Scott Silverstein (Sr., Olney, Md.) pitched seven innings of one-run baseball as the Virginia baseball team notched a 7-1 triumph over Monmouth Saturday afternoon at Davenport Field. Silverstein (1-0) struck out a career-high eight batters while limiting the Hawks to three hits in the longest outing of his UVa career.
Virginia (4-1-1) goes for the three-game series sweep at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Reed Gragnani (Jr., Richmond, Va.) had a three-run double for the Cavaliers, while freshman Branden Cogswell (Ballston Lake, N.Y.) added a pair of hits and scored twice.
Shane Halley (Sr., Burke, Va.) and Austin Young (So., Mechanicsville, Va.) each pitched a perfect inning and struck out two in relief of Silverstein. UVa pitchers combined to strike out a dozen batters.
Monmouth starting pitcher Dan Smith (1-1) took the loss after allowing seven runs (six earned), seven hits and three walks in five innings. He struck out one.
For the second-straight day, high winds wreaked havoc throughout the game, with the wind blowing straight out to center field.
Virginia scored three times in the third inning. Keith Werman (Sr., Vienna, Va.) led off with a single and scored when Chris Taylor (Jr., Virginia Beach, Va.) tripled off the base of the wall in left-center field. One out later, Stephen Bruno (Jr., Audubon, N.J.) grounded out to bring Taylor home. Mike Papi (Fr., Tunkhannock, Pa.) then reached second base on a throwing error by Smith and scored a single to right by Jared King (Sr., Radford, Va.).
After firing eight-straight hitless innings to begin the season, Silverstein gave up two in the fourth inning Saturday as Monmouth (3-2) scored its lone run of the game. Jamie Rosenkranz singled to start the inning and came home one out later on a double down the left-field line from Owen Stewart.
UVa got the run back in the bottom of the fourth. Cogswell led off with a single, moved to second on a Nick Howard (Fr., Olney, Md.) single and scored one out later on a Taylor groundout.
The Cavaliers built on their lead in the sixth inning. After Cogswell was hit by a pitch, Howard and Werman walked to load the bases. One out later, Gragnani double to right-center to clear the bases and stretch the UVa lead to 7-1.


Four men, including one from Derby, are due in court to face extradition proceedings after being arrested in Britain as part of an international investigation into an alleged Islamist terror network.
The suspects were among 13 arrested across Europe by investigators probing a group called Rawti Shax, which is described as a ``terrorist organisation of Kurdish-Sunni origin''.
The four men arrested in the UK on Thursday, who are not believed to be British nationals, are aged 38, 32, 33 and 52, from Hull, Derby, Birmingham and Sheffield respectively and will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court today.
Suspects were also arrested in Italy and Norway, while authorities in Italy, Germany, Finland, Norway, Switzerland and the UK also searched a total of 26 properties and seized several items including electronic devices and documents.
Eurojust, the EU agency which co-ordinated the raids, said suspected leaders and several members of the group were arrested during simultaneous activity in six countries.
The suspects were feared to be planning to target British diplomats following the imprisonment of the ideological leader of Rawti Shax, the Sun reported.
Najmuddin Faraj Ahmad, known as Mullah Krekar, was sentenced to 18 months in Norway last month for praising the killing of cartoonists at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January.
His lawyer told reporters in Norway that suspicions against him ``have largely been based on false accusations''.
Some suspects could not be located as they are believed to have travelled to Syria and Iraq to join jihadist organisations such as Islamic State (IS) - also known as Isis - and al-Nusra.
Rawti Shax or Didi Nwe - meaning the ``new course'' or ``towards the mountain'' - is said to represent an ``evolution'' of Ansar Al Islam, which is listed by the UN as a terrorist organisation affiliated with al Qaida.
Eurojust said: ``Its primary objective is to violently overthrow the current Iraqi Kurdish government and replace it with a caliphate governed by Sharia law.
``According to the Italian investigation, unlike Ansar Al Islam, Rawti Shax arose and is rooted in Europe, with cells communicating and operating via the internet, with a structure active especially in Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Finland, Italy, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Iraq, Iran and Syria.
Ansar Al Islam has been listed as a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK since October 2005.
The operation, which follows several years of work by investigators, was launched under the direction of the Public Prosecution Office in Rome.
A spokeswoman for the North East counter-terrorism unit, who were involved with the arrests alongside West Midlands CTU, said they wanted to reassure people there is ``no evidence to suggest that communities are at risk''.


The new free Starting with Soil app offers a "playful, visually rich way" of helping kids (and adults) learn about healthy soil, which is a crucial part of our food system.
I have to admit that I'm somewhat of a soil snob, and tend to get up on my soap box when I hear people referring to the earth beneath their feet as 'dirt', as if it's just some inert substance, because this humble brown substance is often more full of life than what's above ground, or when referred to as if it's 'dirty' -- the opposite of cleanliness, which we've come to fetishize in modern culture. There's a huge variety and number of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, algae, nematodes, and more in healthy soil, and it is this rich web of relationships which builds the soil that is at the root of our food system, literally. It's said that good farmers don't grow crops, they grow soil, because with fertile soil, the crops have everything they need for optimal growth and pest and disease resistance.
With rising interest in bringing gardens into schools, and in educating kids about how their food system works, there are a growing number of resources and guides, but there's probably no better place to start than at ground level, or rather, below ground level, with the soil itself. The importance of healthy soil for food production isn't nearly as obvious to the naked eye, as opposed to the plant itself with its easily visible leaves, flowers, and fruits, because soil organisms and their relationships to each other and the plant growing above them is somewhat mysterious, as it's mostly happening on the microscopic level.
A new free app aims to illuminate the fascinating world of living soil for kids, by offering an interactive experience that presents the topics of healthy soil relationships, and the roles of plants, animals, and humans in the process of building and nourishing this foundation of our food system. Created by Whole Kids Foundation and the Center for Ecoliteracy, the app is designed for tablets (iOS and Android), and includes virtual activities about planting seeds, building a compost pile, cover crops, viewing microscopic images of soil organisms, watching slow motion and time-lapse footage of plants, pollinators, and soil organisms, and more.
Get the free Starting with Soil app at Ecoliteracy.org.


Economists, on average, are expecting the economy grew slightly slower in the September quarter than the Reserve Bank has forecast.
A survey by Bloomberg shows the economists expect Thursday's figures will show growth of 0.7 percent, compared with the central bank's 0.9 percent forecast.
Those figures are up from 0.5 percent growth in the June quarter.
Westpac economist Michael Gordon, who is predicting 0.8 percent growth, said growth through the current upturn had been reasonably widespread.
He said in the June quarter, there was a reported drop in milk production but that has since reversed and there was a strong pick-up in seasonally adjusted terms.
Economists are expecting this week's figures to reflect falling dairy prices, with the current account deficit widening to 2.8 percent of economic growth, up from the 2.5 percent deficit shown in the June quarter.
An analysis of traffic flows suggests economic growth may be flattening. ANZ Bank's Truckometer measures the traffic flow to provide a snapshot of how the economy is doing.


A much-hailed law that restricted the opening of new stand-alone fast-food restaurants in one of the poorest sections of Los Angeles did not curb obesity or improve diets, a new study found.
City lawmakers passed the zoning ordinance in 2008 that limited the opening or expansion of fast-food outlets in a 32-square-mile area south of Interstate 10 that struggles with high obesity rates and other health problems.
The law, believed to be the first effort of its kind by a major city to improve public health, did not ban new eateries in strip malls.
The research by the Rand Corp. think tank found that obesity rates in South Los Angeles continued to rise after passage of the law.
"It had no meaningful effect," Rand senior economist Roland Sturm said. "There's no evidence that diets have improved more in South LA. Obesity and overweight rates have not fallen."
Health experts said a single intervention would not reverse the obesity problem. People also have to exercise and make lifestyle changes, they said.
"It's not just about limiting unhealthy food, but increasing access to healthy food," said Alex Ortega, a professor of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, who had no role in the study.
Rand researchers reviewed permits issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, which inspects food outlets. There were no licenses for stand-alone fast-food restaurants, but chains opened 17 new outlets in strip shopping centers and food courts in South Los Angeles from 2008 to 2012.
Almost half of the new food permits were for convenience stores that sell soda and junk food, the study found.
Researchers also compared obesity rates in South Los Angeles and other parts of the county using surveys that asked residents to report their weight and eating habits.
Before the fast-food ordinance, 63 percent of South Los Angeles residents reported being overweight or obese compared to 57 percent in other parts of the county. Three years after the ordinance went into effect, 75 percent of South Los Angeles residents reported being overweight or obese compared to 58 percent in other parts of the county.
Supporters said the ordinance worked because it prevented chains from opening new restaurants at major intersections with their own drive-thru windows and parking lots. They acknowledged it will take some time to see health gains but noted that the area has seen farmers markets and community gardens in recent years.
"We never said this ordinance was the silver bullet" to solving the obesity problem, said Gwen Flynn of the Community Health Councils. "As long as we can make sure people have more options, that's the important thing."
City Councilman Bernard Parks, who supported the zoning law, said he was hopeful that the area can attract more markets selling fresh food.
The ordinance was opposed by the California Restaurant Association. Spokeswoman Janna Haynes said the group had no comment on the Rand study.
Standing outside a McDonald's in the Leimert Park neighborhood on Wednesday, Edward Cox lamented the lack of sidewalk cafes.
"I want to sit down and eat, but there's no place to sit down and eat," said the retiree, who usually drives to another neighborhood to dine out.
Cox said he's hopeful that a planned light rail line will attract a variety of new eateries.
Maurice Thrower, who runs a burger joint sandwiched between fast-food chains, said he offers healthier fare such as vegetarian and turkey burgers.
"Once people stop to eat here, they come back," said Thrower, who opened Simply Delicious Burgers last year.
Contact the reporter at http://www.twitter.com/SciWriAlicia .


Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels have said a snap poll called by the president is a "grave setback" to peace efforts.
a February 2002 ceasefire with the government.
on hold for 10 months.
entire country into serious political instability,"
Balasingham, who is based in London, said.
longest lull in fighting since the start of the war in 1983.
About 64,000 people have been killed since then in a brutal conflict that has devastated the resource-rich island.


Twila Van Leer: Who remembers the date Utah was made a state?
Published: January 4, 2018 6:05 am Updated: Jan. 4, 2018 12:23 p.m.
I just know you all jumped out of bed this morning and put on your best bib and tucker to be ready for the big celebration.
President Cleveland could simply have said, as he signed the Jan. 4, 1896, documents, “Finally, Utah is a state.” But in true legal fashion, what he said was: (after a whole bunch of whereases) “Now, therefore, I, Grover Cleveland, president of the United States of America, in accordance with the Act of Congress, aforesaid and by authorization thereof, announce the result of said election to be so certified and do hereby declare and proclaim that the terms and conditions prescribed by the Congress of the United States to entitle the State of Utah to admission into the Union have been fully complied with and that the creation of said state and its admission into the Union on an equal footing with the original states is now accomplished.” To which he set his hand and seal with an elaborate ceremonial pen.
Congress relayed news of the signing to the telegraph office located just south of the ZCMI store and the celebration began. A Utah National Guard battery fired a 21-gun salute and anyone who had a steam whistle or a bell used it. Businesses closed and buildings rapidly put up (or unveiled) bunting. The western facade of ZCMI virtually disappeared under bunting, while the Dinwoodey Building sported a classy star-shaped design.
Utahns were given more than a year to get ready for the official announcement. Congress had passed the Utah Enabling Act in summer 1894, but the president could not sign it into law until all its provisions had been met, including the writing of a Utah Constitution eschewing polygamy.
But now, at long last, statehood was a reality. Hordes of people streamed into the downtown Salt Lake City streets despite the bitter cold to cheer the news. (Some people suspected, based on all the rancor surrounding the Utah debate, that Washington enemies had purposely chosen to have Utah declared a state during the winter. Little did they know we had this great July 24 celebration to fall back on.) I’ll bet some of those revelers were my pioneer ancestors. This is part of my family history and, I’ll bet, ditto for many of today’s Utahns.
The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sang Brother Stephens’ salute to Utah during a special performance in the Tabernacle, a large star and letters spelling out “UTAH” decorating the space between the largest pipes of the organ.
Overhead was a huge 160-foot-long flag put together by a half-dozen women for the occasion. In anticipation of statehood, such a banner had been planned, but there was no money available to finance it. A $250 donation from George M. Cannon, chairman of the general celebration committee, saved the day, according to an article by John M. Hartvigsen in the Utah Historical Quarterly, Vol. 79, No. 3, 2011. The donation bought 1,296 yards of good quality bunting at 19 cents per yard. The seamstresses worked in the ZCMI overall and fabric quarters to put the huge banner together. It featured 46 stars, with one larger than the rest, representing Utah. The flag adorned the south wall of the Salt Lake Temple on a few occasions afterward, but eventually it succumbed to its own size and weight. As rents appeared in seams and along the stripes, it was eventually burned in a secluded part of the Temple Square grounds.
Matilda Houtz reigned as Statehood Queen. Her white dress boasted leg-o-mutton sleeves and her crown was topped with a star. She posed next to a shield with the inscription "Union Forever" emblazoned across a design of stars and stripes.
Heaven knows the trek to statehood had taken long enough. It was 1848 when Brigham Young and his pioneer followers first petitioned for territorial status. Even before their emissary to Congress could reach Washington, D.C., they had amended the request, seeking statehood (as the State of Deseret). There were not enough settlers in the area to legally support such a petition and sentiment against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the East effectively scuttled even the notion. About a half-dozen petitions for statehood over the next few decades were rebuffed.
In the meantime, things in the United States were changing rapidly. The Western reaches were filling up, prodded by the will for “Manifest Destiny” — the sense that America was naturally intended to stretch from Atlantic to Pacific. There was the matter of the Civil War and its aftermath. The Industrial Revolution was changing how and where Americans made a living. Unprecedented immigration was changing the flavor of America’s melting pot.
Utah Territory, originally a sixth of the land mass of the United States, was whittled away as the states of Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona were created, each taking a nibble or two out of the territory and leaving Utah as an unassimilated leftover.
Statehood for Utah would seem inevitable. Otherwise, a map of the United States today would resemble a big jigsaw puzzle with one piece lost between the cushions of the sofa.
The July 24 celebration has long displaced Statehood Day as the state’s big gig. But it wouldn’t hurt each Jan. 4 to give a thought and a thanks to the long and arduous efforts of a lot of people to give us our home state.


THERE are many ways to console someone when a multimillion-dollar business deal falls through. Firing off a “tough break” e-mail message punctuated by a frown-face emoticon is not one of them.
Emoticons, the smiling, winking and frowning faces that inhabit the computer keyboard, have not only hung around long past their youth faddishness of the 1990s, but they have grown up. Twenty-five years after they were invented as a form of computer-geek shorthand, emoticons — an open-source form of pop art that has evolved into a quasi-accepted form of punctuation — are now ubiquitous.
No longer are they simply the province of the generation that has no memory of record albums, $25 jeans or a world without Nicole Richie. These Starburst-sweet hieroglyphs, arguably as dignified as dotting one’s I’s with kitten faces, have conquered new landscape in the lives of adults, as more of our daily communication shifts from the spoken word to text. Applied appropriately, users say, emoticons can no longer be dismissed as juvenile, because they offer a degree of insurance for a variety of adult social interactions, and help avoid serious miscommunications.
“In a perfect world, we would have time to compose e-mails that made it clear through our language that we are being cheerful and friendly, but we’re doing these things hundreds of times a day under pressure,” said Will Schwalbe, an author of “Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home” (Knopf, 2007), written with David Shipley, the deputy editorial page editor at The New York Times.
In fact, a recent Yahoo study indicates that the days in which emoticons were considered as unacceptably casual as flip-flops at work are over.
In a survey of 40,000 users of the Yahoo Messenger instant-message program, 52 percent of the respondents were older than 30, and among those, 55 percent said they use emoticons every day. Nearly 40 percent of respondents said they first discovered emoticons within the last five years.
Christopher P. Michel, the founder and chairman of Military.com, a military and veteran affairs Web site, said that usage of emoticons has grown “hyper-pervasive” in his communiques even with admirals at the Pentagon, where they provide a certain cover for high-ranking leaders to comment on sensitive matters.
THERE was a time, of course, that emoticons seemed intrinsically youthful. Just as children shared the special ability to see Big Bird’s magical friend Snuffleupagus on “Sesame Street” — a character who was long supposed to be invisible to adults — they seemed to easily recognize that the characters 3:-o represented a cow, or that @>--> -- symbolized a rose or that ~(_8^(I) stood for Homer Simpson.
Kristina Grish, author of “The Joy of Text: Mating, Dating and Techno-relating” (Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2006), said that she grew so accustomed to making the :-P symbol (a tongue hanging out) in instant messages at work that it once accidentally popped up, in three dimensions, on a date.
Though we think of emoticons, or “smileys,” as an Internet-era phenomenon, their earliest ancestors were created on typewriters. In 1912, the writer Ambrose Bierce proposed a new punctuation device called a “snigger point,” a smiling face represented by \__/!, to connote jocularity.
The first commonly acknowledged use of the contemporary emoticon was in 1982. Scott Fahlman, a research professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, was linked to an electronic university bulletin board where computer enthusiasts posted opinions on matters as divisive as abortion and mundane as campus parking.
In one thread, a wisecrack about campus elevators was misinterpreted by some as a safety warning, so Dr. Fahlman suggested using :-) as a way to indicate jokes and :-( for remarks to be taken seriously (the latter quickly morphed into a signifier of displeasure).
To Dr. Fahlman’s surprise, his “joke markers” spread quickly on the board. Within a month, he heard, some peers out in Stanford had picked them up, and soon after, techies at Xerox were circulating a list of strikingly sophisticated new emoticons.
He never received a trademark for his invention, and never made a dime from it.
But the fundamental whimsy of the form belies the more serious usage of emoticons by adults now. In the early stages of dating, where text communication often replaces the telephone, the emoticon can be a Trojan horse, a device to sneak a greater level of intimacy into otherwise benign communiques.
When exchanging e-mail messages with a younger prospective girlfriend, a suitor from the generation that still used typewriters in college can, with a few well-placed smileys, bridge the age gap, softening the masculine edge to his humor, and making the pursuing male seem less aggressively predatory.
Indeed, people naturally look for signals of intimacy and trust in the human face — even a crude representation of one, said Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. This tendency is a result of countless generations of evolution, he said, during which people relied on the subtle contortions of facial muscles as life-or-death signals to survive, cooperate and reproduce.
Some members of the species seem more drawn to these particular face icons than others. In the Yahoo poll, 82 percent of respondents considered women more likely than men to use emoticons. For men who have a hard time using terms of tenderness, particularly “love,” emoticons can convey the affection that they are otherwise afraid to express — the graphical equivalent of a dozen roses from a bodega, with roughly the same level of effectiveness.
But as with any technology, nothing stands still.
Just as ring tones lost their rustic charm a few years ago when they moved past a simple monophonic melody, emoticons have lost a bit of their soul by becoming animated and corporate, aficionados say.
Many programs for e-mail, instant messages and word-processing are now programmed to change text emoticons into cartoon smileys, some of which bear a striking resemblance to the frenetically chipper candy-men of the M&M ads. The Web site Lolfamily.com allows users to create three-dimensional super-emoticons that gyrate, wink and wiggle with almost Pixar-like complexity.
Like indie rock fans who squeal when their favorite underground band signs with a major label, purists see the dawn of elaborate graphics as the end of the emoticons’ golden age.
But such gestures of defiance seem to barely register, given the generally increasing embrace of emoticons.
That would be :) , :) , :) , :( , :) , :( , :( , of course.


