Clashes have broken out in Melbourne between anti-Islam protesters and anti-racism activists, as police battled to keep them apart. Verbal insults and punches were traded, while parts of the city were closed off.
Police did their best to try and keep the two groups from causing trouble, as their members traded insults, while there were also some minor scuffles.
UPF rally organizer Shermon Burgess told supporters that the group was protesting against radical Islam, though he denied that he was racist. “I cannot even have my point of view without being labeled a bigot or a racist,” he said.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Uniting Against Islamophobia group, Stephan Jolly, said that they will attend a rally on July 18, which is the same day that Reclaim Australia will hold a rally.
Victoria Police said they were at the demonstrations to maintain public safety.
“Victoria Police respects the right of the community to express their views peacefully and lawfully, but will not tolerate those who break the law,” a statement said, according to AAP.
A police spokeswoman later said while there were no arrests at the protest, a man will be charged on summons after he was allegedly discovered carrying a knife.
In April, the two groups clashed in the same city as the Reclaim Australia group protested against Sharia law and Islamization, with some of the worst violence taking place in Federation Square.
A spokesman for the Victoria state ambulance service said that four people were being treated for minor injuries, while police spokeswoman Belinda Betty said two men and a woman were arrested following the violence. More than 100 police were deployed with almost a dozen mounted police also helping to keep the situation under control.


Problems paying the mortgage, filling the gas tank and feeding the family have eroded living standards for millions of Americans during the past several months. Not so for people who manage big piles of money; many of them made a fortune betting correctly on the housing debacle and rising commodity prices last year.
Our second annual look at the pay of folks who run hedge and private equity funds shows that the top 20 took home a collective $18.7 billion last year, 43% more than in 2006. To even make the list you needed minimum earnings of $350 million, which is $90 million higher than the year before. No chief executive of a traditional Wall Street investment bank came even close.
Our top-ranked earner, hedge fund manager John Paulson ($3.3 billion), reaped much of his bounty from shorting the ABX Index, which tracks the strength of the subprime mortgage market. Paulson earned an estimated $2.3 billion from his share of fees charged to investors and $1 billion from the appreciation of his own capital invested in Paulson & Co. funds.
Fund manager Philip Falcone, who ranked third with $1.7 billion, posted triple-digit returns by shorting subprime credit, resulting in $11 billion in growth for his two Harbinger Capital funds, excluding assets raised from new investors. John Burbank, who runs San Francisco hedge fund Passport Capital, made $370 million last year, also in large part by shorting home mortgage companies and mortgage-related debt.
Some members of our list, like Texans T. Boone Pickens ($1.2 billion) and John Arnold ($700 million) made their fortunes the old-fashioned way: betting on energy. Pickens' $2.7 billion BP Capital Equity Fund grew by 24% after fees, while his $590 million Commodity fund grew 40% thanks to large positions in Suncor Energy , ExxonMobil , and Occidental Petroleum .
For hedge fund billionaires Pickens and second-ranked George Soros ($2.4 billion), whose own investments compose a significant portion of their funds, there's more to be made from asset appreciation than from fees. Soros made $2 billion from the growth of personal investments within his $17 billion Quantum Endowment Fund, which returned 32% for the year.
Cheap debt fueled growth for hedge and private equity funds in 2007, despite the late-year market slowdown. Hedge funds increased their assets by 14% to $2.2 trillion, while private equity funds raised a record $300 billion for $2 trillion in assets. Each hedge fund manager on our list returned more than the 10% industry average to their investors in 2007, including two based in London. Christopher Hohn and Alan Howard each earned an estimated $400 million by investing heavily in European companies and limiting exposure to the turbulent U.S. markets.
To determine Wall Street's 20 Highest Earners of 2007, we examined hedge, private equity and mutual fund principals and traders, as well as investment bankers. The hedge fund and leveraged buyout bosses typically reap fees equal to 20% of profits and 2% of assets. Our paychecks are pretax and net of the firm's expenses, and exclude proceeds from selling shares in their own business.
For example, we count the $400 million that Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone Group earned from annual salary, distributions of percentage fees and capital appreciation on his investments in Blackstone's funds, but exclude the $4.8 billion that he took out of the business when it went public.


The freshman Democrat is a driving force behind the Green New Deal but she didn’t make the cut.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday announced the Democratic members of the new Climate Change Committee, to be led by Tampa Rep. Kathy Castor.
Noticeably absent from the committee roster is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman progressive who has used her vast star power to pressure for a bolder strategy to address global warming. Ocasio-Cortez joined a sit-in protest in Pelosi’s office, demanding a climate change committee with legislative and subpoena power focused on the so-called Green New Deal, a plan to drastically curb carbon emissions by 2030.
Castor has vowed to mold the new committee in the spirit of the Green New Deal, she told the Tampa Bay Times last month.
“I’m not going to rest until we make true progress,” Castor said.
The Times asked Castor’s office if the Tampa Democrat had a say in who made the cut for her committee. We’ll update the story with her answer.
Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday released the legislative framework for the Green New Deal, which sets the goal of moving all United States energy production to renewable resources.
“Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us,” Ocasio-Cortez told NPR.
Three of the Climate Change Committee members are from California and none represent the Northeast. They are: Reps. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, Julia Brownley of California, Sean Casten of Illinois, Jared Huffman of California, Mike Levin of California, Donald McEachin of Virginia and Joe Neguse of Colorado.
Republicans have not yet said who they will appoint to the committee, nor whether they will seat climate change skeptics or members of the party who believe the scientific research.
Update: Here’s Castor’s full statement on the new committee members.
“I am humbled by Speaker Pelosi’s confidence in me to lead the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis and I again thank her for the opportunity to tackle climate change head on. The climate crisis already is taking a toll on my neighbors in Florida and communities across America. We have a moral obligation to act to protect our great country and future generations from the costly impacts of the changing climate. I am determined to begin work immediately and look forward to the commitment, passion, experience and perspectives of each of my Democratic colleagues.
“The newly appointed Democratic members of the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis are ready to stand up to corporate polluters and special interests as we press for urgent action to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move toward a clean energy economy with a qualified workforce and a just transition. Climate deniers, fossil fuel companies and other special interests have had an outsized influence in promoting outdated, dirty policies and we will stand up to these forces – we have no choice. We do not have the time for distractions or delay. Our moral obligation to act includes a responsibility to ensure that Americans who suffer disproportionately from climate change – workers, communities of color and low-income Americans – enjoy the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards as the wealthy.


The world was shocked when Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Kušnírová were murdered in their home in the Slovak town of Veľká Mača on Feb. 21, 2018. Kuciak had been working on an investigation involving the Calabrian mafia and its ties to influential political and business figures within Slovakia. Thousands filled the streets in the ensuing months, protesting corruption within the government. Among them was Zuzana Čaputová, a then-44-year-old environmental lawyer and activist who in 2016 was awarded a Goldman Environmental Prize for helping shut down toxic landfills in her hometown of Pezinok in western Slovakia.
Prime Minister Robert Fico, whose two tenures were marked in part by threats on the press and waning judicial independence, resigned amid public pressure on March 14. (He remains chairman of the ruling center-left SMER-SD party.) He was replaced by former Deputy Prime Minister Peter Pelligrini; critics warned that Pelligrini, a handpicked Fico successor, would offer more of the same.
Amid the scandal, Čaputová announced in May 2018 that she would run in the March 16 presidential election.
Among her campaign promises were improved long-term care facilities for the elderly, fighting state indifference towards climate and environmental issues and increasing accountability from the country’s police forces, prosecutors and judges.
International media sat up and took notice when, in February 2019, Čaputová surged to the top of opinion polls before easily winning the first round of elections in early March with 40.6 percent of the vote. Her main rival, Maroš Šefčovič, was backed by the SMER-SD party.
She easily won the March 30 runoff with 58 percent of the vote, becoming the first female president of Slovakia. She will take office in June. But it’s unclear how much she will really be able to change in Slovakia, a former Soviet state in the heart of Central Europe that some experts warn is at a crucial nexus between the democratic gains it has made since its split from Czechoslovakia in 1993 and a risk of illiberal backsliding.
A day before Čaputová was elected, press freedom group Reporters Without Borders warned that despite Kuciak’s murder, “nothing has been done in the past year to improve the environment for the media and strengthen protection for press freedom in Slovakia.” They cited a new law being debated in Parliament that would oblige Slovak media organizations to provide a “right of reply” to politicians for every instance of political coverage in the press. An open letter to Čaputová, co-signed by the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom and eight other press freedom groups, also warned against passing the law.
Čaputová’s ability to effect concrete changes may be difficult, however. Under Slovakia’s parliamentary system, the presidency is primarily a ceremonial, non-policymaking position.
What Čaputová will likely be able to do, according to both Tillman and Farkas, is use her influence to pressure the legislature towards her own democratic, pro-transparency platforms. This includes appointing judges and using her veto power.
These presidential powers may be stronger than meets the eye, according to Navrátil Matej, a research fellow at Comenius University in the Slovakian capital Bratislava (from where Čaputová also earned a law degree in 1996) and an associate researcher at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He pointed to a recent example from 2018 where the current president, Andrej Kiska, refused to appoint the prime minister’s nominee for Interior Minister.
A spokesman for Čaputová’s campaign declined to comment, citing a busy post-election schedule.
It’s a sentiment that, along with her anti-establishment tendencies, may yet define her inaugural five-year term.
“People in Slovakia are fed up with corruption, mainly after a number of scandals [that] became apparent with the death of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová,” Navrátil said. “Hence, her anti-establishment changes should be understood in [the] context of Slovakia’s ongoing transition and as a process of further and deeper democratization, where stability and predictability of democratic institutions — formal and also informal ones — is of the highest importance.


