirty work for him. Another stunt for today’s reading.
Southwest Airlines say it was the CONTENT of the conversation, not that he was speaking Arabic, that he was removed. This guy made the mistake of getting on a plane where a passenger and a flight attendant both spoke Arabic.
Can at least one of the people who voted this down, please explain why. Should we allow people who by their actions pose a possible threat to continue on the plane. If so, should we allow the other passengers the choice of deboarding at that point. Should the pilot and flight attendants also be allowed to leave. Or do you hate Southwest Airlines and hope for a crash?
Do you speak Arabic and have a transcript of this student’s conversation? So, you think that he was not a threat or not trying to frighten people so he could get kicked off the plane and sue the airline?
Do you not realize that Southwest Airlines probably flies more Middle Eastern passengers, (connected with the oil industry) than most airlines–all without incident and apparently has flight attendants who speak Arabic. Or do you just want to believe that Southwest is Islamophobic because it has the word South in its name?
More importantly, do you have a transcript? I read the article above, and it did not mention specific language used by the passenger. Therefore, all of the actions you have suggested (passengers and crew leaving) are based on the assumption that this guy said something threatening, without any evidence for it.
It is important to have the evidence before weighing in on either side. You and the poster above have failed to take this crucial step.
Correction. You are the poster above. You have failed this test twice.
Maybe he was talking to that clock-kid, getting advice on how to get his 15 minutes of fame?
This guy knew exactly what he was doing. He’s looking for a payday.


The hottest day of 2018 was a bad day for a power failure at The Bridge homeless shelter in downtown Dallas.
A power transformer burst into flames shortly before 4 p.m. in a parking lot near the shelter in the 1800 block of Corsicana Street, authorities said.
There were no injuries, but with temperatures hovering around triple digits, the shelter had to transfer its guests from its suddenly stifling facility to The Stewpot, another downtown shelter.
About 250 occupants and 12 dogs were evacuated from the shelter, Dallas Fire-Rescue spokesman Jason Evans said.
Initial repairs might be completed by late Sunday morning, said Sam Merten, chief operating officer of The Bridge.
"But then there's going to be additional damage to our system, which may take another two to three days," he said.
Merten said the shelter is working with its partners, including the city, to ensure that everyone's needs are met.
"Fortunately no one's going to go without shelter, which is always important but particularly important when it's this hot outside," he said.
The fire never reached the shelter itself, Evans said.
The temperature at Dallas Love Field reached 101 around 6 p.m. Saturday. That's a bit warmer than the 98-degree high at DFW International Airport, the official recording site for Dallas-Fort Worth.
But it's the heat index that really matters, and that reached a scorching 108 for Love Field and 105 at DFW. At Fort Worth's Meacham International Airport, the mercury hit 102 and the heat index was 10 degrees higher.
Despite the sizzling temperatures, a cold front threatened to bring some isolated storms to the area starting Saturday afternoon, but most were forecast to hit around the Denton area and points north.
The good news is that our first big blast of seasonal heat should be followed by a cool-down. But no need to pack a sweater on Sunday when temperatures are expected to dip to 92. Some areas might even top out in the high 80s, according to the National Weather Service.
Extreme heat is nothing new here, and the Salvation Army is prepared, as usual, opening 13 cooling stations across North Texas to provide cold water and air conditioning to anybody at risk of heat exposure.
The Harry Hines Boulevard and East Lancaster Avenue locations will be open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eleven other stations will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m. weekdays.
Temperatures on Sunday and Monday should remain in the lower 90s, with Monday's high reaching 91. Temperatures will quickly rise again the rest of the week, edging up to near 100, though possibly without reaching it.
The best chances for rain come early in the week, with a 30 percent chance on Monday and a 20 percent chance Tuesday.


Published: Dec 06, 2018 at 9:19 a.m.
Updated: Dec 06, 2018 at 9:26 a.m.
Prince Andrew Panthers’ Maddi Brown blocks the puck in front of goaltender Hayley Douglas during a metro high school girls’ hockey game against the Sackville Kingfishers on Wednesday at the Dartmouth 4-pad.
Lexi Goodwin, Madi Darragh, Maddie Paul and Mikenna Renard scored in the Kingfishers’ 4-2 victory. Maddi Brown and Morgan Amero replied for the Panthers.
In boys’ action on Wednesday, Josh Spruin scored three goals as the Prince Andrew doubled the Sackville Kingfishers 6-3. Colby Guisti, Bruen Fisher and Griffin Radford also scored for the Panthers.
Connor Wolfe had a goal and two assists for the Kingfishers while Kieran Black and Dylan Hatt had singles. Cameron Stewart assisted on all three goals.
In boys’ basketball action, Jared Talbot had 21 points and Joe Frenette 18 as the C.P. Allen Cheetahs beat the Prince Andrew Panthers 89-64.
Alp Ozgoren added 12 and Kyle Donnelly 10 for the Cheetahs while Dikeim Davis had 10 for Prince Andrew.