To get across Dublin city from, for example, St Vincent’s University Hospital on the southside to Beaumont on the northside or to Connolly in the west could take 30 minutes at a quiet time of the day. At rush hour, it could take double that or even more.
With that in mind, nursing organisations are asking why would the Government be looking for a provision in a controversial new contract that would allow nurses working in Dublin to be moved between locations on opposite sides of the capital during a single shift, given the practical difficulties that may present.
Nursing unions and public service management will on Tuesday attend the Labour Court in a bid to resolve differences on a new contract which have complicated and could even threaten the proposed settlement to the recent nurses’ strike.
The introduction of a new contract formed a key element of the original Labour Court recommendation that led to the suspension of the strike.
Nurses had been seeking pay parity with other graduate-entry groups such as physiotherapists who, they maintained, earn about €7,000 a year more.
Under the proposals, a new enhanced nurse grade would be introduced to which nurses could migrate after three years. Those moving on to the new grade would receive a salary increase of €2,439 or 7.3 per cent. The deal would also see significantly more nurses qualifying for additional allowances. However, there were also to be new cost-saving measures in a new contract to offset the cost of the proposed deal which could run to €50 million by the end of 2020.
The Irish Nurses’ and Midwives’ Organisation (INMO) initially urged members to back the Labour Court recommendation. However, when the Government’s contract proposals were leaked, they caused consternation.
The Irish Times reported at the beginning of March that the Government wanted provisions to transfer nurses between locations – potentially within a 40km radius – for weeks at a time or even within a single shift.
The Government proposals could also see nurses rostered to work shifts lasting four, six, eight, 10 or 12 hours.
The INMO had seen the new contract as a potential opportunity to modernise nursing practices. However, it contended the Government proposals would actually worsen existing working arrangements.
The proposals were rejected by both the INMO and Siptu.
While Government representatives agreed to some changes in the proposals during direct talks with unions and at the Workplace Relations Commission, they insisted on retaining provision for the roster reforms and to move nurses between locations.
This is the impasse that the Labour Court will seek to break this week.
The question as to why the Government has insisted on such controversial changes which potentially could jeopardise an overall agreement has been debated widely in industrial relations circles in recent weeks.
Some believe the Government’s target in its contract proposals is not actually the nurses but rather the wider public service trade union movement.
From the start of the process, the Government was determined a settlement to the nurses’ dispute would not cause a breakdown in the existing public service accord, leading to a pay free-for-all across the State sector.
However, the other public service unions have so far held off on launching their much-anticipated knock-on claims. But they have not gone away. They are watching developments very carefully to see how any eventual nurse settlement plays out.
So what will the nurses have to give in productivity or work-practice changes in return for additional payments?
Some senior industrial relations figures believe the Government is sending a message to the broader public service union movement that if they seek more money outside the terms of the current accord, it will come at a price of work-practice reforms that they may find unpalatable.
In the meantime, the INMO is expected to argue that seeking nurses to relocate up to 40km is not feasible and would, in essence, discourage recruitment when the health service badly needs to attract more staff and hold on to those it already has.
The union is also understood to be greatly concerned at the proposed roster changes. At present, there are two main shift arrangements for nurses, a 7.8-hour day and a 13-hour day (of which they are paid for 12).
It is understood the INMO is worried that if new proposals were written into a contract, it could lead to staff having to attend hospitals or other workplaces more frequently – with implications for family or childcare arrangements in a predominately female workforce – or even to the introduction of split shifts where the working day is divided into two or more parts.


The recent Terminator movie is what the last one SHOULD have been. No more time travelling - this is the period where the machines wake up, the human race hardens up, and the CIA stops pushing too many pencils. Terminator Salvation the game, is set just before the events of the movie, we reviewed it on PS3.
Terminator is a 3rd person cover shooter that you can play solo or split screen with someone next to you. The machines have some heavy duty firepower, so you and your squad will need to rely heavily on shoot & move tactics, which suits the movies perfectly. Each new room will contain several bits of cover, a la Gears of War, and your health won't go back up until the firefight is over. If you're pinned down on 10% health with no ammo, you're already dead. You just don't know it yet.
Emphasis is placed on flanking, and there's always some side path that'll take you right round the robotic rear. Even if they just follow you, you're squadmates are smart enough to pop em in the back.
Yeah, useful squadmates are a good thing. When you're out of ammo, they'll chuck you some. When you get flanked, they let you know.
Terminator also tries to build an emotional bond between player and squadmate, and fails completely, I didn't care whether they lived or died, but at least while they're alive, they do stuff. One thing that baffled me though, and it's relentless, no one in the game can stop saying the name John Connor!
Waaah, get these people some air!
And for a linear game, sometimes it can be hard to find the way, and without a jump button it's annoying being unable to get over a 3 foot piece of concrete. You will spend most of your time behind that concrete though, the machines target you specifically if you're out of cover.
Like any Star Wars game, it benefits heavily from that memorable franchise music. You could show anything to this music and it would sound epic. I could show you Glados the cat.
That is one epic cat, man. I'm actually kinda scared!
Nothing. There is no multiplayer, and after finishing, no real reason to come back to it. It's quite short, and while some levels were fun, I think it fits snugly into that well deserved stigma that movie games have Jung.
I had to wonder, with these games, has the bar just been set really high? I mean, after a level of CoD4, you feel like putting it down because it's so intense. After a level of Terminator, you're like, this is kinda fun, but I hope it gets better...A great example is the giant boss they show you early on...which you NEVER get to fight!
About ready for final thoughts?
As far as movie games go, it's more fun than usual. Sliding from cover to cover is pretty cool. But it is very much a movie game. It feels thrown together, there are the odd glitches, and it only lasts about 6 hours. As for the variety of enemies? You can count em on one hand. 5.5 from me.
It's the same old story, great graphics and music, but average gameplay and length. If you ask me Jung, 6 hours is about the ideal time for a rental. 6 from me.


Although there's still room for improvement, streaming video content around your house (and beyond) has never been easier.
The popularity of media streaming devices such as Apple TV and the Xbox 360 has given a great boost to home theater. It begs the question of whether or not you can equip the vaunted "connected home" yet. We're close, but I think there's still some room for improvement, particularly with the various incompatible flavors of DRM out there. That said, there's a plethora of premium content out there for your viewing pleasure, and a growing number of devices to stream it and watch it on.
There are two ways to acquire content: record your own or download it. Each has its pluses and minuses, which I hope to discuss more over the next few months. Suffice to say that if you buy your TV commercial-free from the Apple iTunes store (we won't get into illicit downloads for now), you'll need Apple TV. If you record your own, you'll need a Media Center Edition (MCE) PC and an Xbox 360 with Media Center Extender. You can also buy and download content directly to the Xbox, but the selection on Xbox Live Marketplace is fairly sparse at this time.
As Windows Vista (Premium and Ultimate versions) has incorporated MCE, many new PCs will let you stream video to an Xbox 360 with Media Center Extender support. All-in-one PCs such as the HP TouchSmart IQ770 provide a wealth of media features, and rigs such as the Velocity Micro CineMagix Grand Theater are specially tailored to home theater.
Both the Xbox and the Apple TV sit on your network. They let you watch your TV, home videos, and photos on your TV in your living room. Xbox 360 supports 720p HDTV content, while Apple TV is limited to 480p. Apple TV works with both Windows and Macs. Predictably, Xbox 360 with Media Center Extender support is Windows-only.
With Slingbox Pro hooked into your home network, you're not just restricted to streaming content around the house. In fact, you can stream TV content around the world when you travel. You can receive it on a PC that has SlingPlayer software installed or to a Windows Mobile handheld running SlingPlayer Mobile.
Whether you want your home theater strictly for home or also to go, we have a solution for you. Read on to find one that will keep you entertained.
So far one of two shipping MCE systems with CableCARD tuner (the other is the Sony Vaio VGX-XL3), the CineMagix is a powerful home theater-oriented system that can stream premium cable content to an Xbox 360 in your den or family room.
This quintessential kitchen PC can stream recorded and live content from its built-in analog cable tuner. Premium content is limited to downloads, since the TouchSmart only has an analog tuner. The TouchSmart runs Vista Premium with MCE, so it can also stream to your Xbox 360.
If you have a Vista Premium or Vista Ultimate PC, the Xbox 360 can stream all your MCE videos, photos, and music to your living room over your WiFi network with an optional adapter. If you're luck enough to have Cat V Ethernet in your house, the quality is even better. The newest version of the Xbox 360, the Xbox 360 Elite, comes with a 120GB hard drive, and oh yeah, it comes in black.
The Apple TV connects at up to 802.11n speeds on your home network, and unlike the Xbox, it works with Macs and Windows PCs equally well. All you need is the latest version of iTunes running on your Mac or PC.
This lets you access your Apple TV or MCE PC from across the room or across the world using your home's LAN or the Internet. With a Slingbox you can hit your home network and watch your Apple TV using your Windows Mobile smart phone or EV-DO-equipped notebook (Mac or Windows).