Viewers tuning into Fox for the Michigan-Purdue college football game at 4 PM ET instead found a Cubs-Brewers baseball game still going on.
Cubs-Brewers began at 1:05 PM, and given that baseball games frequently go on for three+ hours (especially when involving expanded September rosters and pitching changes in playoff races), it’s hardly surprising that a baseball game would go past the 4 PM time slot.
And, while most of the people tuning in for Purdue-Michigan probably didn’t care about the baseball game, it was a very important game for the NL Central and NL Wild Card races. So, it does makes sense that Fox stuck with the baseball game for its conclusion.
What doesn’t make much sense is that there wasn’t a bigger separation in start times for the games (though this can of course be difficult to work out, and Cubs-Brewers was already a very early time to accommodate Fox).
And what makes even less sense is that the start of the Michigan-Purdue game was moved to… Fox Business Network?
Oh, and Fox waited four minutes to go to Michigan-Purdue after the baseball game ended, to get their commercials in.
But it’s odd that Fox would choose to throw Michigan-Purdue on Fox Business, a channel that most people don’t even know exists. It’s hidden in the DirecTV listings on channel 359 (local channels are 1-100, sports channels are in the early 200s and 600s). Few sports bars are going to take the time to figure that out.
And the same thing happened for the beginning of the Maryland-UCF game, which was slated for a 3 PM ET start on FS1. NASCAR trucks racing was on FS1 into the 3 PM ET time slot, and the Maryland-UCF start was moved to Fox Business.
NASCAR trucks running long… UCF-Maryland shifted to Fox Business. Fox Business!
Naturally, viewers looking for these football games were quite angry with Fox.
Stupid. Why? I have 12-14 games a year. And, I don't have Fox Business. What the hell. Give me my football game damnit!
The worst part of this whole situation? Michigan-Purdue was the first in-conference game for Fox under their new Big Ten deal. Not exactly a great start to that partnership.


Espousing the endeavor as a potential springboard for future entrepreneurs and community leaders, Happy State Bank officials hosted a Lemonade Day 2019 kickoff at the branch's downtown location on Thursday.
Officials said Happy State Bank is joining the Amarillo Education Foundation and the Amarillo Independent School District as presenting investors. They noted the Lemonade Day Program began in Houston in 2007, with the mission of serving as an inspiration for youths to learn the necessary steps to become an entrepreneur by opening their first business in the form of an official Lemonade Day stand.
"It's teaching entrepreneurship," Happy State Bank Chairman and CEO J. Pat Hickman said. "As a young boy I was given the opportunity, through the Boy Scouts, to sell things and put on different kinds of projects that taught me a lot of the basic principles I have today. This program covers everything from getting a business license to understanding government regulations and teaches the important principles of spending, saving and giving."
Officials said more than 600 students have signed up to participate in Amarillo's Lemonade Day 2019 on May 4, via the Amarillo Extended School Day Program, adding participants will have an opportunity to win lemonade stands built by Palo Duro High School students.
The project also involves partnering with Amarillo-based home supply businesses to teach children how to build their own lemonade stands, Hickman said.
"I promise, it's this kind of program that will create future community leaders," he said.
Officials said second through fifth grade students will receive support materials and interested students not registered through the AISD Extended Day Program are urged to register at lemonadeday.org/amarillo before May 4 to receive the free interactive Lemonade Day program, Lemonopolis, online.


Panka Peruvian restaurant will open in January on Ingersoll Avenue in Des Moines.
Des Moines is getting another infusion of international cuisine. Panka, a Peruvian restaurant, will open in mid-January on Ingersoll Avenue in the space that Pita Pit formerly occupied.
Fabiola Carlin and Mariela Maya, both originally from Peru, will own the eatery at 2708 Ingersoll Ave.
The restaurant will serve traditional Peruvian dishes like ceviche, lomo saltabo (beef stir fry), and chupe (shrimp bisque with rice and queso fresco), said Carlin.
About four blocks east on Ingersoll, BAH Brazilian steakhouse opened last week; Lola's Fine Kitchen, which serves Pakistani and Filipino dishes opened in May in Ankeny's Prairie Trail development; Puerto Rico Restaurant debuted in June in Windsor Heights; and Hidalgo Mexican Bar and Grill opened last week in Urbandale. Another Brazilian steakhouse, Brazil Terra Grill, is getting set to open in West Des Moines.
Carlin had worked in the hospitality industry while living in Peru. She moved to Des Moines with her husband, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Blank Children’s Hospital. She and Maya, a lifelong friend, have been planning the restaurant for about a year. They are bringing a famed Peruvian chef to Des Moines to train local chefs in preparing Peruvian dishes, Carlin said.
She described Peruvian food as “colorful with some spice to it. And lime juice is one of our crucial ingredients, which makes the food very bright.” Panka, named for the chili peppers used in Peruvian cooking, will seat 49 and be open for lunch and dinner, Carlin said.
Hours will be 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday; and closed Monday.


PASSENGERS on an aborted flight from Paris to Bilbao on Wednesday April 13 were left so scared that some phoned home to ‘say goodbye’.
The drama unfolded at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, just before the flight was about to leave for Spain, when a man ‘of Arabic origin’ failed to board the plane despite having checked in.
He was seen to be travelling alongside a woman who did board alongside 100 or so other passengers, but panic broke out when crew members were unable to locate him and announced a ‘security breach’.
There was also concern regarding an unidentified item of baggage on the plane, operated by Air France subsidiary Hop!, which no passenger claimed ownership of.
The woman, who did not speak French or Spanish, was interviewed and was able to confirm that she was not travelling with the man, and that the unidentified bag did not belong to her.
The flight was due to take off at 9pm but was cancelled, with shaken passengers transferred to a local hotel for the night before being flown out the next morning.
Previous articleIs it goodnight to the siesta in Spain?


