Kodak has named Bradford Young as the 2015 Cinematographer-In-Residence at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Young, whose credits include Pawn Sacrifice, A Most Violent Year, Selma, and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, is the 16th recipient of the honor, which aims to to “enhance the learning experience of students with insight from renowned cinematographers”. His residency begins in December with hands-on workshops for students, and will continue through the end of the academic year.
As part of his residency, Young is screening Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which was directed by David Lowery and shot on Kodak film. The screening happens Monday, Oct. 5 at 8:00 p.m. in UCLA TFT’s James Bridges Theater, followed by a Q&A session moderated by UCLA TFT’s Jeanne Tyson. Established in 2000, previous Kodak Cinematographers-in-Residence include John Bailey, ASC (American Gigolo, In the Line of Fire, As Good As It Gets), Guillermo Navarro (From Dusk Till Dawn, Pan’s Labyrinth, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2), and Dean Cundey (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Jurassic Park, Apollo 13), among many others.
In a joint venture, Tribeca Enterprises and Lionsgate have launched Tribeca Short List, a new SVOD service which launched October 1. The service offers nearly 150 high quality film titles, rotating a third of them on a monthly basis and curated by a roster of industry experts that include actors, directors, producers, and other insiders. The service also includes the TSL experience, in which stars, filmmakers and fans, dubbed TSL Shortlisters, create their own top film shortlists built around themes, with video commentary and recollections exclusive to the service include with the films. Among the participants are John Leguizamo, Matthew Modine, Filmmaker and producer Morgan Spurlock, and Blumhouse’s Jason Blum.
Shortlisters choose their titles from a mix of films from Lionsgate and Tribeca Enterprises, as well as studios and independents including Magnolia Pictures, Kino Lorber, and Ocilliscope Pictures. Additional distribution deals will be announced shortly. Additional tablets beyond iPad will be available in the coming weeks. The service is available for streaming on the web and mobile devices for $5.99 per month via the official site, with an introductory cost of $4.99 at launch.


Oncor power outage map, there have been power outages in Copperas Cove and the Killeen area during Wednesday morning storms.
">Oncor power outage map, there have been power outages in Copperas Cove and the Killeen area during Wednesday morning storms.
According to the Oncor power outage map , there have been power outages in Copperas Cove and the Killeen area during Wednesday morning storms.
As of 3:11 a.m., reports of outages were also in the Waco area, the Temple area and the Hillsboro area.
More than 600 people have been affected so far.


Wednesday, November 16, 2016 — ABC Radio has released its 2017 content and presenter line-up for 105.7 ABC Darwin.
The new line-up sees two additions to the on-air presenting team and a changed timeslot for Tales from the Tinny.
Two new presenters will join ABC Radio Darwin’s weekend programs. Mikaela Simpson will present Saturday Breakfast (6am – 7.45am). Until the return of Liz Trevaskis in mid-2017, Mikaela will also present Sunday Morning (10am – 12pm), while Maree Yoelu will present Saturday Mornings (8.30am – 11am).
Tales from the Tinny will move to 5pm Friday in order for top end listeners to enjoy the unique humour and larger than life tales on their drive home. It will be repeated at 5am on Saturdays.
Simon Scoble, Local Manager, ABC Darwin, said: “Mikaela and Maree will bring a dynamic energy into our content mix and will help keep us connected to the stories that matter and that are shared in our local community each and every day.
Liz Trevaskis returns to the weekday presenting team from July 2017.


New York|Stop. Hey, What’s That Sound?
If, as the sound artist Stephan Moore likes to say, the laptop has become the 21st-century folk instrument, then the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah has propelled itself to the forefront of that development, commissioning and bringing to its 90-acre campus an exhibition of sound art featuring 10 works by 11 laptop-wielding artists.
“In the Garden of Sonic Delights,” which opened on June 7 and will close on Nov. 2, offers works that, in the folk tradition, address global issues. But the works are also local in the most immediate sense, growing out of their creators’ affinity for specific spots amid Caramoor’s formidable flora and fountains, said Mr. Moore, who is curating and contributed to the show.
A sense of place is clear in Mr. Moore’s piece, “Diacousticon,” a playful commentary on the surveillance state, built in, over and around the Sense Circle fountain. The work refers to the philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon — an influential circular prison design that allows a single watchman to guard all the inmates — with microphones, loudspeakers and robotic instruments attached to the fountain’s circular dovecote. The hardware listens and responds to ambient noise in accordance with an algorithm Mr. Moore created.
“That’s the music of it,” he said.
Not far from the fountain, on an open patch of grass near the picnic area, a piece called “Coronium 3500 (Lucie’s Halo)” was making music that, like that of “Diacousticon,” was playful and reactive to the environment but distinctive in tone and timbre. Powered by the sun, the work, by Scott Smallwood, consisted of 12 devices that, around midday, emitted a chirping, beeping cacophony of melodic patterns drawn from a pentatonic musical scale.
Mr. Smallwood’s focus on the sun was shared by Annea Lockwood’s installation, “Wild Energy.” But her sensibility contrasted markedly with his. Rejecting algorithms, she made solar oscillations — which had been recorded by satellites and sped up 42,000 times to make them audible to humans — the opening of a piece that wove bits of infrasound sped up, and ultrasound slowed down, into a 46-minute tapestry. (Infrasound involves sounds of less than 20 hertz, ultrasound those higher than 20,000 hertz, both outside the range of normal hearing.) Fed through speakers hidden strategically in the dense vegetation near the Cedar Walk, the piece’s darkly rumbling bass overwhelmed Mr. Smallwood’s bright treble tones ringing faintly in the distance.
No such issues detracted from Mr. Bielecki’s third collaboration, “We Fall Like Light.” In it, he and Laurie Anderson transformed a niche at the exhibition’s far east end into a meditation on time, fashioning a modest fountain whose spout, triggered by the recorded croak of a Hudson Valley frog, adjusted the frequency of the water’s flow so that, when viewed through specially adjusted strobe glasses, it appeared to be moving backward. Time seemed to be rewinding and folding in on itself, raising questions about the very nature of narrative.
Such questions were also fodder for Betsey Biggs, who, like Ms. Anderson, offered a watery take on nonlinear narrative. For her “Sunken Gardens,” visitors donned headphones that amplified electromagnetic waves given off by induction loops hidden under Caramoor’s sprawling Sunken Garden. As visitors strolled the garden, they happened on the buried sounds — bubbling bits, spoken-word excerpts from Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and the like — piecing them together and creating their own narrative streams.
Exhibitions that plumb such depths can stretch a budget, and the $400,000 price tag for “Sonic Delights” required some cost savings along with grants and individual contributions, said Jeffrey P. Haydon, the chief executive officer. But, he added, the exhibition will expand Caramoor’s reach; five other artworks are part of the commission, each displayed at a different institution in Westchester County.
More to the point, perhaps, the exhibition could lead to broader programming. Mr. Haydon said that, for example, the Knights, a chamber group with wide-ranging interests, have discussed collaborating with sound artists when they play Caramoor in September.
“That’s the big, ambitious goal,” Mr. Haydon said.
“In the Garden of Sonic Delights,” an exhibition of sound art, is running through Nov. 2 at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, 149 Girdle Ridge Road, Katonah. Tickets: $5 to $15, children free. Information: caramoor.org or (914) 232-5035.