The inventor of the foam finger has become the latest person to join in the criticism of Miley Cyrus for her controversial performance at the MTV VMAs.
Earlier today, the singer was https://www.nme.com/news/miley-cyrus/72334]rebuked by the Teddy Bear Fund charity for her appearance at the awards bash, as her risque performance began with her emerging from a giant teddy bear and she performed surrounded by more of the popular stuffed creatures throughout the song.
Now, according to Fox Sports, Steve Chmelar – who is credited with creating the original foam ‘No. 1 hand’ as a way to support his high school basketball team in 1971 as a 16-year-old student – has also criticised Cyrus for tarnishing the image of the sporting accessory.
Cyrus, meanwhile, has reportedly been working with Kanye West, with the singer skipping the VMAs afterparty to record a remix of his song ‘Black Skinhead’.


KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- A police officer who was shot Tuesday while chasing suspects allegedly involved in a drive-by shooting, has died, police Chief Terry Zeigler said.
The officer was identified as Capt. Robert Melton. He was 46 years old and had been with the department for 17 years.
Zeigler told reporters the officer was looking for four people in a car some time before 2 p.m. when the vehicle was spotted and a chase began. The chase ended about two miles from where the suspects were initially reported to a 911 dispatcher.
"As Capt. Melton was arriving, the suspects bailed from the vehicle and opened fire," Zeigler said. "I don't have any more details than that."
Another officer who had just arrived called for assistance, police spokesman Thomas Tomasic said earlier during a briefing at the scene of the shooting.
Tomasic said he knew the officer who had been shot, calling him a "good friend, good person."
One person is in custody and two others who might be connected to the incident have been detained. Police are searching for at least one more suspect, Tomasic said.
A police statement said the Melton family had asked for the media to give them privacy.
Kansas City Mayor Mark Holland asked for people not to jump to conclusions and wait for an investigation to answer why the officer was killed.
"We just want to ask for the thoughts and prayers for Capt. Melton's family and for our entire police department right now and for our community," Holland said at the hospital. "There's a lot of pain and brokenness in our community and our nation right now and we just want to ask everyone to be prayerful and thoughtful."
Dr. James Howard of the University of Kansas Hospital said Melton had no blood pressure or pulse when he arrived. Doctors and nurses tried for 30 minutes to revive Melton before he was pronounced dead.
The death is the second for the department in two months. Det. Brad Lancaster was shot and killed May 9 while trying to apprehend a carjacking suspect.
A total of 31 law enforcement officers have been shot to death while on duty this year, according to the Officer Down Memorial Page. Six K-9 officers also have been fatally shot.
Nine other K-9 officers have died of heat exhaustion, including Mojo, an Arlington, Texas, police dog that died Tuesday after overheating during pursuit of a fugitive.


The first freshman class selected to Florida's state college system since Gov. Jeb Bush put an end to race-based admissions has shown, instead of a decrease in minority enrollment, an increase of 12 percent.
Mr. Bush, whose plan allows the admission of the top 20 percent of graduating seniors from each state high school, whether predominantly black, white or Hispanic, said the increase was proof that diversity in other college systems could be accomplished without affirmative action.
''The most diverse in history,'' Mr. Bush said of the incoming freshmen, who are the first students to be admitted without affirmative action mandates since racial set-asides were put in place in Florida in 1978.
He said his plan, called One Florida, produced an incoming class of more than 40 percent minorities -- blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans -- and could be a model for other states whose affirmative action laws are being challenged in the courts or at the polls.
But critics of the plan say it is far too soon, after one year, to call the plan a success. Some experts on education reform called the new system a gimmick that simply gives affirmative action a new name.
Mr. Bush dismissed the criticism as he celebrated what he said was a clear victory in a difficult social and political arena. Black leaders here had said the plan would cripple college admissions of blacks.
''I've spent the last 10 months getting blistered by people who didn't believe we could do this,'' Mr. Bush said.
Unlike in Texas and California, which have similar programs that produced initial drops in minority enrollment, ''we did not wait for a legal challenge or a ballot initiative,'' said Mr. Bush.
Texas courts threw out affirmative action laws in 1996, but the state eventually restored its racial mix on college campuses under a plan in Texas under Gov. George W. Bush that admitted the top 10 percent of students in each school.
Jeb Bush said he used elements of the Texas plan in his own. But it was California's end to affirmative action, in a statewide vote in 1997, that may have forced the Florida governor's hand.
Ward Connerly, a businessman and black conservative who led the battle to end affirmative action in California, had turned his attentions to Florida, and Mr. Bush's One Florida plan was seen as a way to blunt that looming battle in a year that his brother was running for president.
Critics of the plan, who fought against it when Mr. Bush unveiled it in November, said it is too soon to claim victory, and said the affirmative action program he ended was already steadily improving minority enrollment.
Mr. Bush said the Florida plan does something old affirmative action did not do: It allows students to pursue an education without the stigma of set-asides and lowered admission standards.
''Every student entering our system today can be proud of what we accomplished, and be confident that achievement, not skin color or ethnic background, is the only measure of merit in our universities,'' he said.
Of the 3,202 incoming students, 1,234 were minorities, and all 10 colleges in the state system increased their enrollment of blacks, according to statistics from the university system.
That increase of black enrollment was not just at predominantly black colleges, but also at Florida's two leading state-run universities -- the University of Florida, in Gainesville, and Florida State University, in Tallahassee.
The number of enrolling black students at the University of Florida was up 33 percent from last year, and up 21 percent from last year at Florida State.
The number of Hispanic students enrolling at the University of Florida grew by 19 percent, and by 24 percent at Florida State.
The two leading universities enrolled 577 more black and Hispanic students this year than last year.
In the past, universities had put in place a double standard for minorities, and quotas.
''Now everybody's in the pool,'' said Carmen Brown, Director of Admissions at Florida International University.
No matter how rich or poor the neighborhood a school serves, the top 20 percent of students will be accepted to one of the state's 10 universities.
Mr. Bush said the state's universities aggressively recruited the best minority students who qualified under the plan.
Experts on education reform said the plan merely renamed affirmative action.
Sam J. Yarger, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Miami, said the plan breaks down because one school's number one student may not rank in another school's top 10 percent.
It creates quota systems in each school, ''which is not related to any external standard,'' said Mr. Yarger.
''We should call Florida One Bush's Theory of Relativity,'' he said.
An article on Wednesday about the rise in minority enrollment in Florida colleges since the state ended race-based admissions misstated the year in which California voters ended affirmative action. It was 1996, not 1997.


Beautiful newly complete Shea home in Trilogy at Verde River. This home boasts amazing mountain and desert views backing to a natural desert wash. Numerous upgrades throughout the home including tiled flooring and plush carpeting, the kitchen includes extended 54'' upgraded custom kitchen cabinetry including windowed cabinet doors, management center, granite counters with extended island including farm stainless steel sink, pendent lighting, walk-in pantry with numerous shelves, large master bedroom/bathroom has beautiful views, large walk-in closet with separate toilet room, granite counters with double sinks, family room features 20' sliding glass door with amazing views of the patio, mountains & desert, backyard (and front) features pavers to form an extended patio for entertaining.


After resigning over a picture on a pleasure boat showing him drinking beer with a group of young people, the former president of Iowa Central Community College will have a new job next week. Robert Paxton will become the president of National American University in Rapid City, South Dakota, and its distance learning campus.
Paxton resigned late last August after a controversial photo shot last summer at Lake Okoboji appeared in the Des Moines Register. National American University was started in 1941 as the National School of Business. The school offers programs designed to train students for specific careers.
The school operates campuses in Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Minnesota and Missouri. The search for Paxton’s replacement at Iowa Central is continuing with the goal of having a new president in place by next fall. Iowa Central operates campuses in Fort Dodge, Webster City and Storm Lake.