Performance will certainly be more sluggish with the all-wheel-drive system, but for resale value, it's a smart bet in the Encore.
The 2016 Buick Encore masks its economy-car roots well, but tepid performance keeps its from earning a premium label.
As a whole, the shape of the 2016 Buick Encore tries to convey a tougher look that disguises its tall, boxy shape. The front fascia is steeply raked, it rides on huge 18-inch wheels, and some of the body sculpting can appear as if the designers were simply trying too hard. From other angles, the Encore has enough presence to justify its price tag.
The Encore has a battle on its hands. When it was first introduced all the way back in 2013, it stood essentially alone in the market as one of few small crossovers SUVs. Today, it is a far more crowded niche, packed with pricey, prestigious rivals along the lines of the the Audi Q3, BMW X1, and Mercedes-Benz GLA, not to mention affordable models like the Chevrolet Trax, Fiat 500X, and Honda HR-V.
It has been something of a trailblazer, yet the Encore remains a crossover that is at odds with its Buick stablemates in some ways. Priced on the high side, with luxo-grade features, it remains fitted around a tidy hatchback shape, and saddled with tepid performance (though Buick promises more power on tap for a new Encore Sport Touring model coming soon).
Inside, the cockpits of our test cars have been trimmed either in all-black materials or a multi-tone palette of cocoa-colored leather and two-tone brown trim that lend a jazzy buzz. There are other color combos too. Befitting the almost luxury Buick label, the interior is fairly quiet, if not totally hushed, since a modicum of wind and road noise nonetheless penetrates the cabin. Active noise canceling does keep engine rumble mostly silenced, however.
Although you'd probably never guess it, underneath the Encore sits some underpinnings shared with the humble Chevy Sonic hatchback. But the Chevy can't be ordered with all-wheel drive like the Buick can. There's a single engine/transmission combination on offer, the turbocharged 1.4-liter 4 engine from the Sonic teamed with a 6-speed automatic.
The Encore tips the scales at around 3,200 pounds, which is a lot of metal to motivate with a mere 138 horsepower and 148 pound-feet of torque. Even minus the added weight of its optional all-wheel drive system, the 0-to-60-mph run is a leisurely 9 seconds. All-wheel drive models push that to more like 10 seconds, meaning some planning is necessary for two-lane road passing.
But there's something of a fix this year: A direct-injected version of the 4-cylinder with 153 horsepower and 177 lb-ft of torque that offers more getup and go in any situation. It doesn't transform the Encore into a sports car, but all models handle fairly well for a tall, heavy wagon-like vehicle with a short wheelbase. We think that the all-wheel drive versions ride a little better perhaps because of their added weight.
Accommodations are excellent in certain aspects but rather more confining in others. The Encore's tall roofline gives it good headroom, but it's narrow. Three abreast in the rear seat isn't feasible and even front seat passengers may bump elbows. But its interior remains hugely flexible with a high degree of versatility thanks to the folding second row and even a passenger seat that flops down to accommodate longer objects like ladders.
Where the Encore's price point begins to make more sense is its safety and equipment specifications. The base model stickers for about $25,000 and includes 10 airbags, a backup camera, and even a WiFi hotspot with a 4G LTE antenna. From there, it's possible to add leather trim, Bose audio, and forward collision alerts. Tick every box and the Encore comes in at about $33,000, which still comes under some rivals but is a lot of coin for not a lot of metal.
The Encore has too much design on its petite body; the interior's a little calmer.
The Encore features Buick's portholes, but it doesn't quite pull off the bulbous corporate look to the same degree as some of the division's larger offerings like its LaCrosse four-door and the Enclave large crossover.
The front end of the Encore shows off Buick's toothy grille, a tough look standing on large 18-inch wheels. There's some bulldog in the nose, along with chrome-trimmed portholes laying inconspicuously on the flat top of the hood sides (a good thing).
But from the center of the crossover backwards, the rakish, broad-shouldered stance begins to morph into a simpler five-door compact hatchback. An S-curve runs through the door panels and up around the rear glass. The rear-quarter view doesn't say “Buick” at all, but then the large, molded rear bumper shield ladles on more toughness again—and a spoiler mounted to the top of its tailgate stretches its roofline to help make this short crossover look a hair longer.
The Encore's small size means there isn't much sheet metal for designers to worth with if they're going to stretch Buick's look onto a diminutive canvas. But its interior more succesfully delivers an upmarket feel hidden in a compact package.
The instrument panel is plastered with myriad switches, knobs, and buttons—we counted 33 of them—a bit of fake “wood” trim with some metallic accents to brighten things up. At least Buick installed conventional rotary knobs to control the audio system. Calming ambient interior lighting is courtesy of blue LEDs, but Buick does not offer Ford's trick of changing interior hues. You'll get blue and you'll like it.
If you dig the monochrome style, you can order an Encore with an interior covered in black leather. At the other end of the scale sits a two-tone brown treatment with cocoa-dyed hides that will have you making a bee-line for your local coffee shop for a cup of joe. Its understated elegance fits the Encore's nearly calming interior better than the rather austere black.
The struggle is real: the Encore's 138-hp four isn't enough, but the new Sport Touring model's higher output engine solves that problem.
The Encore's size pays off in a few performance dimensions, but in general it's up against a weighty challenge: its weight.
Power comes from a turbocharged 1.4-liter four, the same unit that's an option on the Chevy Sonic. It's teamed only with a six-speed automatic gearbox. Until this year, it's only been offered in one version, with output of 138 horsepower plus 148 pound-feet of torque.
This year, Buick has added an uprated version to the Sport Touring model. It adds direct injection to the 1.4 and the result is 153 horsepower and 177 lb-ft of torque.
While the Encore is a pleasant vehicle to drive, the base engine sorely needs more power. It's capable of accelerating to 60 mph from a standstill in about nine seconds, but that's a best-case scenario: no options, no all-wheel drive, one passenger aboard. Add in more passengers and all-wheel drive and the base Encore starts to feel slow.
The problem here is that even the daintiest Encore comes in at almost 3,200 pounds. The pint-sized turbo 4-cylinder has a tremendous amount on its plate. Its struggle is real, and is made more pronounced by an automatic that's tuned to upshift quickly. To get even moderate movement, it has to shift down not once, but twice. Adding the available all-wheel drive, and its commensurate 150 pounds, only makes the problem worse.
The new direct-injected engine on the Encore Sport Touring makes merging and passing easier and offers more pickup from a stop as well. It also comes with an automatic stop/start feature that cuts out the engine at stop lights to reduce fuel consumpetion and is largely transparent. This engine is the clear choice for everyday drivability, but the pricing for Sport Touring may tempt buyers to move up a class.
Opting for all-wheel drive actually improves the Encore's ride quality in addition to improving inclement weather traction. That system is programmed to deliver power to the rear immediately before shifting power increasingly forward (if there is traction) up to 37 mph. At higher speeds, the Encore is effectively front-wheel drive to save fuel.
Underneath the Encore sits a suspension (struts up front and a torsion beam out back) shared with the economy grade Sonic, but it mostly feels like a properly upmarket little crossover. Overall, the Encore absorbs bumps with aplomb and is only unsettled by the worst urban hazards like deep potholes. Its electric power steering balances highway speed centering and some degree of feedback, but it's definitely not a sports car with a tall body.
Conclusion The struggle is real: the Encore's 138-hp four isn't enough, but the new Sport Touring model's higher output engine solves that problem.
The Buick Encore may be small—it's somewhat related to the Chevrolet Sonic subcompact—but in terms of interior space, it'll easily carry four adults, with just a little give and take required between front- and back-seat passengers.
By the numbers, the Encore rides on a 100.6-inch wheelbase, and checks in at a total length of 168.4 inches. The tape measure and spec sheet put that about a half-foot longer than a MINI Countryman, but nearly a foot shorter than a Ford Escape.
Front passengers won't notice the shrunken length so much as they will miss the extra width of the next-class-bigger SUVs. The Encore provides an upright driving position, with a terrific view over the admittedly short hood. The feeling of available space inside the cockpit is good too, thanks to the high roof and low dash. Where the Encore skimps is in shoulder room: it's a narrow vehicle, and the center console seems too wide for the size. Front passengers will touch elbows (whether they want to or not) and the console will be in constant contact with front-seat knees.
The front seats themselves are comfortable, with well-shaped seatbacks and bottom cushions that could use just a bit more support; they're pretty flat.
The second row is more spacious than it looks, with enough room for a pair of adults. A third isn't a great idea, so instead you'll be happy to know that there's a flop-down armrest that contains a pair of cupholders.
As a two-person (and their stuff) hauler, the Encore excels. Fold the back seat down and you'll find up to 50 cubic feet of cargo space. With the second row upright, that shrinks to a tight 18.8 cubes. Even the passenger's seat can fold up front to allow for loading long objects like fly fishing gear or a ladder.
No matter how many people or fishing rods are on board, the Encore is pretty quiet. Its active noise cancelling tech blocks out engine noise, but there is a little road rumble and wind comes in around the side mirrors at higher speeds.
One demerit is that the Encore's dashboard mixes a welter of colors, materials, and shapes. Its materials aren't exactly luxury grade, but our biggest complaint is the 33 different controls, many of which appear identical at first glance. They're distracting and, frankly, some drivers may nto even seek out some of the Encore's more advanced functions because they get lost in the sea of buttons. But, hey, at least Buick included a rotary knob for volume. That's something some rivals have forgotten about.
There's more passenger space in the Encore than seems possible; some decluttering should be on the future product agenda.
One demerit is that the Encore's dashboard mixes a welter of colors, materials, and shapes. Its materials aren't exactly luxury grade, but our biggest complaint is the 33 different controls, many of which appear identical at first glance. They're distracting and, frankly, some drivers may not even seek out some of the Encore's more advanced functions because they get lost in the sea of buttons. But, hey, at least Buick included a rotary knob for volume. That's something some rivals have forgotten about.
The Encore performs well in crash tests, and a rearview camera and Bluetooth are standard.
The Encore's crash-test results have improved over time; it's one of the safer small crossover SUVs to be tested by both major agencies.
The NHTSA gives the Encore five stars out of five overall.
All versions of the Encore thankfully include a rearview camera, a necessity given its less-than-stellar visibility. Big roof pillars and a tall belt line look good outside but make over-the-shoulder visibility challenging inside.
We applaud Buick for fitting the Encore with Bluetooth connectivity, but the brand really surpasses competitors thanks to its OnStar telematics. Six months of free Directions and Connections service is included and there is a smartphone app that allows drivers to pre-program a destination or even unlock their car from miles away. On an opt-in basis, the Encore includes vehicle tracking that may be helpful for families with young drivers.
Optional equipment includes all-wheel drive—about $1,500—blind-spot monitors, and a slew of safety tech that watch the lane markings to alert the driver when they begin to drift out of a lane or close too quickly. We found the systems to be effective if a little overly cautious. Those systems are bundled with Bose speakers and parking sensors that supplement the backup camera.
From the IntelliLink interface to Bose noise cancellation, the Encore adds a tasteful luxury layer to its tidy hatchback body.
Buick's added a new model to the Encore lineup, but it hasn't substantially changed the standard or optional features it offers on the crossover SUV.
Every Encore comes with power windows, door locks, and heated outside mirrors; 18-inch alloy wheels; cruise control; a power driver's seat; ambient interior lighting; a rearview camera;Â cloth seating surfaces with mock-leather trim; the OnStar telematics system; active noise cancellation; and a cargo cover.
OnStar now bundles 4G LTE connectivity, free for a short period and available for a subscription following that. It allows the vehicle to create a wi-fi network, too.
Buick's IntelliLink infotainment system is also standard. It uses voice commands or a controller knob and a seven-inch dash screen to manage audio from multiple sources—Bluetooth streaming, mobile apps, satellite radio, or USB-connected devices. It also operates mobile-phone functions and the optional navigation system.
On the optional features list, a Convenience Group adds remote start,Â automatic climate control, as well as fog lamps. The Premium group offers a Bose sound system, parking sensors, and a pair of camera-based safety features: lane-departure warnings and forward-collision warning. Finally, a Leather package includes a heated steering wheel, heated seats up front, and the rear flip-fold bench seat in animal hides.
Standalone options include navigation and a sunroof, neither of which can be had on a base Encore. There's also a Bose sound system, which can be had in a few of the available packages, too.
The new 2016 Encore Sport Touring gets an uprated engine with 153 horsepower, and also adds a rear spoiler, its own 18-inch wheels, and stop/start.
It's small, and fuel economy is good in the Buick Encore--it's just not as good as some mid-size sedans.
The Buick Encore may be small, but it's chunky and depends on a hard-working turbocharged four-cylinder engine for its propulsion. The combination pushes its fuel economy into a middling territory, where it's easily bested by most mid-size family sedans.
Buick claims some of the best fuel-economy numbers for the growing class of small crossover SUVs, at least compared with the rivals it chooses.
The Encore is rated at 25 mpg city, 33 highway, 28 combined in its standard front-wheel-drive configuration. Add all-wheel drive, however, and that falls to 23/30/26 mpg.
The competition that doesn't quite match up? The Volkswagen Tiguan at 23 mpg combined, or the MINI Countryman, at 27 mpg combined.
Those figures leave out the Subaru XV Crosstrek, which ties the Buick with its combined rating of 28 mpg. We'd also check out the Nissan Juke, rated at 29 mpg combined, or 27 mpg with all-wheel drive—even though our real-world drives have turned in mileage a lot lower than official estimates. In real-world Encore drives, we've hit the EPA combined number of 28 mpg.
I have 2014 it has class, and rides so nice I get a lot of compliments the chrome wheels, this is my 4th Buick I have owned and looking forward to the others to come.
Looking for a different year of the Buick Encore?


Adele’s hugely successful album ’21’ is the most returned and exchanged Christmas gift this year, it has been revealed.
The album, which has sold over 10m copies worldwide, was the album being sent to the musicMagpie website on Christmas day with 47,315 copies being traded in by users of the site. Second place went to Emeli Sande’s ‘Our Version of Events (41,038 returns) and ‘Up All Night’ by One Direction (37,846 returns).
Meanwhile, the most unwanted DVD was Twilight with 36,217 for sale, followed by 35,461 of Batman:The Dark Knight.
Meanwhile, Adele has reportedly trademarked her own name. It was recently revealed that the ‘Rolling In The Deep’ star has has made sure that her name can’t be used to sell perfume or jewellery without her consent.


Ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich wants to take a trip to England.
Blagojevich's attorneys have asked a federal judge in Chicago to give the Democrat permission to leave the country so he can speak at the Oxford Union.
The motion filed with Judge James Zagel notes that the Oxford Union is a debating and speaking society in Oxford, England, that's been in existence since 1823. The motion says he'd make the trip this month, if he gets permission.
Zagel turned down a previous travel request when Blagojevich wanted to go to Costa Rica to appear on a reality TV show.
Blagojevich's retrial on federal corruption charges is scheduled to begin on April 20. He's denied any wrongdoing.


In Playing for Pizza, John Grisham leaves the confines of the courtroom for the NFL locker room. The pairing of the master of the legal thriller and America's most popular professional sports league would seem to be a marriage made in bestseller heaven.
Perhaps he'd craft a potboiler about a star quarterback involved in illegal dog-fighting and gambling. Or a story about a retired Hall of Fame running back who'd beaten double-murder charges only later to becharged with armed robbery. Maybe the plot would revolve around the genius head coach who broke league rules by stealing the defensive signals of the opposition. Playing for Pizza, however, is Grisham without the legal machinations. Instead, we meet Cleveland Browns third-string quarterback Rick Dockery, who is lying in his hospital bed unconscious from a severe concussion. Rick, it seems, took the field at the end of an all-but-sewn-up game that would have propelled the long-suffering Browns into the Super Bowl.
With Cleveland about to go bonkers, Rick throws three interceptions in the final quarter - the last resulting in the traumatic hit that sends him to the hospital and gives the game-winning touchdown to the Denver Broncos.
Remember last season's goof by Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, who bobbled the snap for the go-ahead field goal at the end of his team's playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks? That's poor Rick, but add injury to insult. When he wakes up, he's the outcast of Cleveland - could anything be worse? - and the laughingstock of the National Football League.
At a career crossroad, Rick takes the only job his smarmy agent can scrounge: starting quarterback for the Parma Panthers, in the football-mad country of ... Italy. Well, it is the home of the ancestors of Vince Lombardi and Joe Paterno, and every Pittsburgh Steelers fan waving a Terrible Towel knows that Franco Harris is half-Italian.
Far removed from ESPN's endless replays of his gaffe, Rick regains his quarterbacking mojo and some redemption. He rallies the scrappy Panthers on offense and - warning: spoiler alert - leads Parma to greater glory.
In such books as The Firm and The Pelican Brief, Grisham displays bravado and a familiarity with his terrain. His courtroom scenes crackle with page-turning tension; he layers his plots just as a lawyer builds a case.
In Playing for Pizza, Grisham is content to keep it light. The fish-out-of-water premise often devolves into stereotypes - Italians like to eat amazing food and drink amazing wines - while Rick's transformations and the outcome of the Panthers season are predictable.
And Grisham avoids tackling perhaps the ultimate challenge for a sports novelist or screenwriter: writing an original halftime tongue-lashing by a coach. Instead, he merely describes the coach's speech.
It's a missed opportunity. The football novel didn't hit its stride until the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the sport began to overtake baseball as our national obsession. Not coincidentally, the quartet of works that still dominates the pantheon - Dan Jenkins' Semi-Tough, Peter Gent's North Dallas Forty, Frederick Exley's A Fan's Notes and Don DeLillo's End Zone - reflects the anti-establishment chaos of Vietnam War-era America. In these funny and passionate novels, football serves as backdrop to stories of friendship, loss and obsession.
Today, the influence of contemporary football - at the high school, collegiate and professional levels - exceeds every other sport in America. The South shuts down on Saturdays for college games. Super Bowl Sunday serves as a secular holiday; even the commercials for the big game are hotly debated.
Football's favored status may well explain why the Michael Vick dog-fighting story as well as O.J. Simpson's ongoing saga and Bill Belichick's nefarious spy games are equally compelling.
Grisham, by setting his novel in Italy, where U.S. football has little impact or fan support, avoids all this craziness but also all of its potential. Football may be at the center of Playing for Pizza, but this isn't a football novel. It reads like part Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun, part Mario Batali culinary diary and part Fodor guidebook.
David Davis is a contributing writer to "Los Angeles" magazine. A version of this review appeared in the Los Angeles Times.


This 71-year-old artist’s walls in his Canadian home are filled with paintings by the greats, including Johannes Vermeer’s "The Girl With the Pearl Earring," Sandro Botticelli’s "Primavera" and even Michelangelo’s "Creation of Adam" on painted on one ceiling.
Even though none of them are real, it is perhaps more impressive that Cosimo Geracitano of Coquitlam, British Columbia, painted them all himself.
In addition to being the father of three and grandfather of five, he said that over the last 10 years, he has painted 45 replica paintings from ranging from the Renaissance to Impressionism.
Geracitano’s even has a miniature replica of the Sistine Chapel featuring just the "Creation of Adam," which he painted on panels then installed on his ceiling afterward.
He explained he started painting as a boy growing up in Bivongi, Italy.
Geracitano settled in Canada in 1967 and got married shortly after.
When his wife died of a heart attack three-and-a-half years ago, he passed his business onto his son and used his newfound spare time to focus on his paintings.
Geracitano said he now paints almost every day, and can spend weeks to months on a single piece.
He is now working on a recreation of the "Allegory of the Planets and Continents" by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo – a work in progress he started nearly three months ago.
“All the paintings I’ve chosen so far, I’ve seen the originals and they’re so wonderful, so inspiring,” Geracitano said.


When the city of Aberdeen ordered Janice M. Grant to tear down her dilapidated house, it was enough to turn her into an overnight history buff.
Racing against the imminent wrecking ball, Grant pulled out tattered newspaper clippings and yellowing letters and interviewed relatives about the home her family has owned for nine decades.
She wrote a four-page primer on the history of her early 1900s Colonial: How Eleanor Roosevelt twice visited Grant's aunt, an aide to the first lady, and how the house was among the first in the city owned by blacks.
Grant, 72, even got the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to write a supportive letter to Aberdeen, noting the house's link to African-American history.
City public works officials condemned the building this fall and gave Grant and her husband, Woodrow B. Grant Jr., a state education administrator, two months to tear it down.
The city yielded, a little, and extended the deadline indefinitely after the Grants, who live in another home nearby, pledged to renovate the house and use it as housing for Christian missionaries.
City officials say the home has deteriorated into a moldering wreck with broken beams, dangling wires, broken windows and no running water.
"Vagrants will occupy it, drug activity will occur," City Manager Peter Dacey said. "If a child was to get into the house and something happened to the child, it becomes a public safety concern."
Grant's belated reaction is typical of homeowners when officials turn to their weapon of last resort: the demolition order, officials say. The orders often follow months of meetings, warnings and notices.
The city condemns three or four buildings a year, most of them abandoned houses. Often the city meets resistance.
Last year, when officials condemned an old CSX train station on West Bel Air Avenue, the Harford Historical Society and other preservation agencies intervened.
They declared the graffiti-covered station a historic landmark and got thousands of dollars in grants to restore it.
In the case of the Grants' house on a 4-acre estate at 411 Edmund St., the trouble started in 2001. Neighbors began complaining of garbage in front of the house, including a beat-up car with no license plate, Dacey said.
The city condemned two houses on the property, one of which the Grants demolished.
But the couple refuse to tear down the second house, which has been in the family since Janice Grant's great-grandmother moved there, on what was then a fruit farm, with her two children in 1917.
The Grants say they have made repairs and that an engineer they paid to inspect the house said that it is not condemnable.
More repairs are needed, they said, but they have been low on money because they have had to pay for a number of family funerals in recent years.
But the real issue, they say, is that the city has singled them out, bowing to the complaints of a few neighbors.
"As far as we're concerned, it's discrimination," said Janice Grant, a retired Harford County schools teacher.
The Grants claim that other homes that have fallen into disrepair have not been condemned and slated for demolition. They also say the city has exaggerated its claim about neighbors' complaints.
Mark K. Dickinson, who lives several doors down from the house on Edmund Street, called the house an "eyesore."
"But instead of [complaining] about it, I was just waiting to see if they were going to fix it up," he said.
The Grants said they are trying to raise money to renovate the house. The total bill: $250,000. They have applied for grants from local and state agencies and are soliciting donations through their nonprofit ministry.