• The Commission did not maintain sufficient controls over the recording and reporting of its property.
• The Commission did not reconcile its property listing to the Quarterly Reports of State Property (C-15s) filed with the Illinois Office of the Comptroller (IOC). A difference of $680 was not reconciled or explained at June 30, 2009.
• The Commission’s property and equipment expenditures processed by the IOC during FY08 and FY09 did not reconcile to additions recorded on the C-15 reports. Property and equipment expenditures totaling $415 during FY08 and $697 during FY09 were never recorded on the property listing of C-15s. Additionally, the Commission listed an addition of $1,286 for the reporting quarter ending December 31, 2007 which was not supported.
• The Commission included computer software and licenses on its property control records. We noted 39 computer software and licensing items totaling $25,342 on the Commission’s property listing as of June 30, 2009.
• The Commission filed the FY08 Annual Real Property Utilization Report 27 days late.
• Three deletions tested (100%), totaling $419, were not recorded on the Commission’s C-15 during the proper quarter. The deletions should have been reported on the quarter ending December 31, 2007, but were not reported on the C-15 until the quarter ending June 30, 2008.
• The Commission did not file a surplus furniture affidavit with the State Surplus Administrator prior to purchasing a new furniture item with a unit price of $853.
We recommended the Commission strengthen internal controls over the recording and reporting of its equipment. Specifically, the Commission should ensure all equipment is accurately and timely record on the Commission’s property records and reconcile its property reports and records to the C-15s and IOC expenditure reports for property on a quarterly basis to ensure completeness and accuracy of its property records. The Commission should also submit its Annual Real Property Utilization Report by October 30th of each year and follow Statewide Accounting management System procedures for completing accounting reports pertaining to Quarterly Reports of State Property. Lastly, the Commission should ensure surplus property affidavits are filed before purchasing new furniture over $500 and submit its Quarterly Reports of State Property by the reporting deadlines.
Commission management agreed with the finding and recommendation.
The remaining finding is reportedly being given attention by Commission management. We will review progress toward implementation of our recommendation during our next examination.
We conducted a compliance examination of the Commission as required by the Illinois State Auditing Act. We have not audited any financial statements of the Office for the purpose of expressing an opinion because the Office does not, nor is it required to, prepare financial statements.


Why can’t I part with my thesaurus?
I recently moved. Among the 87 tubs and boxes of unsorted crud left over from bygone moves, several hold my prized book collection.
My book-apportionment project reminded me of a classic “Seinfeld” line.
Why do people need them? To show off, of course.
As I separated the “keep” from the “don’t keep,” though, I realized I have very few status symbols. I have 14 Vonnegut paperbacks, and lesser-known nonfiction titles, such as “How to Write a Weekly Column Without Talent,” but nothing to wow the guests.
It’s impossible to impress people with a paperback collection, even if you own a copy of “Iliad.” You must have the hardcover.
But beware. If you haven’t read these trophy-books, you could get caught in a discommodious confabulation.
At that point, you’ve been had, and you must lie.
“Yep, great book,” you say.
At one time, it was possible to awe visitors with reference materials. An expensive set of encyclopedias provided literary decor, and you didn’t have to read no books.
But the thesaurus has never served that purpose. And I realized I haven’t opened mine in years. As a “writer,” you’d imagine I’d want to “spruce up” my “prose” quite often.


Jeff Bridges is reprising one of his most iconic roles!
Fans of The Big Lebowski had plenty of reason to be excited on Thursday, when Bridges himself tweeted out a teaser featuring himself in character as Jeff Lebowski, aka The Dude. The teaser announced the date of "2.3.19" -- the date of this year's Super Bowl.
"Can’t be living in the past, man," Bridges wrote. "Stay tuned."
Last October, Bridges reunited with his Big Lebowski co-stars John Goodman and Steve Buscemi, for the film's 20-year anniversary during a segment on the Today show. All three actors said they loved the script immediately after reading it, which revolves around Lebowski getting assaulted when he's mistaken for a millionaire of the same name, and later, getting into a whole lot of trouble after he seeks out his namesake and gets further involved in shady dealings. Along the way, he enlists his bowling buddies (Goodman and Buscemi) for help.
Goodman noted that the film is still getting new fans as time goes on.
Clearly, Bridges has fond memories of the film, tweeting out a photo of their reunion.
"Missing some of our cast here, but it was a blast getting back together with John and Steve for the 20th Anniversary of #TheBigLebowski," he wrote.
Earlier this month, the 69-year-old actor received the Cecil B. DeMille Award at this year's Golden Globes. He again reflected on the beloved film.
"If I'm lucky, I'll be associated with The Dude for the rest of my life, and I feel so honored to be a part of that movie," Bridges said.