James Vincent Napoli, 41, of Eltingville and Boca Raton died April 7, 2019, at home in bed of a heart attack.
Born in Brooklyn and raised on Staten Island, James worked both in New York and Florida. He was the owner of Napoli Electric LLC in Florida.
James enjoyed bible study, body building, the beach, N.Y. Yankees, fishing, vacations, fine dining and visits to Atlantic City. He was loved by his family and many friends and was known for his sense of humor.
Family-oriented, Mr. Napoli mostly enjoyed spending time with his six-year-old daughter, Gianna Rosemarie. She was his angel and the apple of his eye.
He was a parishioner at Calvary Chapel and Connected Life Christian Church.
He is survived by is his daughter, Gianna; parents, Michael and Arlene Behar; sisters, Nicole Dibartolomeo, Malorie Behar; brothers, Michael and Blake Behar, as well, and nephews, Nicolas and Vincent.
Funeral is from Bedell-Pizzo Funeral Home on Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. a Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10:30 a.m. at St. Thomas Church. Interment is at Moravian Cemetery. Friends may visit from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday.
"So so sad. God, please be with Gianna and help her..."
"My condolences are with you. May he rest in peace."


Battery technology has become a hot topic in the green movement because of the last decade's developments to make batteries more environmentally friendly. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries are widely used in both consumer and defense applications, such as cellular telephones and notebook computers; they also store energy needed to run power tools, medical equipment and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
They are considered safer, less expensive and more environmentally friendly than most other rechargeable batteries. Research programs are developing new and less costly versions of rechargeable lithium batteries for use in electric and hybrid vehicles. Lithium batteries offer both high energy-storage capacity and an environmentally benign alternative to the harmful lead used in conventional batteries.
Local Motors uses tech, crowdsourcing and design contests to create tomorrow's autos today.
Renewable energy is growing rapidly. But recent developments in storage could prove to be a game changer.
Audi’s R8 e-tron sports car is finally a reality — with almost 300 miles on a charge.


Serie A leaders Juventus went 11 points clear today after they escaped with a 2-1 victory over Milan, thanks to a last-minute handball penalty called on Milan’s Mattia De Sciglio.
It’s not entirely clear if the ball hit De Sciglio’s chest or part of his elbow, but a few moments later, in the 97th minute, there was no confusion about Paulo Dybala’s top-corner penalty kick.
Dybala’s shot was excellent, but the fact that the game ended on such a squishy penalty—with Juventus protecting a record home win streak, a cynic might raise an eyebrow at the ref’s decision to call the handball—is a shame considering how well 18-year-old Milan goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma played. The youngster made nine saves, including a few breathtaking stops late in the game.


In 1992, the acquittal of four LAPD officers in the videotaped beating of Rodney King set off one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in U.S. history. Over the course of five days of looting and violence in Los Angeles, more than 60 people were killed, more than 12,000 others were arrested and $1 billion in property damage was recorded. Here is a look back at some of the city's darkest days.


The art of embedding video into a website is a question brought up by a user over at slashdot and the user says there is a lack of information provided by Apple on just how to achieve this with the Apple iPhone.
The user states that the likes of YouTube still fires Flash at the iPhone even though the iPhone lacks Flash support. While he has reviewed some of the Flash code and formulated a hack to he believes he is missing a “trick of the trade,” and wants to know how it’s done.
Well apparently all one needs is a direct link to an Apple compatible MPEG4 video with the correct mediatype on a server that supports the Range HTTP header, and the iPhone will automatically allow seeking in video.
Previous article Previous post: What should the Palm Pre price be?


MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) _ D.J. Fluker has quite a tale to share when he talks to young people.
The San Diego Chargers right tackle was left temporarily living with his mother and three siblings out of a car when their home in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
He attended three high schools, but graduated from Alabama in 31/2 years. The 2013 first-round pick started 17 games for the Chargers as a rookie.
Fluker is a frequent speaker at a San Diego-area juvenile detention facility. He’s hosting his first football camp Friday in Mobile, Alabama.
He says his message is the value of faith and hard work.


A social media user who turned to Twitter for help in writing an essay on The Handmaid's Tale has received invaluable insight — from none other than author Margaret Atwood herself.
A Twitter user identified online as Momchil Gavrilov tweeted at the Canlit giant early Thursday morning with the plea: "My crazy English teacher is making us write essays on #TheHandmaidsTale where we are supposed to answer why @MargaretAtwood put the theme of power and control in the book," they write from an account with the handle @GavrilovMomchil.
"Because it's in the world," Atwood says in a tweet posted at about 5 a.m. ET Thursday.
"It's not just women who are controlled in the book. It's everyone except those at the top. Gilead is a theocratic totalitarianism, not simply a men-have-power women-do-not world. Lower-status men are told when and who (to) marry, eg."
The detailed response delighted online onlookers, who had retweeted the exchange hundreds of times and gave it thousands of "likes" within hours.
"I used to teach high school. I'd have totally given points for proven communication with the author. This is not to say that everyone should bother poor @MargaretAtwood with all of their questions. Oh, dear," tweeted Jess Faraday, with the handle @jessfaraday.
She took an extra moment between retweeting comments about U.S. President Donald Trump and a CNN reporter to defend the teacher's assignment as a worthy endeavour.
"Nor does that English teacher sound so crazy. Just sayin. Though it might be the admiring use of crazy, as in 'Crazy, man!"' adds Atwood in a subsequent tweet.