Cardinal Joseph Zen, an 87-year-old native of Shanghai who served as bishop of Hong Kong, is a Chinese patriot and faithful Catholic.
He now finds himself at odds with both the atheist government that controls China and the Vatican bureaucracy that controls the foreign relations of the Holy See.
As of now, the atheist government in Beijing and the bureaucrats in the Vatican are acting as if they were allies, having signed a deal last September that neither the Vatican nor the communists have released to the public, and that will govern how Catholic bishops are appointed in China.
Cardinal Zen is speaking out against this deal and courageously explaining why it will hurt both the Chinese people and the Catholic Church.
The State Department’s most recent reports on human rights and religious freedom help put the deal in perspective.
Is China run by the Communist Party? Yes.
Is the Communist Party atheist? Yes.
Does China’s atheist regime try to force Catholics to act in ways that are contrary to their faith? Yes.
Since the communists seized power in 1949, the Catholic Church has been divided in China. There has been an “underground” church, whose bishops have been appointed by the pope, and which does not bow to the government on matters of faith.
The Chinese government has imprisoned many bishops and priests of this underground church because they refused to deny their faith.
So, a man appointed as a bishop in China’s “official” church could only qualify for that position if he were to pledge support for a party that demands its members be atheists.
Can a Catholic bishop pledge support for an organization that mandates atheism? Of course not.
Yet last Sept. 22, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, announced that the Holy See had signed a “Provisional Agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China Concerning the nomination of Bishops.” He also indicated that the bishops in China’s “official” church had been legitimized. But the Vatican did not release the text of the agreement or explain in detail what is in it.
Nor did they tell Cardinal Zen or other faithful Chinese Catholics.
“Now, we make our conjectures. We try to guess, because some details leaked out,” Zen said.
Perhaps the most specific leak was made to America Magazine. Four days before the deal was signed, in a story crediting “informed sources,” the magazine described a process in which “Beijing authorities” would have control over who could be nominated as a Catholic bishop.
“Candidates will be chosen at the diocesan level through the ‘democratic election’ system that the Chinese authorities introduced in 1957, whereby the priests of the diocese, together with representatives of women religious and laypeople, vote from among the candidates presented by the authorities that supervise church affairs,” said America Magazine.
“The results of these elections will be sent to the Beijing authorities that oversee the church in China, including the bishops’ conference, which will examine them and then submit a name to the Holy See,” said America.
“The Holy See will have some months to carry out its own investigation of the candidate and, based on this work, the pope will either approve or exercise his veto,” said America.
But the pope would not be able nominate his own bishop.
“He has the last word to say yes or no. That is all he can do,” said Cardinal Zen.
“So, ultimately, control over who gets to become a bishop is now in the hands of the Chinese government?” this writer asked Cardinal Zen.
Cardinal Zen recently published a book — “For Love of My People I Will Not Remain Silent” — which includes eight lectures he delivered in 2017. The final lecture expressed foreboding about the negotiations then underway between the Vatican and Beijing.
And Pope Francis will never be remembered — as St. John Paul II shall always be — as a pope who brought freedom to millions by speaking truth to power.


If you’re like many of my clients, friends, and family, you’ve probably thought about using the Clifton StrengthsFinder as an assessment tool to select the right person for the job. “What a great matching tool,” you’ve said. “What a great way to predict how a person will act and react!” When people voice these thoughts to me, I want to mirror their excitement about the possibilities of exploring a person’s fit using their themes, but at the same time relay a cautionary tale from an evidenced-based and bias-laced perspective.
The scenario often goes like this: you’re hiring an HR professional for your organization. You’ve written the job profile, considered the necessary competencies and the needs of the team. You know who thrives in your organization and who just survives. The last person in the role was great at engaging the team, but didn’t think “big picture” enough or hold people accountable for performance. This time around, you’re not going to compromise these qualities. You know exactly who you’re looking for -- you make your list of dream themes: Achiever, Strategic, Ideation, Futuristic, and Responsibility. You add the StrengthsFinder to your hiring process and you get to work recruiting, screening, and interviewing. Only, you keep coming up short. Sure, you find lots of candidates with the Achiever theme, and even some who also have high Strategic or Responsibility themes, too. But to find all five, your dream themes, well that appears to be like finding a needle in a haystack.
There is no correlation between any of the themes and success in a particular role. We all have our stereotypes of what might be the dream themes for a salesperson or a manager or a leader, but these unfortunately don’t work out when we put them to the test. The likelihood is just as high that someone would be a successful salesperson with high Competition, Achiever, Maximizer, Activator, and Self-Assurance as it would be if a person had high Harmony, Developer, Analytical, Relator, and Restorative.
Even if there were a set of dream themes for a role, the odds of finding them are too low. To be specific, there is about a one in 33 million chance you would find someone with the exact top five in the order you are seeking, or a roughly one in 275,000 chance you will find that top five listed in any order. There’s your needle in the haystack.
Assessment tools that benchmark a candidate’s talent intensity against that of your high-potential players are better predictors of success in a particular role. This is what Gallup uses to hire talent, and it’s also the kind of assessment we build for our clients. Unfortunately, the Clifton StrengthsFinder theme sequence doesn’t give you an indication of talent intensity. So, if I have Woo as my No. 1 theme, and you have it as your No. 6 theme, your Woo could actually be stronger than mine. This is because the theme sequence each person receives is relative to their other themes, not benchmarked against other people. This is a tricky distinction, but important to consider if you’re trying to compare candidates and pick the one with the strongest talent for a given role.
We all have biases about certain themes. I’m always taken in by candidates with high Ideation and Input, but have a harder time connecting with those who have high Consistency and Harmony. I might always find a reason to include and exclude certain themes on my dream theme list, and these reasons have nothing to do with finding the right person for the job.
If the team the candidate is to join has gone through the StrengthsFinder, then map the candidates’ themes against the team to determine whether or not they might add some needed diversity to cover some gaps. If your team is full of individuals who have an abundance of themes that are action-oriented, but non-relational, then maybe your team needs someone who can create more collaboration among the team and with other groups -- perhaps someone who is strong in relational themes.
The key is to use the Clifton StrengthsFinder and a candidate’s top five themes as another piece to the selection puzzle -- a tool for use after you have narrowed down the field of applicants -- rather than to box yourself into one specific top five theme sequence that you perceive as ideal in that role.
As a leadership consultant with Gallup, Senior Practice Consultant Jacque Merritt provides executive coaching to leaders around the world. Since joining Gallup in 1989, Merritt has helped CEOs, leaders, and managers maximize their effectiveness by providing insights on how they can develop their capabilities. Merritt has also consulted with many of Gallup’s U.S.-based and international clients on team building, succession management, selection, and executive development.
Needle in a haystack. According to my understanding of the Gallup statistics, there are (on average) 220.04 persons in the world that will match a given 5 strength (in specific order) profile.


Facebook has been fined £500,000 by UK regulator the ICO over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
It's the maximum amount possible under law, but given Facebook's size it's just a slap on the wrist.
The regulator says Facebook broke the law, breaching the UK Data Protection Act twice.
British politicians are now calling on Facebook to be more transparent about its internal investigation into data misuse.
The British data regulator plans to fine Facebook the maximum amount possible over the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
On Tuesday, the ICO (Information Commissioner's Office) announced that it will hit Facebook with a £500,000 (roughly $663,000) penalty over two breaches of the UK Data Protection Act linked to the incident, in which political research firm Cambridge Analytica misappropriated tens of millions of users' personal data.
"The ICO's investigation concluded that Facebook contravened the law by failing to safeguard people's information," the organisation said in a statement. "It also found that the company failed to be transparent about how people's data was harvested by others."
The sum is barely even a slap on the wrist for Facebook, which had revenues of more than $40 billion in 2017, but is the maximum possible under the applicable legislation.
In a statement, Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: "New technologies that use data analytics to micro-target people give campaign groups the ability to connect with individual voters. But this cannot be at the expense of transparency, fairness and compliance with the law."
"Fines and prosecutions punish the bad actors, but my real goal is to effect change and restore trust and confidence in our democratic system," she said.
Facebook says it will respond "soon"
The ICO is also launching a criminal prosecution against SCL Elections, an organisation affiliated with Cambridge Analytica, and has sent warning letters to 11 political parties and "notices compelling them to agree to audits of their data protection policies."
Facebook has a chance to respond to the ICO before a final decision is made on the fine. The company has said it plans to do so "soon."
In an emailed statement, Facebook chief privacy officer Erin Egan said: "As we have said before, we should have done more to investigate claims about Cambridge Analytica and take action in 2015. We have been working closely with the ICO in their investigation of Cambridge Analytica, just as we have with authorities in the US and other countries. We're reviewing the report and will respond to the ICO soon."
Politicians are calling for greater transparency from Facebook in light of the ICO fine. Damian Collins MP, the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that has been investigating Cambridge Analytica, said: "Given that the ICO is saying that Facebook broke the law, it is essential that we now know which other apps that ran on their platform may have scraped data in a similar way. This cannot by left to a secret internal investigation at Facebook. If other developers broke the law we have a right to know, and the users whose data may have been compromised in this way should be informed.
"Facebook users will be rightly concerned that the company left their data far too vulnerable to being collected without their consent by developers working on behalf of companies like Cambridge Analytica. The number of Facebook users affected by this kind of data scraping may be far greater than has currently been acknowledged. Facebook should now make the results of their internal investigations known to the ICO, our committee and other relevant investigatory authorities."