Washington Post Associate Editor Anne Kornblut delivered the commencement address to journalism and communication graduates at the Department of Communication’s departmental ceremony on June 14.
Kornblut, who was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford this year, gave career advice for those entering the journalism world and recalled experiences from her own career.
“Those of you going into journalism are arriving at a time of much greater opportunity,” Kornblut told the group of students, faculty and families on the lawn of Stanford’s Memorial Court.
Kornblut was part the team at the Post that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of NSA surveillance and Edward Snowden. She has previously worked at The New York Times, The Boston Globe and began her journalism career at the New York Daily News.
Read Kornblut’s entire speech below and on The Washington Post’s website.
ANNE KORNBLUT: Thank you so much to Jay Hamilton and the Stanford Department of Communication for inviting me here today. And thank you to Jim Bettinger, of the Knight Program, for bringing me to Stanford for the last year. Most importantly, congratulations to all of you. What an achievement.
My first job in journalism was at the New York Daily News. It was, and is, a tabloid in the best sense of the word. We covered what we called the three Ms — murder, mayhem and Madonna. We snuck behind police lines at crime scenes. We called in tips from pay phones. And at midnight we would go to Times Square to wait for the competing papers to be delivered to a newsstand. It was a terrific first job — and a great time for newspapers, which were flush with advertising revenue and had no competition from the Internet. People look back on those years, in the mid-1990s, as a heyday for print.
But let me tell you this: those of you going into journalism are arriving at a time of much greater opportunity.
Of course there are uncertainties — which you have heard all about. The decline of local news…the disappearance of print advertising…the proliferation of listicles, and clickbait. I’m sure a few parents of graduates have watched these trends with interest.
You may have heard that all this technology, all this scale, is rendering traditional journalism obsolete. Anyone can post a news story on Twitter, or livestream video of an event using Periscope. Anyone can throw a document up online. And that is true. But something else is also true: often the most important stories are literally too dangerous for witnesses to just post on Facebook, or too secret for the people who know them to share. The hardest stories are ones that people cannot tell in the first person, for fear of retribution…or don’t want to tell, for fear they won’t be believed.
Let me give you two recent examples I had the honor of working on up close.
The first, Jay mentioned already. Two years ago, a young NSA contractor named Edward Snowden became outraged by what he saw working at the agency, and decided the public needed to know about widespread phone surveillance that had never been disclosed. Snowden obviously had the technical skills to write this up himself on a blog. But he believed news that explosive had to come with extra credibility. So he brought the documents to reporters, ones he sought out because he trusted them, and that he believed the world would trust, too.
A short time after that, a colleague of mine at the Post, Carol Leonnig, started breaking stories about problems within the Secret Service. Agents were drinking on the job… or failing to do their jobs at all. A gunman shot at the White House residence while the president’s daughters were home, and no one noticed until the bullet holes were found several days later. Carol’s information came from people with firsthand knowledge…people who took great risks to share the stories with her…people who could never tell these stories themselves without being prosecuted. So Carol became the messenger. Her reporting forced a major overhaul at the Secret Service, and in my view helped make the president safer. It also won her a Pulitzer prize.
These are examples of what we still call real journalism — and there are so many of them for you to go and find in the years ahead.
First, Listen more than you talk. This is the key to good reporting, and also a good life practice. Most importantly, it will spare you having to cringe as you listen back over interview recordings wondering why you said all those things.
Second, show up in person. Stories won’t come looking for you. The people you interview will give you more if they know you made an effort. The same is true of bosses. I got my first full-time job by finding an empty desk in the breaking news part of the newsroom where I wanted to work — and where I had been told I couldn’t get a job because I was too inexperienced. I sat there until finally one day, a story broke, and there was no one else available.
Third, everyone knows something someday. Be polite to people.
Fourth, the news will always be there.
Oh, it’s addictive, alright. On election night in 2012, I was 10 months pregnant. I was 70 pounds bigger than I am now, and six days away from my daughter being born. Everyone in the newsroom was worried that I would have the baby right there. But you know what I was worried about? Missing the next day‘s story, and the inauguration, and everything else that would follow. I stayed at work until 2 a.m., trying to hold on to every last thread. And you know what? I went into labor the following Monday, and returned from work 5 months later…to even bigger stories, including Snowden.
The fear of missing out is a powerful force, and sometimes it feels like journalists invented it. We love to be where the action is. But it also takes its toll, especially in a 24-hour news cycle, and it can be a distraction from your long-term goals. Set your own priorities, follow your own gut. If it means missing a story here or there…well…there will always be another story.
THANK YOU. And congratulations, again.