Dinner: I like what Jay [Gust] is doing over at TAPAteria. [It's] fun. You can tell somebody cares.
Cheap Eats: I like El Taco Rey.
A Special Occasion: I think what Scott [Savage is] doing over at Cliff House is pretty cool. He's just been truckin' through. He's doing whatever he wants; he's not stuck in any kind of cuisine, and I'm always excited to see what he comes up with.
Breakfast: The Pantry: I'm a big biscuits-and-gravy guy.
Lunch: I'll give Yoo Mae a push. I like JJ [Kim] over there. He does a really cool one, and he only does it for us over here at the Famous — the Lamborghini Diablo roll.
Dinner: I like Mizuna, in Denver. I know if I go to Mizuna my money's gonna be well spent and I'm not gonna drop $150 for two and walk out and be like, "You know what? That sucked." It's just consistent. What I'm afraid of here is, places are so inconsistent.
Breakfast: I would eat breakfast at The Coffee Cup [Cafe]. It's consistent, I know people there, I see people that I've known forever. We know what we're gonna get.
Lunch: I do really love to go to Marigold for lunch. I love that everything's fresh, light; and the dessert options are amazing.
Cheap Eats: I took my son the other night to Leon Gessi and it was awesome. And I've gone there forever. We go to Leon Gessi and hit BJ's Velvet Freez and it's perfect.
Breakfast: I really have enjoyed that Over Easy that just opened up. I just think they put out a really good, solid breakfast, and if I'm feeling like a cocktail with my huevos, that's where I head.
Lunch: I hit the Indian buffet on Eighth Street — Little Nepal. Raj [Adhikari] knows me by name and, yeah, I have kind of a problem.
Dinner: If I'm feeding the family, I'm a big fan of hitting Rudy's [Country Store and Bar-B-Q] and bringing that back. I spend, as far as dinner bucks go, probably more money there than most places.
Lunch: I like to go to Rico's downtown for lunch, and catch up with friends. Usually I'll get their house salad and a slice of pizza, really.
Cheap Eats: I actually go to Garbanzo's. You get the chicken, and everything on it, with the crazy, little pickled eggplants — it's great.
A Special Occasion: If it's gonna be something really special, I like to go to the Margarita at PineCreek. Love what they do there.
Breakfast: I would go to the Hungry Bear in Woodland Park. I live up there. I usually have one of their omelets.
Lunch: I love McGinty's up in Divide. Their Reuben is killer, and all their pizzas are good.
A Special Occasion: We'll hit a place like the Craftwood Inn, for sure. I have a long-term relationship with that place; and it's just got such a romantic feel to it that it's nice to be back and visit every once in a while.
Brunch: McCabe's Irish breakfast is amazing, total chef food. Blood pudding, the Irish bacon, all the goodies.
Lunch: Usually I like going to [Johnny's Navajo] Hogan for lunch. The broasted chicken is just great. It's that whole Wisconsin, rich, fatty, delicious, steam-fried [thing].
A Special Occasion: Now that Brother [Luck] is at The Craftwood, that's on the docket again. Brother's amazing. Not only is he philanthropic and aware, but he's also very local-oriented.
Breakfast: It doesn't have a whole lot of breakfast, but they got some fun things, that Urban Steam coffee shop. With the waffles there, that place is great.
Cheap Eats: I haven't seen my taco truck in a while — right there off of Palmer Park and Union. That place [La Flor de Jalisco], god, their tacos just rock. They're so good.
A Special Occasion: I usually head to Denver, just because they ... make something that's different. My top two favorites are either Squeaky Bean or Fruition.
Breakfast: Probably La Baguette on Chestnut [Street]. Love the Croque Madame there. I'm a sucker for anything with egg on top.
Lunch: Probably my No. 1 favorite cuisine is Indian food, and my favorite is India Palace. And I go for the buffet because then I can pig out, and eat every single dish that's on the menu. ... I'm serious. I'm embarrassing to eat with.
Cheap Eats: One of our favorite spots is the taco truck, the Flor de Jalisco. Yeah, that's my favorite taco truck. The carnitas or lengua tacos are my favorite.
Lunch: Adam's Mountain Café — everything is from scratch.
Dinner: Sushi O Sushi , because I love sushi, and it is close to my house, and a percentage of the profit goes to my daughter's school.
Cheap Eats: Popeyes. I love the chicken.


The millions of Americans living with more than one chronic disease are at high risk of poor health outcomes, and account for a disproportionate share of health care costs. A special March supplement to Medical Carepresents updates from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's (AHRQ) Multiple Chronic Conditions (MCC) Research Network, formed to address knowledge gaps and research challenges in meeting the complex health care needs of this growing population.
Meeting the Needs of People with MCC—More Than Just a "Collection of Diseases"
The March special supplement, titled Advancing the Field: Results from the AHRQ Multiple Chronic Conditions Research Network, presents research and commentaries based on grants funded by AHRQ to improve understanding about how to best care for the growing number of people living with multiple chronic conditions (MCC). The AHRQ MCC Research Networksupports the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' (HHS) Multiple Chronic Conditions Strategic Framework and the HHS Initiative on Multiple Chronic Conditions, a public-private sector partnership to address the needs of people living with MCC and the health systems that serve them.
"This special issue presents important evidence that can help to ensure safe and high quality health care for the growing number of people who live with more than one ongoing condition," commented AHRQ Director Richard Kronick, PhD.
It is estimated that more than one-fourth of all Americans, and two-thirds of older adults, are living with MCC— defined as two or more chronic physical or behavioral health problems. Care for patients with MCC accounts for an estimated two-thirds of the nation's nearly $3 trillion in total health care spending. As the US population ages, the number of people with MCC is increasing steadily—by 2030, there are expected to be more than 170 million Americans living with at least one chronic condition.
The special issue "captures the state of research on MCC and serves as a model for future research in the field," according to an introductory editorial by Guest Editors Mary E. Tinetti, MD, of Yale University and Jayasree Basu, PhD, MBA, of AHRQ.
In their overview paper, David Grembowski, PhD and colleagues highlight the need for a new conceptual approach to MCC. They believe the focus on single conditions needs to be replaced by a model accounting for the "inherent complexity" presented by the mismatch between patients' needs and the current structure of the health care system.
Similarly, Lisa LeRoy, PhD and coauthors emphasize that caring for patients with MCC involves more than treatment of a "collection of diseases." They call for a focus on "holistic outcomes in humans who live meaningful lives in relationship with family and community."
The supplement includes 12 original research papers, reflecting the range of difficult questions requiring evidence to improve the care of patients with MCC. Topics include the conditions adding the most to the costs of MCC, sources of "unexplained and potentially unwarranted variations" in treatment for patients with MCC, and the appropriateness of current treatment guidelines for patients with MCC.
A recurring issue is the contribution of behavioral health problems, often coexisting with physical health problems. Patients with concurrent behavioral health issues may be "particularly vulnerable" to the problems associated with MCC.
But MCC research poses difficult challenges—a "one-size fits all" approach can't capture the various combinations of conditions and contributing factors seen in patients with MCC. Drs Tinetti and Basu identify priorities for MCC research, including further development of research methods, and improvement of treatment guidelines and of the health care system's ability to meet the needs of patients with MCC.
Highlights from the special issue will be presented in a webinar on Tuesday, February 25, 2014, at 3:00 pm EST. Three researchers from the AHRQ MCC Research Network will discuss topics including the role of clinical practice guidelines in managing patients with MCC, use of the "medical homes" in caring for patients with concurrent physical and mental illness, and approaches to addressing the fragmentation of hospital care for MCC patients.


Ann Arbor-based Merit Network Inc. is asking various organizations to submit proposals to host new public hubs of the Michigan Cyber Range, a specialized networking and computer infrastructure facility and test program to hone security software and train cybersecurity professionals.
Merit, a network technology nonprofit owned by 12 of Michigan's public four-year universities, has issued a request for proposals to replicate publicly accessible training center hubs of the Cyber Range, like the kind that opened at the Velocity center in Sterling Heights in March. The organization is a sub-recipient of the $6 million Advance Michigan Defense Collaborative grant managed by the Workforce Intelligence Network for Southeast Michigan.
The Cyber Range, a program first proposed by Gov. Rick Snyder in 2011, is a private cloud network built on architecture supplied and operated by Merit. Initially housed at Eastern Michigan University in late 2012, the program offers cybersecurity training and certification as well as product testing and research space on industrial control systems security. Other locations were later opened at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Ferris State University, the 110th Airlift Wing in Battle Creek and General Dynamics Land Systems' Maneuver Collaboration Center in Sterling Heights, before Velocity.
Proposals for new hubs are due May 15. Nonprofits, public schools, community colleges or universities looking to participate should locate a hub within the 13-county southeastern region of the Advance Michigan grant. Organizations selected for the program would receive initial funding through the grant, but must eventually make the program self-sufficient by offering cybersecurity training and related services.


BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese recruitment service provider 51job (JOBS.O) on Monday rejected claims that more than 2 million job ads had disappeared from its website this year due to an economic slump, saying a Chinese securities firm was smearing economic prospects.
In a statement posted on its official social media account on Wechat, 51job said Wuhan-based Tianfeng Securities (601162.SS) had made an “improper” analysis of the platform’s data using a web crawler program in a research note published in November.
Tianfeng said it found the number of job listings on 51job shrank from 2.85 million to just 830,000 in six months, from April to September.
“The content of that research is contrary to facts,” 51job said in a statement, criticizing the research approach as loose and irresponsible, stressing it owns multiple recruitment websites besides the main 51job website.
It cited the company’s robust earnings as evidence that the numbers were false. In both the second and third quarters, 51job’s revenue from online recruitment rose more than 30 percent from a year earlier, it said.
It did not give details on actual changes of job listings, however.
Tianfeng Securities could not be immediately reached by Reuters for comment.
“Our research department has always strictly observed relevant regulations and rigorously and objectively analyzed data,” Tianfeng was quoted as saying in a response to 51job after being contacted by its lawyers, according to 51job’s statement.
51job said Tianfeng had declined to make a public apology after deleting the research note from its own platform.
Tianfeng’s share fell 2.66 percent on Monday from the previous trading day.
Tianfeng’s findings had misled the market and raised widespread concerns about employment stability and the health of the broader economy, 51job wrote in its statement.
“Who gave Tianfeng Securities the guts to do this?” it wrote, adding it had not been asked to verify the numbers before the research was posted.
China’s economy has been under growing pressure lately from a combination of domestic deleveraging policies, a campaign to shut polluting industries, and a protracted trade dispute with the United States.
Stability-minded policymakers have vowed to prevent extensive job losses, including rolling out measures to reduce costs for struggling companies that choose not to cut staff.
Many analysts say, however, that the government figure is an unreliable indicator of national employment conditions as it measures only employment in urban areas and does not take into account millions of migrant workers.


The Armenian PM succeeded to destroy the old system but neither he nor his teammates have future development strategy, political analyst Armen Badalyan told the reporters, speaking about the domestic political developments.
“They have expressed different opinions over Karabakh issue. We have seen that in the foreign policy issue the PM has become a fanatic advocate of the EAEU and does not see anything but it. His globe seems to start from Kaliningrad and end with Vladivostok,” Badalyan stressed.
The political analyst added that once in a week the PM visits Moscow but no visits to European countries have taken place except once to Brussels and New York for attending summits.