Lennie Gallant's beautiful new Christmas song with the Zimbabwean band Black Umfolosi started with a chance meeting in Charlottetown this summer.
Gallant ran into his former agent and friend Bob Jensen downtown, they hopped in Lennie's pickup to listen to some cuts from the album he'd just finished recording, Time Travel, as well as new music from Black Umfolosi, an internationally-renowned world music band from Zimbabwe for which Jensen is the North American agent.
"Every now and then something a little bit magical happens," said Jensen. "We just came up with this little idea over lunch!"
That "little idea" was that Lennie would record a song on P.E.I. with Black Umfolosi in August as they were taking a break during a tour of eastern Canada.
"And I thought that would be something, that would be really great! I wonder what we would sing?" Gallant recalls. "I thought it would be amazing to have them singing on a Christmas song — I should write one."
He'd heard Black Umfolosi before at festivals in Canada and admired their music, which he likens to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the South African group that shared the spotlight with Paul Simon on his landmark album Graceland.
"They were very keen to do it, they immediately said 'Oh yeah we'd love to do that,'" said Jensen.
With them in mind, Gallant quickly penned Christmas Day on Planet Earth during last July's heat wave. He did a rough recording and sent it off to Zimbabwe so the band could learn it.
When the group arrived on P.E.I. in August, they rehearsed a bit with Gallant then headed to a friend's studio barn.
"In one day we recorded the song and did a video — the same day," said Gallant.
Award-winning P.E.I. filmmaker John Hopkins shot the video, while Colin Buchanan of The Hill Sound Studio recorded the song.
"That's a lot for anybody in one day, and Lennie is known for being — in the studio he's very meticulous," said Jensen.
Gallant used the nativity story of Mary and Joseph's search for a place to stay Christmas Eve as a theme for the song, connecting it to current global immigration crises including the flight from Syria and the migrant caravan from Central America to the U.S.
"Given what's going on in the world right now, with so many desperate families driven from their homes, I thought there's really a connection to be made there with the original Christmas story," he said.
"These are desperate people, desperate families, and it could be you or I cast in the same situation if the geography was a little bit different."
Gallant has worked with several charities including Maritime-Guatemala Breaking the Silence, and plans to give any proceeds from the song to the P.E.I.-based charity Mikinduri Children of Hope, which helps care for people in Kenya. Black Umfolosi also works with many charities in Africa, Jensen said.
"If Mary and Joseph were showing up at some countries right now, certainly including the United States of America, they would definitely be turned back," added Jensen. "The message is timely and it's delivered in a beautiful way."
"Reaction to the song and the video has been quite extraordinary so far," Gallant said.
"And with Black Umfolosi, they were so wonderful to work with — such gentle, beautiful people and were very much into it and so patient," he said.
Gallant predicts the song, available on iTunes and on streaming services, "will make no money whatsoever probably, because basically on streaming services you're pretty much giving it away."
"But I wanted people to hear it, and I'm hoping that it moves people to think about what's going on in the world."
Jensen said he believes the song is catchy and could become a holiday classic.
"I would not be at all surprised if it became, at least in Canada, a kind of Christmas standard that you start hearing every year."
He also said he hopes the African group becomes more widely-known from the song.
"If this single is out there on commercial radio, it's going to open those guys up to some new listeners," Jensen said.
Want to hear the song in person? Gallant is headlining The Innkeeper's Christmas Concert Friday, Dec. 14, at Trinity United Church, which will also feature members of the band Ten Strings and a Goat Skin, members of Atlantic String Machine and more.
Echoes of that night in Bethlehem.
A child to lead like a star above.


The dimensions of the 1975 BMW 3.5CSL are just so perfect and natural it's possible the car's just a giant golden rectangle with a Hofmeister Kink. It makes the E64 look like something you'd find in a half-empty Chernobyl swimming hole.
This particular car is being driven by the Boris Said at the 2006 Rolex Monterey Historics. Photographed by Brad Fox, who has proven he knows Laguna Seca's corners as well as anyone.


AKRON, Ohio (AP) — Akron city officials say they will reopen the police training academy to attract more recruits and help build a more diverse police department.
Akron Police Chief Kenneth Ball, Fire Chief Clarence Tucker and Director of Human Resources Donald Rice presented the changes to Akron City Council’s Public Safety committee on Monday. Cleveland.com reports the city will re-establish a basic training academy that closed in 2008.
Rice says the academy will also raise the age limit of applicants from 35 to 40 years old. Police cadets previously trained unpaid for 24 weeks without pay at academies hosted by other communities.
Rice says recruits will make over $26 an hour during police training.
The next entrance exam for Akron police will take place in April.


French former culture minister Audrey Azoulay was named to head the UN's embattled cultural agency on Friday, beating her Qatari rival after a politically charged contest clouded by Gulf tensions and accusations of anti-Israel bias.
Azoulay, 45, came from behind to defeat Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari, also a former culture minister, after he failed to pick up support from other Gulf states which are part of a Saudi-led coalition blockading Qatar. The vote was 30 to 28.
The campaign to succeed UNESCO's outgoing chief Irina Bokova was overshadowed by Washington's announcement Thursday that it planned to withdraw from the Paris-based body after years of tensions over decisions seen as critical of Israel.
In the face of the Arab divisions, France presented Azoulay as a consensus figure who could mend fences and soothe tensions with Israel.
"In a time of crisis, we need more than ever to get involved (and) work to strengthen the organisation," Azoulay said after the final vote.
Azoulay, who is Jewish of Moroccan origin, will face the difficult task of trying to persuade the United States and Israel to remain as members.
Just as daunting will be her job of reforming the agency struggling under the weight of a bureaucracy that has become unwieldy over the seven decades since it was founded.
French President Emmanuel Macron hailed her victory on Twitter, saying: "France will continue to fight for science, education and culture in the world."
Azoulay, who will become UNESCO's second woman leader after Bokova, had edged out Egyptian rights activist Moushira Khattab earlier Friday as the main challenger to Al-Kawari, the frontrunner until the final run-off.
Azoulay's nomination must be approved by the agency's 195 member states on November 10, a vote that has never previously gone against the board's nominee.
Arab states believed the job of director-general of the organisation should go to one of them for the first time, but regional rivalries and the US and Israeli withdrawals undercut their ambitions.
Egypt threw its weight behind Azoulay after Khattab dropped out, a member of her delegation told AFP.
Egypt is part of the coalition led by Saudi Arabia that has been blockading strategically placed Qatar since June over its alleged support for radical Islamists and its ties to Iran.
Lebanon's candidate Vera El-Khoury, who bowed out at the fourth round of voting, told AFP that the power game at play in the race had shown UNESCO members "did not give a damn" about the candidates' programmes.
Qatar has generously funded UNESCO in recent years and lobbied intensively for the post, which would have helped bolster its international status at a time when it faces isolation in the Gulf.
Al-Kawari had also been dogged by old allegations of anti-Semitism after the Simon Wiesenthal Center accused him of remaining silent about anti-Semitic books at a fair in Doha when he was culture minister.
UNESCO is best known for its World Heritage sites including tourist favourites such as the Grand Canyon or Cambodia's Angkor Wat, but it also runs science, media training and cultural programmes internationally with an annual budget of about $250 million (210 million euros).
Three candidates aer in the running to succeed UNESCO's head Irina Bokova of Bulgaria.
The US decision to withdraw, which is to take effect on December 31, 2018, underlined America's drift away from international institutions under President Donald Trump.
Washington has walked out on UNESCO once before, in 1984, after a row over funding and alleged anti-US bias.
Washington returned to the fold in 2002, seeing UNESCO as a vehicle for combatting extremism in the wake of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
But in 2011 relations soured again after UNESCO admitted Palestine as a full member, prompting the US to cut its funding to the organisation, leaving a gaping hole in its finances.
In just over a year as culture minister under Socialist president Francois Hollande, Azoulay secured a budget increase for her ministry after years of deep cuts.