The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency announced the launch of an online tool this week, making the data water systems are now required to report about materials, such as lead, in service lines search-able.
The database, available on the agency’s website, contains numbers from the first cycle of reporting as set out in a 2017 amendment to the Illinois Environmental Protection Act. The information is on 3.7 million service lines in 1,659 of the state’s 1,743 community water systems.
The agency has received reports from 53 of the 54 community water systems across Brown, Cass, Greene, Morgan, Pike and Scott counties, according to spokeswoman Kim Biggs. The Patterson water system in Greene County is missing from the data.
Statewide, there are more than 400,000 lead service lines and more than 300,000 copper service lines that may have been constructed with lead solder. Service lines connect the water mains in the system to buildings, like houses and businesses.
There are 1,911 lead service lines and 532 copper lines that may have lead solder in Brown, Cass, Greene, Morgan, Pike and Scott counties. Of South Jacksonville’s 1,550 retail connections, there are 1,000 lead service lines and 400 copper lines that may have lead solder.
Lead, which was commonly used in the construction of water lines and plumbing for decades, was banned nationwide in 1986. Pipes, pipe and plumbing fixtures, solder and flux still in existence that contain lead were installed prior to the ban, more than 30 years ago.
In January 2017, the Illinois Environmental Protection Act was amended to require annual reporting of water distribution system material inventories by identifying the total number of service lines, the number of known lead service lines and the number of lead service lines added to the inventory year over year.
Other types of materials used in service lines include galvanized piping, plastic and copper.
Those numbers may be lower in next year’s report. The Illinois EPA is adding material categories — ductile or cast iron and transite — which were materials inventoried as unknown for 2017’s numbers. The agency has also heard from officials from some water systems that are working to identify materials used in their “unknown” lines.
Bruce McKee, Pittsfield’s Gas and Water Department superintendent, said any time his department comes across a lead service line, they totally replace it, take it out of service and document the location. However, especially for some of the very old water lines, they don’t know what it will be until they dig into it.
Pittsfield has 50 lead service lines and 625 categorized as “unknown.” McKee believes the majority of the lead lines are concentrated around the square — the oldest part of town.
“We’ve not really run into any to speak of once we got a block or two away from the square,” he said.
Changes to the law made alongside the service line reporting in 2017 require potentially affected customers to be notified of work on the system that may cause elevated contaminants in the system and created water-testing requirements specific to schools and day cares, according to the Illinois Rural Water Association.
McKee said Pittsfield’s system is meeting EPA standards in its water testing, but he expects changes to those benchmarks are on the horizon.
“Right now, we’re meeting the EPA requirements, but that is going to change and there will come a time where we will have to go service by service until we feel like we’ve gotten (the lead lines) eliminated,” he said.
“That’s just going to be the way it is and it’s only going to make a better drinking supply years down the road,” he said.


John McCain: Adding LGBT Protections to Immigration Bill Would Be Like Adding "Taxpayer-Funded Abortion"
Senator John McCain (L), R-AZ, and Chuck Schumer (R), D-NY, take part in Politico’s Playbook Breakfast series January 30, 2013 at the W Hotel in Washington, DC.
At a breakfast sponsored by Politico, a shy and retiring John McCain and Chuck Schumer got into a few specifics about how immigration reform could move through Congress.
Easily said, not easily done. Republicans talk about this year’s first two big votes, on the “fiscal cliff” and on Hurricane Sandy relief, as outliers. They can’t break the “Hastert rule” on picayune social issues! But McCain admitted that immigration reform may only pass if they’re willing to pad their bloc with Democratic votes.
There were very few questions about potential poison pills, or “triggers,” which could sink the bill. All McCain said was that the “group of eight” (I still prefer Octogang, per my colleague Matt Yglesias) would band together to kill amendments that could kill the bill. Politico’s Mike Allen asked whether LGBT protections, part of the president’s framework, could be included in the bill.


SALT LAKE CITY—Three Utah cases are included in "Operation Broken Trust," a nationwide operation targeting investment fraud announced today by Attorney General Eric Holder in Washington, D.C. Operation Broken Trust is the first nationwide operation of its kind to target a broad array of investment fraud schemes that directly prey upon the investing public.
The interagency Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force was established by the president to lead an aggressive, coordinated, and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes. Starting on Aug. 16, 2010, to date Operation Broken Trust has involved enforcement actions against 343 criminal defendants and 189 civil defendants for fraud schemes involving more than 120,000 victims throughout the country. The operation’s criminal cases involved more than $8.3 billion in estimated losses and the civil cases involved estimated losses of more than $2.1 billion.
"With this operation, the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force is sending a strong message," said Attorney General Holder. "To the public: be alert for these frauds, take appropriate measures to protect yourself, and report such schemes to proper authorities when they occur. And to anyone operating or attempting to operate an investment scam: cheating investors out of their earnings and savings is no longer a safe business plan. We will use every tool at our disposal to find you, to stop you, and to bring you to justice."
U.S. Attorney Carlie Christensen also emphasized the importance of aggressive prosecution of investment scams coupled with education efforts targeting potential investors. "We will vigorously investigate and prosecute these matters to the full extent of the law, but widespread education about the way these crimes work accomplishes our most important goal—prevention of crimes before there are victims."
Christensen encourages individuals to act with caution when considering investments. "A prudent investor will always do appropriate due diligence before investing money. Report investment offers that promise an unrealistic rate of return to law enforcement agencies. Investment opportunities that promise high rates of return with guarantees of little or no risk should be a huge warning sign," Christensen said. She added that even savvy investors can become victims of fraud. Investors should document and keep all records related to their investments.
The president’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force includes representatives from a broad range of federal agencies, regulatory authorities, inspectors general, and state and local law enforcement who, working together, bring to bear a powerful array of criminal and civil enforcement resources. The task force is working to improve efforts across the federal executive branch, and with state and local partners, to investigate and prosecute significant financial crimes, ensure just and effective punishment for those who perpetrate financial crimes, combat discrimination in the lending and financial markets, and recover proceeds for victims of financial crimes. For more information on the task force, visit StopFraud.gov.
Bruce S. Frank, age 54, of New York, is charged with wire fraud and money laundering in a 13-count indictment unsealed in November following an investigation by the FBI. According to the indictment, Frank was a resident of New York and a licensed attorney. The indictment alleges Frank devised a scheme to induce individuals to invest money with him for purported use in a Swiss-based loan program, knowing full well that investor funds would be diverted and used for his personal benefit and for purposes other than the Swiss loan program, including wire transfers to bank accounts held by third-party entities or individuals in China, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Canada. Frank made one or more representations to investors about the Swiss loan program, including telling them it was safe and secure; investors’ principal would remain in the Swiss account throughout the loan period; and that he would pledge his law license on the security of the Swiss account and the investment. Frank also told investors they would receive a 10 or 15 percent monthly return on their investment. The indictment alleges Frank’s financial arrangement was a Ponzi scheme. Frank used new investors’ principal to pay old investors returns for a few months. Some investors rolled their "returns" back into their investment. Many investors received no returns and virtually all investors lost their principal. From around April 2007 to around November 2007, more than $1.5 million was invested with Frank for use in the Swiss loan program.
Christopher D. Hales, age 29, of Midvale was charged in a 10-count indictment unsealed in September with mail, wire, and bank fraud, and money laundering, in connection with an alleged mortgage fraud scheme. The indictment involves two properties, one in Lindon and one in Salt Lake City. The indictment alleges Hales and other unindicted co-conspirators executed a scheme to produce income from false appraisals to artificially inflate the purchase price of residences. Hales arranged to purchase the homes through straw buyers, and took the false equity proceeds stemming from those sales for himself and his co-conspirators, according to the indictment. The case is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development - Office of Inspector General, the FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. A six-day jury trial is set for Feb. 22, 2011, before U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart.
Jolee M, Tibbitts, 42, whose last known address was in Florida, was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison on Oct. 27, 2010, after pleading guilty to wire fraud in connection with an investment scheme involving property she claimed to own on the Island of Molokai"s in Hawaii. Tibbitts told investors the land had been divided into five-acre parcels and that the parcels included beach front and interior properties at a price of $15,000 per parcel. She described a scheme to investors which would allow them to make a quick profit of $30,000. During the scheme period, approximately 42 investors paid her about $1.2 million. Tibbitts owned no property on Moloka’i. She used approximately $187,000 of investor funds to pay back about eight investors. She used the remaining investor funds for her personal use, including purchasing a new truck, domestic travel and various other expenses. She lulled investors into a false sense of security through a series of excuses, including real estate sales take longer in Hawaii; investor money had been stolen from escrow and she needed time to sort the matter out; and sales proceeds can only be paid in small amounts. Tibbitts was ordered to pay $1,012,500 in restitution in the case. The Tibbitts case was investigated by the FBI.
Utah residents who would like to learn more about investment scams, how to take steps to protect themselves from scams, or how to report investment fraud if they believe they may have been victimized can visit StopFraud.gov, which includes links to a wide array of resources. Anyone interested in learning how to spot fraud can also visit the Salt Lake City FBI’s web page at http://saltlakecity.fbi.gov to watch a six-minute educational video about fraud and to learn warning signs of many common fraud schemes.