PHOTO BY JACOB GURNEY Personnel work to put out a smoldering coal fire at the Norfolk Southern Railyard on CR 60 near Fostoria Friday afternoon.
FOSTORIA — Crews responded to a train car fire between TR 47 and CR 60 Saturday afternoon.
Assistant Chief Chris Daniel of Bascom Joint Fire District said there was no structural damage to the train cars and there was no loss estimate. He said the cars were hauling coke, which is used in manufacturing and is a byproduct of coal that burns very hot. Daniel said the coke is cooled before it is shipped.
“Sometimes it doesn’t get cooled enough, which causes it to build up heat, which is likely what caused (the fire),” he said.
Daniel said when crews arrived, the train was sitting between TR 47 and CR 60 and smoldering train cars were next to a Class 3 chemical car. He said personnel were on standby while Norfolk Southern Railroad personnel detached the cars from the chemical car. Daniel said while the cars were being moved to the Norfolk Southern railyard on CR 60, which took about 30 minutes, firefighters were setting up the department’s water movement operations.
Four cars were pulled into the railyard and three cars needed to be extinguished, he said. Two cars were “substantially burning” while another was “warm,” Daniel said.
Once the cars were pulled into the yard, he said it took about 30 minutes to extinguish the fire and Kansas Volunteer Fire Department tanker trucks and a Fostoria Fire Division tower truck were used.
He said crews used about 13,000 gallons of water to extinguish the fire.
Daniel said nobody was injured and there were no environmental concerns.
“That was why we made sure we split the cars apart, to prevent that type of situation,” Daniel said.
Crews were at the scene until about 5:15 p.m., he said.
The fire was reported at 2:55 p.m. and Bascom Joint Fire District, Kansas Volunteer Fire Department, Fostoria Fire Division and Bascom EMS responded to the scene. NBS Fire District was put on standby, according to a Seneca County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.


Infocom co-founders Dave Lebling (left) and Marc Blank (right), pictured here in 1985 with former Infocom employee Pat Maroni, will be honored with the AIAS Pioneer Award in February.
In the days before graphics, computer games had to entice players with nothing more than a well-turned phrase.
Whether you prefer to call them "text adventures" or "interactive fiction," games played with nothing but writing and verbal commands were a significant part of the early days of interactive entertainment. At the forefront of the medium were the designers of Infocom, which created and published text games like Zork, Starcross and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that delighted players with clever writing and had them absolutely tearing their hair out with difficult puzzles.
Today, Wired can exclusively report that Marc Blank and Dave Lebling, two of the co-founders of Infocom and co-creators of Zork, will be honored with the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Pioneer Award at the DICE Summit in February. The award is given to the gamemakers whose groundbreaking early work laid the foundations of the multi-billion-dollar videogame industry. Previous recipients include David Crane, creator of Pitfall!, and Asteroids designer Ed Logg.
Wired spoke to Dave Lebling, as well as another Infocom designer, for this story. But in honor of their achievements and their medium of choice, we've decided to present the results of our interviews in a text adventure of our own, below. You'll have to play to find out more.
Thanks to Playfic for the text adventure tech!


WEST HAM fans were deluded to ever think they could attract a big-name manager like Carlo Ancelotti, says Paul Ince.
West Ham sacked Slaven Bilic last week in the aftermath of the 4-1 loss to Liverpool at the London Stadium, which saw them fall into the relegation zone.
And three-time Champions League-winning manager Ancelotti, who was dismissed by Bayern Munich last month, was immediately linked with the vacant Hammers position.
West Ham eventually appointed former David Moyes on an initial six-month deal, which did not go down too well with a large section of the Hammers supporters.
Moyes has endured unsuccessful spells at Sunderland and Manchester United since his 11-year stint at Everton - but Ince has urged the West Ham fans to remember the Goodison Park days.
“A lot of West Ham fans have been moaning about the appointment of David Moyes, saying he wasn’t what they wanted, that they wanted a bigger name,” Ince told Paddy Power.
“Why do they think West Ham would attract a big-name manager? Someone like Carlo Ancelotti would never go there.
“West Ham fans need to accept the situation that their club is in – they need saving from relegation.
“Moyes is a very good manager. He showed that during his time at Everton.
“In fact, West Ham being a bit more like Moyes’s Everton team would be no bad thing – whether the fans want to hear that or not.
“He got a rough ride at Manchester United, branded a failure when realistically he was never given enough time to succeed.
“He couldn’t have turned it down, but he wasn’t given a chance to make it work.
“He probably should have turned down the Sunderland job, and he’s said that since.
“The West Ham fans have to give Moyes a chance.
“If they were seventh in the table, I might understand them being disappointed – but they’re in the relegation zone, they’ve absolutely no grounds to moan about Moyes.
“Let him do his job, and save your club from relegation.


According to the UbiSoft blog, Watch Dogs 2 for the PC has been pushed back two weeks for "polish and optimization." I don't know if that is a good sign or a bad sign, I guess it can be taken either way.
Watch Dogs 2 features a multitude of PC-specific enhancements, including support for full 4K resolution with Ultra Textures and Extra Details options; an uncapped framerate; and a host of other features and options specifically requested by the Watch Dogs 2 community. To ensure that these and other features are polished and optimized to meet the development team’s standards, the PC version of Watch Dogs 2 will now be released on November 29.


The Marlborough Recreational Fishers Association (MRFA) wants a closed scallop season to stem the downward spiral of the fishery.
MRFA chairman Peter Watson, said the association in a submission to the Ministry of Primary Industries considered an undisturbed season would enable greater breeding and recruitment and help the population on the road to recovery, as well as offering the opportunity for further investigations into the biology of the scallop.
“Accurate management can only be carried out by a full knowledge of the population dynamics. It would be of great interest to know more about scallops' feeding habits, mobility of the adults, and larval dispersion,” he said.
He said the scallop fishery about 2000 first showed marked declines with the Tasman and Golden Bay scallop beds. However little notice was taken and those beds reached a stage of initial collapse. Now with the decline in Tasman and Golden Bays, additional pressure had come on the Marlborough Sounds stocks.
“Basically, the overall scallop population in the Sounds is in free fall,” said Peter Watson.
Over the past fifteen years the overall trend in estimated numbers had followed almost exactly an "exponential decay curve”.
Nothing was to be gained by attempting to apportion blame for this state of affairs, since it is the result of a number of stress factors such as commercial overfishing, alteration of the seabed by runoff and sedimentation, disturbance of the sea floor by dredging, death of immature scallops caught and returned, and probably some disease.
“MRFA is pleased that local iwi support a closure to speed up recoverey and then install a good management regime,” he said.
The MRFA submission said the Ministry and minister were obliged by law to regulate the exploitation of a marine resource in a way that was sustainable for future generations to enjoy.
“It is clear that the rapid decline in the commercial landed meat weight of scallops shows that this is not occurring. The Minister is failing in his duty of care if he does not notice the rapid decline in scallop numbers and infer from them that if the fishing effort continues at its present level there will be no scallops left in SCA7 within two or three years”.
In addition MRFA’s submission called for a formally constituted management team consisting of representatives of the three interested user groups, commercial, recreational and customary, which could meet as required under the auspices of the Ministry, each group acknowledging that it was in their mutual interest to endure the sustainability of this valuable resource.
“It is in the common interest to sustain the fishery for the future. It would also consider such technical matters as dredge design, opening and closing dates for the season, and methods of maximising reproductive success".


So far this fall, the closer has no clothes.
Jonathan Papelbon has lots of time to refine his Riverdance after giving it up to the Angels in Game 3.
Huston Street had two outs in the ninth and couldn’t finish the Phillies.
Joe Nathan, who usually dismisses school, got his own bell rung by Alex Rodriguez.
Ryan Franklin thought he had notched a save for the Cardinals, but a swarm of white towels in Dodger Stadium buzzed Matt Holliday and forced him to muff a fly ball. That did not absolve Franklin, who couldn’t stop the Dodgers from scoring the winning run.
Combined, those four closers had saved 158 games in 173 chances in 2009. There were six blown saves in 13 Division Series games.
None of that occurred to Brian Fuentes as he lounged in the visiting bullpen at Fenway Park on Sunday.
But as soon as the Angels cut the lead to one run, Fuentes began loosening. Suddenly he was on the Fenway Park mound, which comes complete with a trap door in the playoffs.
Fuentes gave them nothing. He threw three first-pitch strikes and only 13 pitches overall. The left-hander welcomed catcher Jeff Mathis into his arms as the Angels’ jubilee began.
Regardless of the turbulence of his season, Fuentes came home as one of four closers standing.
One of the others was Brad Lidge of the Phillies, who had a disastrous summer and briefly lost his job to Ryan Madson.
The remaining two are the Dodgers’ Jonathan Broxton and the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera, who stares down at the Angels like a raven as the American League Championship Series begins in New York on Friday.
The chaos even confused the storytellers. Many believe that David Henderson’s homer tied Game 6 in 1986. It actually put the Red Sox ahead until the Angels tied it in their ninth.
This time of year it’s hard to get a save.
Jayson Werth of the Phillies hit 36 during the season. But all he needed on Monday was a soft single to beat Street. He delivered it.
Closers are the Adrian Monks of baseball, the ultimate creatures of habit. You can’t bring them into a jam anymore. You can’t use them in a tie game. You need to get them out after 15 pitches or so, when the adrenaline wears off.
Playoff baseball is where all the habits of six-month baseball go to die. That’s why the trophy is usually hoisted over a fallen closer.
It has happened to almost everyone, including Rivera (Indians ’97, Diamondbacks ’01, Red Sox ’03).
The Braves might have won five World Series if they could have solved the ninth. Mitch Williams of the Phillies and Dennis Eckersley of the A’s gave up the most famous homers in the past 21 postseasons.
It didn’t happen to Tug McGraw, Bobby Jenks or Troy Percival.
“In the postseason you can’t sweep what they do under the rug,” Mike Scioscia said.
Which is why Rivera’s October mastery will be listed high on his Cooperstown plaque.
He has eight playoff victories and 35 saves. He has 121 innings, 17 walks, 76 hits, 100 strikeouts and only two home runs. His ERA in ALCS play is 0.83 with 10 saves and 10 chances, and no homers in 38<MD+,%30,%55,%70>2/<MD-,%0,%55,%70>3 innings.
“And I really haven’t seen him much,” Hunter said.
Indeed, he is 3-for-9 against Rivera. Vladimir Guerrero is 3-for-7, but Chone Figgins is the only Angel with an extra-base hit off him (triple).
The Angels freely admit that it’s Rivera’s decade. All Brian Fuentes wants is a week.