BROOKLYN, N.Y. - Jan. 25, 2017 - PRLog -- During an era that harkens back to the Civil Rights Movement and the historic benchmark of Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation's 50th Anniversary, The Center for Arts & Culture teams up with the Cultural Museum of African Art to present Brooklyn is Africa: A Borough of Inclusion; A Continent of Invention to exhibit 50 rare African art pieces and artifacts from the collection of co-curator and founder at the Cultural Museum of African Arts Eric Edwards, son of Bedford Stuyvesant, and co-curator Hollis King, acclaimed Creative Director at The Center for Arts & Culture. This exhibition will occur at the Skylight Gallery at the Center for Arts & Culture, 1368 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York from February 10th to April 28th.
The Skylight Gallery at The Center for Arts & Culture at Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation, first exhibiting in 1969, has been a powerful platform for visual artists of the African Diaspora in the heart of Brooklyn where the highest concentration of African Americans resides in the US. The Gallery emerged out of the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements with a mission to present images of people of African descent that exhibit beauty, creativity, rigor and inventiveness. John Henrik Clarke, Pan-Africanist Historian, stated that "slavery ended but left false images of black people intact."
"The story of Eric Edward's collection is, in many ways, the story of Restoration," stated Dr. Indira Etwaroo, Executive Director, The Center for Arts & Culture at Restoration. "This is a man who has devoted his life to cherishing and preserving that which symbolizes the most precious, beautiful and human aspects of who we are as a people and presents that to the world. The African American story did not start in 1619 on American soil, but rather on the continent of Africa, an ancient civilization of great leaders, inventors, and art-makers. What better place to share this collection than here in the African village that is Brooklyn and what better time than the 50th anniversary of Restoration"
The exhibit will present pieces as diverse as a woman's head carved out of stone dating back 4,000 years to the Nok Dynasty (Niger) to a carved wooden royal coffin to Ebo Ceremonial Dance Dress. The exhibit highlights African art as integral to African life. The universal ethos of African art positions art as a fundamental part of culture: from tools to utensils to dress to musical instruments; art is never created for art's sake. The 2,500 piece collection has taken Edwards 45 years to amass and represents all 54 countries in Africa with artifacts dating as far back as the Nubian Empire.
and open to the public.
The Center for Arts & Culture is a dynamic campus of world class visual and performing arts. We preserve artistic and cultural legacy, promote social justice and democratic ideals, and present global stories that matter, inspiring the next generation of art-makers and audiences. Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation (Restoration), the nation's first community development organization, partners with area residents and businesses to improve the quality of life in long-blighted areas of Central Brooklyn. Our goals are to attract investment, improve the business climate, foster the economic self-sufficiency of families, enhance family stability, and promote the arts and culture. Through these activities, we seek to spur resident's economic stability and transform Central Brooklyn into a safe, vibrant place to live, work and visit. Restoration was founded in 1967 with the bipartisan support of New York Senators Robert Kennedy, Jr. and Jacob Javits. Since its inception, Restoration has brought over $600 million in public and private investments to Central Brooklyn.
For information please contact Barbara Bullard at barbara@b-bullard.com, The Center for Arts & Culture, Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation.


MTA fare increases set to take effect July 1, raising one-way rides by a quarter to $1.50 and monthly passes by $13 to $75, will be discussed at the agency’s board meeting Thursday, when members will consider setting a date for a public hearing to explain the rationale behind the hikes.
The increases, the first in two years, are meant to help make up for a $204 million deficit in its operating budget for buses and trains, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Public transit activists with the Bus Riders Union say the fare increases are ill-timed and will affect the working poor disproportionately.
“The monthly pass is going up by $13. That’s a meal on the table. The typical transit rider only makes about $12,000 to $17,000 a year,” Barbara Lott- Holland of the Bus Riders Union told The Times at rally Tuesday.
Daily passes will go from $5 to $6. Fares will not be raised for people with disabilities, students, Medicare recipients and people who are 62 or older.
The fare increase should cut the operating budget deficit to about $180 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1. At its meeting Wednesday, the MTA board will consider setting a hearing in May to explain the reasons for the increases.
MTA officials blame the deficit on decreased ridership, the loss of state funds and declines in revenue from two of the county’s three transportation sales taxes — all factors driven by the economic recession, The Times reported.
MTA spokesman Dave Sotero said the increase are not out of line with fares in other big cities, citing $2 or more one-way fares in New York and Chicago.
The Riverside Transit Agency and the Orange County Transportation Authority now charge $1.50 one way, $4 for a daily pass and $55 for a 30-day pass. The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System charges $2.25 one way, $5 for a daily pass and $72 for a 30-day pass, The Times reported.
While the MTA has funding for long-term projects, money set aside for construction cannot be used to prop up the operating budget.
Members of the Bus Riders Union have called on Democratic U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer to support legislation in Congress that would give local transportation agencies more flexibility in the use of federal transportation funds.


Brea police on Monday were working to identify the person who hid a small camera in a Starbucks bathroom.
Brea police say they found a tiny camera under a shelf in a Starbucks restroom. They tweeted out a photo of where the discovery was made.
The video recorder, which was about the size of a large pen, was mounted under a shelf in the restroom of the Starbucks located at 101 W. Imperial Highway (map), the Brea Police Department tweeted on Monday.
According to a news release from the department, a woman was using the restroom when she found the device. She removed the item and alerted police, who were initially unsure if the item was a camera.
Later, an Orange County Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory examined the device and determined it was a miniature video camera, the release stated.
An undisclosed number of people were recorded on the device, and an in-depth examination would be conducted to identify potential victims as well as the person who placed the camera in the bathroom, according to the release.
It was not immediately known how long the camera had been at the location before it was found.
The Brea Police Department tweeted out this photo of the camera.
"We take our obligation to provide a safe environment for our customers and partners (employees) very seriously," a Starbucks spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to KTLA on Monday afternoon. "As a part of regular store operations, we monitor the seating areas and restrooms in our stores on a regular basis to identify potential safety or security concerns."
The statement continued that the company would work with local authorities on the matter.
This was the second time in less than two months that a hidden camera was discovered in the restroom of a Southern California location of the popular coffee chain.
Last month, a mother told KTLA that her 5-year-old son found one at the Starbucks near Avenue K and 10th Street West in Lancaster.
Police have not said the two incidents were connected.
Anyone with information about the Brea incident was asked to call Orange County Crimestoppers at 855-847-6227.


Reclamos crowdsources consumer complaints to create and publish consumer satisfaction rates for Chilean companies and government agencies.
Reclamos.cl is a collaborative website that uses crowdsourced consumer complaints to create and publish consumer satisfaction rates for Chilean companies and government agencies. In practice, Reclamos (the Spanish word for “claim”) is a web platform that intelligently groups the negative opinions of users of certain services in order to achieve greater transparency in the consumer market and to exercise a kind of distributed control over commercial conditions and business practices in Chile.
Reclamos.cl receives complaints from users and keeps a database of each complaint’s origin, the identity of the user, and the type of claim. Random human oversight by a team of volunteers aims to prevent the publication of false claims and content not pertaining to the objectives of the website. The system is based on free software that tags companies with regular consumer problems.
While Reclamos.cl is configured as a collective system of claims, over time it has evolved into an important tool for consumer awareness in Chile. The project’s aggregate indices show trends with respect to consumers’ rights for both private companies and state enterprises, and these trends are often taken into account by companies who hope to improve their pro-consumer practices. In addition, Reclamos.cl has informal links with traditional media to support the distribution of the aggregated results. The platform has become an important point of reference for the implementation of consumer rights by government agencies that deal with these matters, such as the National Consumer Service.
My name is Rafael Bravo, and I am the founder of Reclamos. The initial goal was only to record. Then you start to find out about the difficulty of access to information and the lack of space for filing complaints. In addition, it allows you to find out about others experiences.
The platform is based on free software that allows the public to respond to a problem immediately and without a mediator. An important attribute is that it’s very simple, focused on people who do not always use the Internet. The system categorizes the experiences from one institution or field. That makes it a kind of collective discourse on a very special dynamic.
The first objective was to register cases of personal complaints with corporations, taking into account how difficult it is to access to certain commercial information, and to create a place to quickly publish these complaints. Later, we saw a need for greater participation on the part of both consumers and companies. For two years we’ve been building “products” to fill to this need. One objective is to build partnerships and to be a link between consumers and companies.
It was an important achievement in terms of volume and impact. We talk to the market in a fairly fluid way. Corporations are reluctant to join the conversation, but people are very involved, including consumers, initiatives, and legal action blogs in cases that have come to court. Consumers have become more organized, the press has participated, and there has been a lot of outreach by companies, but it has been difficult to reach compliance.
I think consumers now have more control in Chile, but indirectly. Companies have created products based on what they find out about their customers or competitors. I’ve had very impressive experiences of people and companies that address a claim that suddenly produces a relevant change. There may be no initial intention to change, but companies are constantly looking for better mechanisms to respond, an ability to be very responsive.
I think here in Chile there is an ideological issue, where the idea of a claim has a negative connotation. Business managers are very interested in listening, but the middle management creates more difficulties. Also it has been difficult to move from confrontation to opportunity because the change has been too quick for the public institutions. The private sector is more aware of this, but has not been much more supportive. The first difficulty is this: negative perceptions and a lack of openness. In the beginning, companies shunned the process. Now as more claims are registered, they’re more interested in fixing things.
We have not had a close relationship with SERNAC (Governmental National Consumer Service). It’s difficult to connect with them without any formal alliance, despite their proximity and good disposition.
We talked with people in Argentina, Uruguay and Ecuador, supporting more technical than legal issues. In Ecuador we got the feeling that it was more of a future-term relationship. Similar sites like Get Satisfaction and others in the United States exist, but they are not connected to us.
Not really. When we started there was no expectation that what has happened with Reclamos would happen. In terms of consumption, there is lack of space for expression, and people wanted to express themselves. There was no advertising; just a natural phenomenon of people’s trust.
We have a close relationship with some traditional media that use our cases and in some way have helped to legitimize us, but everything has been completely informal.
Can you give a little more detail about how the system works, from entering the claim until it is processed?
In short, the focus is on an automated system. Usually, people find us via Google. We provide a form that they complete with personal data, permission to contact them, and the claim itself. Then there are algorithms that classify the content. If other people leave comments, the claim gets more prominence. Anyone can write to the author of a claim. The relationship with the press is more back-office, delivering data about people who have given us permission to contact them. The idea is that it is an extremely simple, horizontal, and transparent process involving only one or two steps.
Reclamos is primarily an online tool. What is the relationship with the traditional consumer complaint system?
Our users are generally older people affected by a purchase or service, not young people or people directly related in a day-by-day basis with technology. On the other hand, the help of the press has been valuable in several ways. The press helps publicize some cases, so there is great impact. Digital tools accelerate the process of change, but in the real world it takes longer. It costs to grow.
These listings are brief descriptions of projects we have not researched but that may be of interest to others in the technology for transparency field.
"This community aims to catch and punish the state employees who are using state purchases and calls for tender for their own personal gain."
“Bribed? Didn't bribe? Powerless? Victimised?
Pollitika is a collective anti-corruption blog as well as a database of public information.
The Technology for Transparency Network is a project of Rising Voices and Global Voices, and is charitably sponsored by OSI and the Omidyar Network.