Called Up Baseball Camp, open to children ages 5 to 14, is slated from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Dec. 29 to 31at La Mirada High School.
The cost is $125. Scholarships and discounts are available.
The camp’s director is Ben Orr, a former La Mirada High School standout and Chicago Cubs farm hand.
For information, call (562) 686-8262 or visit www.calledupbaseball.com.


St. Patrick, the apostle and patron of Ireland, died in A.D. 461. He was greatly venerated from early times. At the famous shrines of Lough Derg in Donegal and Croagh Patrick in Mayo he is honored by the hard and almost heroic penance the faithful perform in imitation of his own fasting, mortification, and prayers.
In the course of centuries the veneration of St. Patrick also became identified with the patriotic and national ideals of the Irish people. Thus, March 17 is not only a religious holy day for them but their greatest national holiday as well. The popular celebration on St. Patrick's Day consists of traditional details which have also found their way to the New World: attendance at Mass in the morning, a solemn parade with subsequent meetings and speeches, festive meals in the home, and an evening of entertainment.
During the time of suppression by the English, the common people of Ireland were quite poor indeed, and many of them did not have enough food supplies left over from the previous harvest for the feast. They had to resort to their all-year staple-potatoes in order to "stretch" the festive meal. Thus, potato dishes became a traditional part of St. Patrick's Day dinner, and for many other feast days, such as Halloween/All Saints Day.
Cook potatoes in boiling salted water in saucepan; mash; set aside.
Cook cabbage in boiling salted water in saucepan; mash; set aside.
Sauté onions in 2 tablespoons butter in a deep saucepan for 5 minutes. Add potatoes, cabbage, salt, pepper, milk. Beat until well blended and smooth. Place piece of butter on top of each portion when serving. Eat with spoon from outside in, dipping each bite into melted butter.


MELANIE Brown is currently in the process of divorcing her husband of ten years Stephen Belafonte, and now nanny Lorraine Gilles' name has been brought into the ordeal.
The Spice Girl reportedly filed for divorce from husband Stephen Belafonte mid-March 2017.
Abuse claims on behalf of Melanie Brown — better known by her stage name as Mel B — alleged the Hollywood presenter "punched", "choked" and "slammed her to the floor".
Lorraine Gilles, who was previously nanny to the 41-year-old's three children Phoenix, 18, Angel, 10, and Madison, 5, is now also at the centre on the messy divorce process, as Mel B alleged her estranged husband got Lorraine pregnant.
From the former X Factor judge's affair and abortion claims to Lorraine's own love life, here's what you need to know about the serrated couple's nanny.
The 26-year-old worked for the Brown-Belafonte family for years, as the couple welcomed their first child together in September 2011.
The German nanny appeared to have a close relationship with the couple, as the celebs' social media pictures showed her posing with Mel, Stephen and the children in a series of snaps.
One picture even showed Melanie kissing Lorraine on the check and sending her birthday wishes, showing just how intimate their relationship had once been.
As the world famous singer files for divorce from the father of her youngest child, more details about their private life are emerging.
In the divorce papers, Mel B reportedly claims the nanny fell pregnant with her husband's baby, and that Stephen wanted "all three of us to live together".
Mel claims he then changed his mind and proceeded to pay her (with the Spice Girl's money) to abort the baby.
In her legal documents to the court, Mel alleges Stephen would degrade the singer by comparing the two and was angered when the singer finally fired the nanny in 2015.
Speaking to TMZ on camera, the 41-year-old dad denied Mel's claims. He said: "I haven't heard these allegations. You know what my comment on this is, as this is the mother of my children?"
Stephen continued: "I'm really really distraught my brain how this is going to affect our children. and the depths that she's gone to. That's it. I'm shocked at those allegations and that's what it is."
But what does the nanny at the centre of the sticky divorce have to say?
Lorraine hasn't spoken about the high-profile dispute to date, but her sister has.
According to sis Jacqueline Baartz, the allegations hold no truth and in fact the 26-year-old beauty is happily married.
Jacqueline told The Sun: "My sister and I are very, very close and I would have known about this, believe me."
She continued: “She never was involved sexually with him. I don’t know where this is coming from. She worked for the family for seven years and had nothing but positive experiences... I am shocked to hear of this side of a relationship because it was not one that was displayed to us."
Mel's former nanny is married to events manager Michael Bleau, 32, and they currently live together in LA.