Social media influencer Huda Kattan is "not interested" in an initial public offering (IPO) for her $1 billion cosmetics firm Huda Beauty for fear that the move would make the firm’s stocks too reliant on fast-changing public opinions.
Speaking to Arabian Business, the founder and chairwoman of the Dubai-based company referenced the recent unsuccessful attempt by Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk to privatise the publicly-traded electric car maker.
“We understand how public opinion can change, and I don’t think it fairly depicts the nature of our business,” said Kattan, who has 27 million followers on Instagram and 2.4m on YouTube.
"Elon Musk is realising he can’t go private, but when he wanted to go private, he tweeted something and all of a sudden people started selling their shares. I get that there are other things going on with Tesla right now, but he’s still brilliant."
Musk suggested in a tweet in August he had secured funding from several investors, including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, to take Tesla private at $420 a share, despite the parties not having reached an agreement.
Musk’s vocal ambitions stirred unease among shareholders and Saudi officials, subsequently leading to a 30% drop in the firm’s stocks throughout the month. It also led the US Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the incident for market manipulation and other violations.
Mona Kattan, co-founder and global president at Huda Beauty, also said an IPO would place ‘unnecessary pressure’ on the global cosmetics firm.
“I personally would never want to [go public]… You have to share so much information… And your stocks could [drop] without logic. Sometimes, it could just be emotions and [factors] that won’t materially affect the value of your company in the long run,” she said.
Kattan cited Facebook’s stock plunge in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw the social media giant expose data of up to 87 million users to the researcher.
“Is Facebook, as a business, dying? No. So to me, going public is unnecessary pressure,” she said.
Founder Huda Kattan added that an IPO is unwarranted as the company’s end goal is to create impact rather than make profit.
“I don’t think I’d be interested in going public. It’s unwarranted. What is the purpose of going public? I don’t see the benefit of it. Is it just to make money? I don’t care about making money. I don’t think it’s necessarily the right way for our business. Our goal is not to make lots of money. Our goal is to create impact,” she said.
Kattan’s company Huda Beauty boasts products ranging from false lashes to skin foundations and eyeshadow palettes. The now-mega influencer initially gained fame on YouTube in 2010 after sharing free make up tips and tricks, swiftly garnering millions of followers due to her maintaining credibility with little to no sponsorships or advertising.


A group of international statesmen being called "The Elders", including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter have arrived on the divided island of Cyprus to support U.N.-backed peace talks. For VOA, Nathan Morley reports from Nicosia.
President Carter, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and former Algerian Foreign Minister Lakhdar Brahimi are here to urge greater international recognition of recent progress towards a lasting settlement in Cyprus.
On arrival, they lauded Cyprus President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat for their expressed commitment to end to the decades-old dispute.
Ambassador of Slovakia Anna Tourenikova, whose embassy is sponsoring the visit, told VOA News Slovakia has played an important role in keeping an open communication channel between the two communities during the past two decades.
"The process of bi-communal dialogue has lasted already almost 20 years," said Ambassador Tourenikova. "They are coming together, they are discussing issues of common interest, they are listening to each other, and thus they are trying to contribute to the negotiation process and find the solution of the Cyprus problem."
Greek Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat started a new round of talks on September 3.
But in recent weeks reports the process has run into difficulties have been rife. In an interview with VOA News, U.N. Spokesman Jose Dias admitted that initial optimism had cooled.
"There was a lot of optimism, a lot of enthusiasm, when the process was re-launched," he said. "I think people are now sitting down and more soberly assessing the situation. We are still cautiously optimistic, we have come along way since March when the leaders started meeting."
Jimmy Carter is no stranger to Cyprus politics; he was responsible for the United States playing part in the ABC Cyprus peace plan in 1978, which failed to produce results.
The 12-point plan, called the ABC plan because of its American, British, and Canadian sponsorship, proposed a bi-regional, independent federal republic.
Former Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash told VOA that however symbolic, President Carter's visit was welcome news for most Cypriots.
"Knowing his interest in human rights, his visit, though late, maybe useful if he comes with an open mind - he usually does," he said.
Cyprus was split in a 1974 Turkish invasion triggered by a Greek-inspired coup. Turkish Cypriots live in its north and Greek Cypriots in the south, and numerous attempts to reunite Cyprus have failed.


Christians in Britain and the US who claim that they are persecuted should "grow up" and not exaggerate what amounts to feeling "mildly uncomfortable", according to Rowan Williams, who last year stepped down as archbishop of Canterbury after an often turbulent decade.
"When you've had any contact with real persecuted minorities you learn to use the word very chastely," he said. "Persecution is not being made to feel mildly uncomfortable. 'For goodness sake, grow up,' I want to say."
True persecution was "systematic brutality and often murderous hostility that means that every morning you wonder if you and your children are going to live through the day". He cited the experience of a woman he met in India "who had seen her husband butchered by a mob".
Lord Williams's years as archbishop of Canterbury were marked by turbulence over the church's stance on the role of gay priests and bishops; gay marriage; and homophobia in the wider Anglican communion – with many members of the church expressing disappointment at a perceived hardening in its position on homosexuality.
Asked if he had let down gay and lesbian people, he said after a pause: "I know that a very great many of my gay and lesbian friends would say that I did. The best thing I can say is that is a question that I ask myself really rather a lot and I don't quite know the answer."
Sharing a platform at the Edinburgh international book festival with Julia Neuberger, senior rabbi at the West London Synagogue, Williams launched a withering critique of popular ideas about spirituality. "The last thing it is about is the placid hum of a well-conducted meditation," he said.
He said the word "spiritual" in today's society was frequently misused in two ways: either to mean "unworldly and useless, which is probably the sense in which it has been used about me", or "meaning 'I'm serious about my inner life, I want to cultivate my sensibility'".
He added: "Speaking from the Christian tradition, the idea that being spiritual is just about having nice experiences is rather laughable. Most people who have written seriously about the life of the spirit in Christianity and Judaism spend a lot of their time telling you how absolutely bloody awful it is." Neuberger said she found some uses of the word self-indulgent and offensive. Williams argued that true spirituality was not simply about fostering the inner life but was about the individual's interaction with others.
"I'd like to think, at the very least, that spiritual care meant tending to every possible dimension of sense of the self and each other, that it was about filling out as fully as possible human experience," he said.
Asked by Neuberger whether he felt organised religion encouraged the life of the spirit, he replied: "The answer is of course a good Anglican yes and no". While it can pass on the shared values of tradition, it can also operate as simply "the most satisfying leisure activity possible. It can also be something that you use to bolster your individual corporate ego."
Discussing the relationship between church and state, he said the established church was "an odd business, a very messy and complicated business" but that he was "bloody-minded" about the notion of disestablishment. "I am not in a hurry to see the church disestablished if the pressure is coming from what I regard as the wrong kind of secularism."
On Prince Charles's apparent desire to be known as "defender of faith" (as in all faiths) rather than "defender of the faith" (as in simply Anglicanism) on his accession to the throne, the two clerics disagreed.
Neuberger said she believed "defender of faith" was exactly right. Williams replied: "You're wrong … defender of the faith is just one of those historic titles that is part of the stream of things; it means almost what you want it to mean." Neuberger replied: "What's important about what Prince Charles has said is that it assumes parity of esteem, which for my lot is quite important."
Williams was asked whether the Church of England ran the risk of functioning merely as a well-meaning NGO.
Referring to the current archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby's recent statements on wanting to compete with payday lender Wonga, he said: "If the church or some of its representatives make remarks on matters of public interest, it can trigger the question where does that come from?
"Can you trace back your attitude to, say, credit unions or the environment to something that is distinctive in the religious heritage? And that means pursuing the conversation a bit.
"The risk of being reduced to an NGO, another woolly, well-meaning liberal thinktank or ambulance service – that's not a fate I would relish for my church," he said.
• This article was amended on 16 August 2013. The original described Julia Neuberger as president of the Liberal Judaism movement. She formerly held that post but stepped down from it when she became senior rabbi at the West London Synagogue in March 2011.


A Turkish ultra-nationalist group has attacked a synagogue in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district with stones during a protest against the new Israeli restrictions on Palestinians’ entry to the al-Aqsa mosque.
The Alperen Hearths, an ultranationalist youth organization linked to the right-wing nationalist Great Union Party (BBP), gathered in front of the Neve Shalom synagogue late on July 20 and kicked and threw rocks at the building.
The setting up of metal detectors at the entrances of the al-Aqsa compound has led to a wave of anger among Palestinians, who called for the immediate removal of the devices.
The group’s district head, Kürşat Mican, called Israel a “terrorist state” and said Israeli authorities have been oppressing people at the mosque for a long time.
“Israel has banned Friday prayers at al-Aqsa mosque for many years. It has not stopped at that and now it is harassing our Palestinian brothers by putting x-ray devices at the entrances to our sanctuary. Our brothers are not able to pray at the al-Aqsa mosque. This is limiting to freedom of religion, faith and worship,” Mican said in front of the synagogue. He also warned Zionists to pull themselves together.
“We are carrying out a protest here. Zionists should pull it together. They shouldn’t prevent our brothers from the freedom to worship. We will prevent your freedom to worship here just like you are preventing ours there. We can come here tomorrow just like we are standing here today. You will not be able to get inside,” he said.
The group dispersed after the press statement.
The attack on the synagogue was met with criticism, with the Turkish Chief Rabbinate Foundation urging authorities to take necessary action.
“We are condemning the provocative act in front of the Neve Shalom synagogue and expecting related authorities to do what’s necessary,” read the statement posted on Twitter.
The act was also slammed by social media users, with many pointing out to the fact that the way to protest Israel is not by attacking a place of worship for the Jewish community in Turkey.
“Places of worship cannot be tools for political acts,” said main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) Istanbul lawmaker Barış Yarkadaş.
“What is the reason behind the government’s silence?” asked Istanbul deputy Sezgin Tanrıkulu, another CHP lawmaker to condemn the act.
Meanwhile, a number of non-governmental organizations in Turkey are planning to protest new Israeli restrictions.
Israeli restrictions will be condemned across Turkey, particularly in Istanbul and Ankara, after Friday prayers. Protests are expected to continue on July 22.
In Istanbul, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (İHH) Chairman Bülent Yıldırım will hold a news meeting and read a statement prepared by 50 academics and religious scholars.
The Anatolian Youth Association (AGD) will organize a protest after Friday prayers in the city.
In Ankara, a group plans to gather at the Hacı Bayram Veli mosque to protest.
Protests are planned in other provinces, including the southern province of Antalya, the southeastern province of Diyarbakır and the western province of İzmir.