The Windsor AKO Fratmen turned the tables on the Hamilton Hurricanes to capture the team’s first Ontario Football Conference championship since 1999.
Windsor, which suffered a 33-point defeat at home to the top-seeded Hurricanes in the regular season, never trailed Saturday in a 16-9 victory Saturday to capture the Teddy Morris Memorial Trophy at Hamilton’s St. Thomas More Catholic Secondary School.
It was the first title as head coach for Mike LaChance, who was making his fifth appearance in final in 10 years of guiding the team.
LaChance also credited AKO defensive coordinator Mike Morencie, who upset the timing of the high-scoring Hamilton offence by refusing to blitz and had his players drop into coverage the entire game.
“We watched the film and saw where they beat us,” Crumb said. “We played a lot of coverage and manned up their best receivers.
Crumb notched his first of three interceptions on Hamilton’s opening possession and it set up the first of three Anthony Malandruccolo field goals to put AKO on the board first. Austin Lumley’s one-yard score pushed Windsor’s lead to 10-0 as the offence found success on the ground.
Josh Wright batted down a ball in the end zone forcing Hamilton to kick a field goal to make it a one-score game in the third quarter.
Malandruccolo’s second field goal restored the 10-point AKO lead and after Hamilton cut it to a one-score on another field goal off a blocked punt, Malandruccolo’s third field goal made it 16-6.
In fact, the Fratmen ran only two types of play in the fourth quarter while leaning on Crawford.
“It was a simple run left and simple run right off guard and it was unstoppable,” Crawford said.
A third Hamilton field goal made it a one-score game again and the Hurricanes had a chance to tie the game on the final play of the game after a pass interference call set them up at the AKO 15. However, Wright stepped in again to knock a pass down and end the game.
“The emotion I saw in locker room just showed how much it meant not just to me, but the entire locker room,” Crawford said.
Windsor now hosts the national semifinal at Windsor Stadium against the Vancouver Islander Raiders, who won the British Columbia Football Conference championship. Game time at Windsor Stadium is 1 p.m. with the winner earning a berth in the national final on the road against the Prairie Football Conference champion.


BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The University at Buffalo Graduate School of Education will commemorate the 30th anniversary of Edwin E. Gordon's acclaimed research defining music learning theory, published while he was director of music education at UB in the 1970s, from 5-8 p.m. July 30 in the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.
Gordon, an internationally recognized scholar in music learning theory and the psychology of music, was director of music education in the UB Graduate School of Education from 1972 until 1979, when he went to Temple University in Philadelphia to become the Carl E. Seashore Professor of Research in Music Education.
During the 1970s, Gordon spent a critical portion of his career at UB, researching and defining music learning theory, and coining the term "audiation" -- the cognitive process by which the brain comprehends music -- along the way.
He went on to become an internationally recognized scholar, featured often in the media, from NBC's "Today Show" to The New York Times. He is author of six highly regarded music aptitude tests, as well as numerous books on the psychology of music, music rhythm, music learning theory, tonal and rhythm patterns, and music development in infants and very young children. He taught at Temple University until 1997.
But Gordon has not forgotten the place where his acclaimed research in music learning theory began, and he has returned to UB several times, as a distinguished visiting scholar in music education in the Department of Learning and Instruction. Although he is in his early 80s, Gordon has taught a week-long workshop on music learning theory at UB the past several summers.
At the July 30 reception, Gordon's family, many of his former students, UB music education alumni and area music dignitaries will be on hand to pay tribute to his lifetime of major contributions in his field.
The UB Foundation and GIA Publications, Inc., which published Gordon's first edition of Learning Sequences and Patterns in Music in 1976, are co-sponsors of the event. Those wishing to attend are asked to contact Marilyn Koren, director of development for GSE, by July 26 at (716) 645-2478, ext. 1029, or by email at mjkoren@buffalo.edu.
Gordon earned bachelor's and master's degrees in string bass performance from the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, and played string bass with the Gene Krupa band before going on to earn a doctorate from the University of Iowa in 1958. He was a professor of music at Iowa before coming to UB.
In recent years, Gordon has been exploring music development with infants from 1 to 18 months old and refining those skills in children from 18 months old to age 3. His current research interests focus on investigating the levels of music learning theory, stages and types of audiation, developmental and stabilized music aptitudes and rhythm in movement and music.
Gordon also is research professor of the Edwin E. Gordon Archive, housed in the music library at the University of South Carolina. He and his wife, Carol, donated their collection, representing more than 40 years of work, to the library, including his publications, journals, recordings, manuscripts, dissertations he supervised, and video and audio cassette tapes of various workshops and seminars. Among the personal items are his college diplomas, various honors and awards, his University of Iowa doctoral dissertation, as well as one of his many wooden sculptures. For more information, see the Gordon Institute for Music Learning (GIML) Web site at http://www.giml.org.


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The Justice Department launched a two-pronged approach to addressing the surge of illegal immigration from Central America, the Washington Examiner reports.
The plan aims to help Central American governments address the growing humanitarian crisis and to speed up immigration cases.
The Executive Office for Immigration Review will prioritize cases involving immigrants who recently crossed the border and are facing removal proceedings.
“This refocusing of resources will allow EOIR to prioritize the adjudication of the cases of those individuals involved in the evolving situation on the southwest border.” EOIR Director Juan P. Osuna said.
The plan calls for hiring more immigration judges and expanding access to legal resources for people facing removal proceedings.
Posted: 7/10/14 at 9:34 AM under News Story.


WASHINGTON — An effort to slash the Pentagon’s so-called fourth-estate, back-office agencies was weakened but not slain Wednesday at the House Armed Services Committee’s markup of its version of the annual defense policy bill.
The panel voted to overrule its own chairman, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, to protect the Defense Department’s Test Resource Management Center, which oversees weapons testing and evaluation. Thornberry is spearheading plans to enact deep cuts to Pentagon support agencies.
California Republican Rep. Steve Knight prevailed in a mostly party-line 33-28 vote to protect the agency, where two Democrats and eight Democrats crossed sides.
The panel, where Republicans hold a 34-28 majority, voted on party lines to reject an amendment blocking the draft bill’s plan to dismantle the Defense Information Systems Agency, or DISA.
Democratic Rep. Anthony Brown, who represents Maryland — home to many federal employees — had offered the DISA-protecting amendment, proposing Congress ask the Pentagon for a report in advance of any consolidation, but to no avail.
Brown also offered an amendment to protect Washington Headquarters Services, but Thornberry and the Republican majority defeated that, too.
Overall, Thornberry was two for three on defeating attempts to roll back portions of his bureaucracy-targeting plan.
Even before the hearing, Thornberry eased controversial plans that initially called for a more far-reaching, 25 percent cut to more Pentagon support agencies, targeted for their ancillary relationship to core war-fighting functions.
Rather than shuttering agencies and otherwise prescribing cuts as initially suggested, the bill gives more deference to the Pentagon. It would charge the newly created Defense Department chief management officer to find efficiencies and reduce by 25 percent the budget of certain departmentwide activities, including logistics, human resources, services contracting and real-property management, by 2021.
The House Armed Services Committee overwhelmingly approved plans for a sprawling $716 billion National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2019. It must survive a full House vote later this month and negotiations with the Senate later this year.


Which would you rather see: a rare Nepalese gharial or a common vole? Even without knowing what these animals are, you might be more intrigued by the gharial, simply because it is rare. This is the conclusion of research published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE.
The researchers say that labeling endangered animals as “rare,” may harm the species, raising its value and so putting it at greater risk of being exploited within the illegal pet-trade, for either medicines or exotic zoos.
Scientists created a Web site where users could view images of either “rare” or “common” animals. When users clicked on one of the two options, up popped a progress bar showing the images in the process of downloading. But, irritatingly, the download took a whopping six minutes (although users did have the option to cancel). When the download finally completed, the images were designed not to show up!
Well, significantly more users chose the rare slideshow, waited for it to download and often tried again after it didn’t work. So, maybe to save the endangered gharial, we ought to just call it just a tired, ugly crocodile.
NOTE: For more on endangered species please read our blog, 60-Second Extinction Countdown.