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A former New Brunswick lieutenant-governor says he'll return his Order of Canada in protest of Dr. Henry Morgentaler being named to the order.
Gilbert Finn, 87, who served as the province's lieutenant-governor from 1987-94, said he doesn't hold the same values as Morgentaler, a leading abortion rights advocate in Canada.
A former rector at the University of Moncton and a leading Acadian businessman, Finn became a member of the Order of Canada in 1974 and an officer in 1979.
That distinction is tarnished by Morgentaler's appointment, Finn said.
"I've sent a note to the prime minister and to the Governor General saying that since Dr. Morgentaler is now a member of the order, I'm returning my insignia and no longer want to be part of the order," Finn told Radio-Canada in French.
Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean named Morgentaler as a member of the order on July 1 for his services to women and for leadership in the fields of humanism and civil liberties. The controversial appointment was made on the advice of the independent Order of Canada selection committee.
On Wednesday, anti-abortionists gathered in front of Rideau Hall, Jean's official residence in Ottawa, to protest Morgentaler's appointment. At the same time, members of a Newfoundland and Labrador anti-abortion group held a protest rally in front of the home of the lieutenant-governor in St. John's.
Morgentaler, 85, is a Polish-born Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Montreal after the war and opened an abortion clinic in 1969, where he performed thousands of what were then illegal abortion procedures.
A family physician, Morgentaler argued that access to abortion was a basic human right and that women should not have to risk death at the hands of an untrained professional in order to end their pregnancies.
Morgentaler's clinics were often raided by police, and one in Toronto was firebombed.
Morgentaler was arrested several times and spent months in jail as he fought his case at all court levels in Canada.
In January 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down Canada's abortion law, which required women who wanted an abortion to appeal to a three-doctor hospital abortion committee.
The Madonna House, which has soup kitchens and retreats in seven countries, has also returned the Order of Canada that was given to its deceased founder Catherine Doherty.
B.C. priest Lucien Larré has also returned his Order of Canada in protest of Morgentaler's appointment.


Disney (DIS) calls Mickey the most valuable franchise in the world. The most famous mouse keeps a high profile by starring in TV series on the Disney Channel, in restored versions of classic cartoons and is the face of its theme parks. Mickey products are extensively licensed. A sizable assortment of "all things Mickey" is sold in 350 Disney stores worldwide.


The biggest victims in the Rep. Anthony Weiner sexting soap opera may turn out to be his loyal staff. The staff has received two body blows in the saga: First, they were lied to, and soon, they’re likely to be unemployed.
Weiner, D-N.Y., spent a week lying to staff about Twittering crotch shots of himself to a female college student. The staff marshaled its forces and worked on his behalf to spread the message that the congressman’s account had been hacked, the New York Post reported.
Anthony Weiner It was only after days of conversations and tough questioning that top advisers came to the conclusion he had indeed sent the photo and was covering it up.
"He was alternately combative, wanting to fight this," one insider describes the unfolding saga to the Post. "He was frequently very distressed by his own actions and how they affected people who were close to him — first and foremost, (his wife) Huma and their families. And then at other times, witty, funny, bantering with people."
The agony is still not over for the staff that remains employed, for now. Until Weiner submits letters to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, D-N.Y., and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and the letter is read on the House floor, he is still a member of Congress. Those letters could come as soon as Tuesday, The Washington Post reported.
However, the staff will stay on for the short term. Both the House and Senate have provisions in place for the staff should a member of Congress resign, die, or be expelled from office.
When a member of the House leaves, the staff then answers to the clerk of the House. Instead of working for a person who represents a congressional district, in Weiner’s case New York’s 9th, the staff works directly for the district. The congressman’s name is removed from the door and phones are answered with the name of the district.
The staff stays on to provide constituent services in Washington and the district offices, on such things as dealing with federal agencies or veteran’s benefits. There is no voting power and the staff can stay on until the swearing in of a new member.
The new member has the power to fire or keep any previous employee. In the Senate, staffers only keep their jobs for 60 days as employees of the secretary of the Senate, according to the Post.


Sharif says parliament to take the decision on 60 judges, including chief justice.
"With a little give-and-take they have been able to set aside their differences," Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said.
But the coalition partners are still divided over the president.
"We will continue our struggle to rid this new democratic era of Pervez Musharraf," said Sharif, whom then-General Musharraf forced from power in a coup in October 1999.
"We will continue our struggle to rid this new democratic era of Pervez Musharraf"
Sharif's party is pushing for Musharraf's impeachment, while the PPP only wants him stripped of extra-constitutional powers passed under emergency rule last November.
The PPP also wants to link the restoration of judges to a proposed package of judicial reforms that could limit the powers of Chaudhry and prevent judges from getting involved in politics.
Zardari accused the deposed chief justice and other judges of "playing politics" and failing to deliver justice to him during the years he spent in jail on alleged corruption charges.
Musharraf removed Chaudhry when the supreme court was preparing to rule on the legality of his October election by the previous parliament to a new five-year presidential term.
Musharraf accused Chaudhry of corruption and conspiring against him and political plans.
Chaudhry is considered by many as an "independent-minded" judge, who has blocked numerous government privatisation deals and investigated complaints that the country's spy agencies were holding opposition activists secretly under the pretext of the so-called "war on terror".
The PML-Q, Pakistan's main pro-Musharraf party, has said it will work on its own proposal for restoring the judiciary and consider joining a new ruling coalition if the current one breaks up.