A college football player was suspended from his final game with the Arkansas Razorbacks on Thursday after he was accused of shoplifting from a Belk department store earlier this week.
According to WSOC-TV, senior tight end Jeremy Sprinkle was accused of stealing from the department store despite receiving a $450 gift card for participating in the Belk Bowl. The department store is the sponsor for the annual college football game. Police told WSOC that he stole approximately $260 worth of merchandise.
He was charged on Tuesday for shoplifting by Charlotte Mecklenburg Police.
"Throughout his career and this season as a graduate student-athlete, Jeremy has displayed numerous times the qualities we want to represent our program," coach Bret Bielema said in a statement. "We have standards within our family that must be upheld on a daily basis and unfortunately he failed to do that in the last week. Jeremy's suspension isn't drug, alcohol or violence related but one that will cause him to miss his final game as a Razorback."
According to CBS Sports, Sprinkle is projected to be a late-round NFL draft pick in April.
Sprinkle's Razorbacks lost in the Belk Bowl 35-24 against Virginia Tech on Thursday evening.


The writer offered an expansive vision of Europe and “the Russian soul” that appeals to leaders seeking rapprochement.
LONDON—Is Europe having a Dostoyevsky moment? Or is it a Pushkin moment? French President Emmanuel Macron cited Dostoyevsky’s speech about Pushkin—in which the writer makes a dramatic appeal for Russian universalism—in a press conference with Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg on May 24. Then, on Tuesday, the prime minister of Italy’s new populist government, Giuseppe Conte, paraphrased—or perhaps mis-paraphrased—the same Dostoyevsky speech in his first address before the Italian Senate.
Dostoyevsky delivered his rousing speech in 1880 at the dedication of a statue of Pushkin, the poet who was the godfather of Russian literature. In it, he re-interpreted Pushkin’s epic poem Eugene Onegin to fit his own vision of the world, finding its heroine, Tatiana, the apotheosis of Russian womanhood and offering an ecstatic vision of the Russian soul as a truth-bearing instrument. He concluded with a similarly expansive vision of Russia’s relationship to Europe, a vision that wowed both Slavophiles and Westernizers, two Russian schools of thought that still resonate today.
This is the passage that Macron seized on last month. Appearing next to Putin at a press conference that also touched on Trump, NATO, and Syria, Macron cited the speech as offering a basis for how France and Russia could find common ground. “We all have European contradictions to resolve within our peoples, but we know and we have known from the past, and we will also know tomorrow, how to construct a real common ground,” Macron said.
Conte is an unknown lawyer who was tapped by Italy’s anti-establishment Five-Star Movement and right-wing League party to lead a coalition government—the first populist government in a founding core member of the European Union. That government finally came into being last Friday after an 11 1/2th-hour attempt by Italy’s president to install a technocrat failed. That attempt in turn came after the president rejected the parties’ request to appoint a Euroskeptic as finance minister. After days of insane maneuvering, during which Conte stepped down then returned, the two political parties ultimately agreed to share power in a political government with someone less controversial as finance minister.
Conte’s speech to the Italian Senate came ahead of a vote of confidence in the new government, which it passed today in the Senate and must pass on Wednesday in the Lower House. Conte’s citing Dostoyevsky on Pushkin was a warmup to the main takeaway about Russia in his speech: that Italy seeks “an opening” toward Russia, and the lifting of sanctions, starting, he said, “from those that damage civil society” in Russia.
This is not entirely new for Italy. During his tenure from 2014 to 2016, the center-left Prime Minister Matteo Renzi also called for a loosening of Russia sanctions. Italy has always been Russophilic—from having the largest communist party in the West, to former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s personal friendship with Putin. Businesses in Northern Italy, the stronghold of the right-wing League party, do a lot of business with Russia.
The League’s leader, Matteo Salvini, who has emerged as the strongman in this government and is now interior minister, hasn’t cited Dostoevsky on Pushkin. He tends more toward Viktor Orbán and Marine Le Pen, but is an admirer of Putin’s rhetoric about safeguarding the Christian West. Salvini now oversees Italy’s police and intelligence services. The peoples of Europe are still very dear to Russia indeed.


NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who participate in recreational exercise and sports over their lifetime may be lowering their risk of death from breast cancer and breast cancer recurrence.
Among 1,231 women with breast cancer who were followed for a minimum of 8.3 years, those who obtained about 4 hours or more of weekly moderate-intensity recreational activity over their lifetime had a 44 percent lower risk of death from breast cancer, report Dr. Christine Friedenreich and colleagues.
Risk for recurrence, progression, or new primary breast cancer was likewise reduced by 34 percent among women reporting similar levels of recreational physical activity, note Friendenreich, of Alberta Health Services-Alberta Cancer Board in Calgary, Canada, and colleagues.
These findings suggest “being physically active before a breast cancer diagnosis can improve survival after breast cancer,” Friendenreich told Reuters Health.
However, occupational activity and physical household work such as gardening, housework, and do-it-yourself home repair did not confer benefits similar to those from lifetime exercise and sports activities, the investigators report in the International Journal of Cancer.
Friendenreich’s team compared the lifetime physical activity reports of 1,231 women, who were 56 years old on average when diagnosed with breast cancer, with their outcomes. Over a minimum of 8.3 years of follow up, 341 women died (223 from breast cancer) and 327 had a recurrence, progressions, or new primary breast cancer diagnoses.
Compared with the least active women (less than 1.4 hours per week of recreational activity), those who engaged in more than 3.9 hours per week of moderate intensity recreational activity had 34 percent decreased risk for the combined outcomes, and 44 percent reduced risk for death from breast cancer.
These effects remained apparent after allowing for other factors potentially associated with survival such as body mass, tumor stage, and age.
Vigorous-intensity recreational activity lowered the risk of breast cancer mortality, but did not appear to reduce the risk of other outcomes.
Friendenreich notes her team continues examinations of “exactly what type and dose of activity is related to improved survival after cancer.” Ultimately they hope this research leads to development of clear exercise guidelines for cancer patients.


O'Shea, acknowledging the uncertain economics facing newspapers across the nation, said: "With turmoil comes change, and with change we get dark rumors of dread and doom. I understand that one of those rumors is now abuzz in the book industry, namely that the Los Angeles Times is about to diminish its coverage of books. So let me set the record straight. That rumor is untrue. The paper and its editor remain deeply committed to vigorous literary coverage and our unique and signature event, the L.A. Times Festival of Books, to be held in Los Angeles late next month."
Ulin, speaking next, said: "I won't speak too specifically about what's upcoming with the L.A. Times Book Review, mostly because we're still in the midst of working it all out. But I do want to say that as we revamp the design of the section, we will be redistributing book coverage, expanding it in the daily paper and also taking steps � toward enhanced coverage on the Web."
� Don Winslow for "The Winter of Frankie Machine" (Knopf).
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It was four and a half years ago the Kundrat family - Patrick, Cynthia and their 15-year-old son, Jeff - moved from downstate to the tiny community of Johannesburg. The couple, married just over 16 years, came to know many of their neighbors during the short time they have lived in Johannesburg; taking all the small-town connections into account, the situation the family now finds itself in is all the more difficult.
Patrick, a volunteer firefighter with Charlton Township and on the EMS, also is employed by the township for custodial work at the hall. He knew the Koronkas particularly well from his service on the fire department, where Chet Koronka, Peggy's father-in-law, is fire chief. The Kundrat family attends the Johannesburg Christian Church.
Searching for a possible clue to what led to Sunday morning's tragic turn of events, Patrick said, "I thought she was home. I asked her how she was feeling, hugged her, kissed her, told her that I loved her and then went off to work."
Patrick declined comment on whether his wife's actions may have been a suicide attempt. He did say, however, Cynthia had just started taking a prescription medication a few days earlier. He said that no instructions were given for her not to get behind the wheel.
He reported his 38-year-old wife, who was unemployed at the time of the crash, suffered a fractured disk that is being supported by a brace at this time. When he spoke to Cynthia about the tragedy, she was unable to recall whether she was wearing a seat belt at the time, he said, but he surmised that, taking into account her shoulder injury, she was indeed buckled in. "We always had seat belts on when we went anywhere," he explained, adding to buckle up is second nature.
"Physically, she's OK, but she's quite shaken," he said Thursday of Cynthia's condition. "She found out about the second deceased today. Cindy knew (Peggy) - we knew (the Koronkas) all real well."
On Sunday it was Patrick and Cynthia's son, Jeff, who called his father at work to tell him what had happened. "I'm thankful I wasn't there (to respond with the fire department). I found out a half hour after it happened from my son who called," Patrick recalled. "He didn't see it happen, but he saw the aftermath while everyone was trapped. He saw the whole thing."
The main reason Patrick has been willing to speak to the Herald Times was because of his son, he said. "I wanted to ask the community to not take it out on my son. He's been verbally assaulted once yesterday," he said, growing emotional and predicting the confrontation would have turned physical had friends not intervened on Jeff's behalf.
"I'm just praying for the community to come together on all of this and please not take it out on my son. He was totally innocent of all this."
Although family from downstate is expected to arrive at the Kundrats' home within the next few days, Patrick and Jeff have relied on Johannesburg friends, fellow church members, the Rev. Denny Freeman and youth counselors for support and encouragement.
"They've been wonderful," he concluded. "Most have rallied around myself and son. They're helping to take care of day-to-day needs."