Reggae band EarthKry has announced the dates for their highly anticipated Survival Winter tour.
The tour, expected to start in January 2018, will see the band performing at four shows in Jamaica before making stops in several states across the United States.
The first show is expected to get under way on January 20 in Kingston before heading to Negril on January 22, and then back to Kingston on January 27 and 28.
The band will then perform at a series of shows in the US starting on February 3, with the first stop in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The band is booked until March, but with more dates to be announced for the tour, it is uncertain when the group will wrap up their second round of shows.
This tour is the second series of shows the band will be making since the release of their debut album Survival. The first tour saw them making the rounds in Europe in the summer.
The band says they are looking forward to hitting the road again as they seek to once more establish a deeper connection between them and their fans.


THE GRAND procession for the Royal Cremation of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej will comprise six separate processions of Royal chariots and palaquins.
It will be the first time in 67 years that the public will witness the meticulous tradition of the third procession of the Royal Gun carriage, or Rajarot Puen Yai.
The Rajarot Puen Yai is used in the royal cremation of a king or a high-ranking member of the Royal Family who held a military position. It has been used during ceremonies to carry the Royal Urn on three counter-clockwise rounds of the Royal Crematorium.
The use of this chariot was introduced in the reign of King Vajiravudh (Rama VI), to replace the traditional use of Phra Yannamas Sam Lam Khan (a palanquin with three poles). In response to the wishes of King Vajiravudh, King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) ordered the use of the Rajarot Puen Yai to carry the Royal Urn for King Vajiravudh around the Royal Crematorium.
Rajarot Puen Yai was used for the last time in the Royal Cremation of King Ananda Mahidol (Rama VIII) in 1950.
The Royal Gun carriage, comprising two carts known as a limber and a caisson, represents that His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej was the supreme commander of the country’s armed forces.
The front cart has been newly built, but the back cart is a restoration of the “Mountain 51” gun carriage with the registered number 21863 and the substitution carriage number 21866.
The Royal Thai Army Ordnance Department in Nakhon Ratchasima undertook the restoration.
The new Royal Gun carriage has been fitted with a third wheel to enhance its strength and ability to balance.
Decorations in traditional style have been designed by Fine Art Department artist Chanayotin Aupaluck. He says the design derives from original drawings made by Prince Narisara Nuwattiwong for the Rajarot Puen Yai Rang Kwean used in the funeral of King Rama VI.
The motifs have been hand-carved in teak.
“The traditional motifs include the lotus, used to decorate the base, and singha for each post of the base, which will hold the royal urn. Other krajang motifs are used for the wheels and along the carriage,” Chanayotin says.
The Royal Gun carriage weighs more than 1,000 kilograms, is 1.85 metres high and seven metres long. It will take about 40 men to pull it.


(Reuters) - Schlumberger NV (SLB.N) on Friday reported first-quarter profit that scraped past estimates, but the stock fell 1.3 percent on a drop in oil prices and a jump in costs for the oilfield services provider.
Schlumberger, a bellwether for the oilfield services and drilling industries, said global oil supply and demand were in balance and that investments in exploration and production were expected to rise about 5 percent internationally.
The absence of normal seasonal softness indicated that supply and demand were in balance, and combined with “increased geopolitical risk” had driven up oil prices,” Chief Executive Paal Kibsgaard said on a call with analysts.
Oilfield service companies have benefited from a jump in U.S crude prices CLc1 to around $67 a barrel but providers such as Schlumberger and Halliburton (HAL.N) had signaled to investors that freezing weather in parts of the United States and frack sand delivery delays would be a negative on first-quarter results.
Overcapacity in the pressure pumping market also dampened earnings. Kibsgaard warned that the shale industry could face production challenges from drilling wells too close together, leading to lower output per well, and as producers move to less optimal areas.
Despite the headwinds, Schlumberger’s profit rose to $525 million, or 38 cents per share, in the quarter, from $279 million, or 20 cents, a year earlier.
Excluding items, it earned 38 cents per share, beating analysts’ estimate of 37 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Schlumberger’s results were “fairly in line after expectations had already been tempered,” Capital One Securities analysts wrote in a note on Friday.
Schlumberger expects to see growth in the North American pressure pumping market, but warned that its ability to raise prices would be constrained amid capacity additions.
The company anticipates add 1 million extra hydraulic horsepower this year, but deployed fewer frack fleets than anticipated in the quarter due to softer pricing and deployments by competitors.
Consultancy Rystad Energy estimates that some 3.3 million of hydraulic horsepower were added last year, and another 3.3 million will be added this year.
Schlumberger revenue from North America soared nearly 52 percent to $2.84 billion. However, the total cost of manufacturing products and delivering services rose nearly 12 percent to $6.80 billion.
Revenue from international operations, the company’s biggest segment, fell 0.8 percent to $4.88 billion.
Total revenue rose to $7.83 billion from $6.89 billion.
Revenue fell in Latin America on delays on a project in Ecuador and decreased activity in Argentina. Activity in Venezuela continued to decline.
Shares of Schlumberger fell 92 cents at $69.37.


Kate Middleton and Prince William look-a-likes boogied down the aisle to exchange vows in a T-mobile commercial. Prince Charles, Camilla Parker Bowles, Prince Harry, and even Queen Elizabeth II got their groove on too.
Click the video to watch the royal impersonators raise the roof of the cathedral.


In each of the races for state legislative seats that represent the Springfield area, the winning candidate spent more money than their opponent, according to recently filed campaign reports.
The contest between state Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, and his Republican challenger, Seth McMillan of Taylorville, was the most costly local race.
Campaign reports show Manar spent over $2.1 million in the last half of 2018, compared to $46,722 for McMillan. Manar spent much of the money on paying people for campaign work and advertising.
Manar also raised just short of $2 million during the same time period, dwarfing McMillan’s $41,220. Manar won the race 57 percent to 43 percent.
Kent Redfield, a political science professor emeritus for the University of Illinois Springfield, said smart incumbents will still raise money during campaign season.
“The best opponent is no opponent,” Redfield said. If one candidate wants to seriously discourage another one from running, a good way to do that is by raising a lot of money, he added.
One of Manar’s biggest contributions came from the Illinois Democratic Heartland Committee, a fund designed to help elect downstate Democrats to the state Senate. They gave him a total of $613,277, according to campaign reports.
The group also gave Manar $51,493 in in-kind contributions for research and campaign work. The Illinois Federation of Teachers gave him $52,000, while the Operating Engineers Political Education Committee gave him $55,400.
The campaign of new state Rep. Mike Murphy, R-Springfield, spent $41,783 in the last half of the year, outspending his opponent, Democrat Marc Bell, by more than $20,000. Murphy, who represents the 99th House District, raised $40,223. Bell raised $18,910 and spent $21,456.27. Murphy got 59 percent of the vote on Nov. 6.
In the 96th District, Rep. Sue Scherer, D-Decatur, spent $107,259.21, while her opponent, Republican Herman Senor, spent $23,888.99.
Altogether, Scherer raised $94,393.02 since July 1, more than four times as much as Senor raised. Scherer’s biggest PAC contribution from the last two quarters came from the Illinois Political Action Committee for Education, which gave her $30,000. Scherer won with 61 percent of the vote.
In the 95th District, Rep. Avery Bourne, R-Raymond, spent $82,120 and raised $50,373 in the last half of 2018. One of her biggest supporters was the Downstate Operators Joint Labor-Management PAC, which gave her $7,500. A bulk of Bourne’s in-kind contributions were $5,378 to the House Republican Organization for payroll and travel expenses.
The Democratic candidate in that race, Dillon Clark, raised $26,847.83. The Illinois Education Committee was his biggest PAC donor, giving him $10,000 from July through December. Clark spent $40,716.20. Bourne was victorious with 60 percent of the vote.
“The story in central Illinois was pretty much incumbents winning and raising more money in districts that pretty much favored their political party,” Redfield said.


Tokyo — Asian equities steadied on Wednesday as investors awaited Federal Reserve policy guidance and the outcome of high-level trade talks between the US and China, while drawing relief from Apple’s earnings.
The pound smarted from the previous day’s sharp fall as British MPs rejected most amendments that sought to avoid Britain leaving the EU without a deal, reviving worries of a chaotic withdrawal from the EU.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was little changed. Japan’s Nikkei was an outlier, dropping 0.5%.
US S&P 500 e-mini futures tacked on 0.2%, after Apple shares rose 5.7% after the bell as the iPhone maker reported sharp growth in its services business.
Investors were relieved that there was no fresh bad news after the company shocked financial markets at the start of this month when its rare revenue warning sparked fears the US-China trade tensions were taking a toll on the tech sector.
CEO Tim Cook, who is in regular contact with US President Donald Trump, also said trade tension between the US and China is easing in January.
That helped boost optimism around current high-level trade talks between the two countries, even though many investors remain sceptical about whether the economic giants can bridge differences over a number of issues, such as intellectual property rights and technology transfers.
Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He is in Washington this week to meet US officials, including Trump.
US treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Tuesday he expected to see significant progress in talks with Chinese officials and that US charges against telecommunications giant Huawei were a separate issue.
“It seems December was the worst month and since then things might be starting to recover a bit. If we can see more such evidence, market sentiment will be bolstered,” said Nobuhiko Kuramochi, chief strategist at Mizuho Securities.
“Yet, it’s still not clear how strong any such recovery would be. I would bet markets will be range-bound from here,” he said.
Investors are also looking to the outcome of the Federal Reserve’s rates review later in the day, with expectations policymakers will reinforce their recent dovish stance given signs of a slowdown in the US economy.
US interest rate futures are pricing in virtually no change in official rates in 2019.
Investors are looking for hints from chair Jerome Powell on whether he has any inclination to slow the drawdown of the Fed’s balance sheet by up to $50bn a month.
In the currency market, the British pound was on a slippery slope on renewed concerns over a no-deal Brexit.
British MPs on Tuesday instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to reopen a Brexit treaty with the EU to replace a controversial Irish border arrangement — and promptly received a flat rejection from Brussels.
“The possibilities of no Brexit and of an extension of the Article 50 deadline have fallen. Markets may be under-estimating the chances that we could have a hard Brexit,” said Takafumi Yamawaki, head of Japan forex and rates research at JPMorgan Securities.
The pound, which fell 0.67% on Tuesday, was last up 0.2% at $1.3095, off three-month highs of $1.3218 touched on Friday.
Other major currencies were little moved. The euro changed hands at $1.1438, having risen to a two-week high of $1.14505 on Tuesday.
The dollar was steady against the yen at ¥109.37.
The Australian dollar gained 0.5% to $0.7192 after a reading on domestic inflation proved not to be as weak as bears had bet.
Gold rose 0.15% to eight-and-a-half-month highs of $1,314.3/oz, helped by flight-to-quality bids amid various tensions around the world.
In addition to US-China trade worries, demand for gold has also been driven by concerns about a disruptive Brexit and political turmoil in Venezuela, which could increase Washington’s diplomatic hostilities towards Russia and China.
Oil prices held firm after the US imposed sanctions on state-owned Venezuelan oil company PDVSA, a move likely to reduce the Opec member’s crude exports and relieve some global oversupply worries.
US crude futures rose more than 2% on Tuesday and last stood at $53.46 a barrel, up 0.3%.
Chinese iron ore futures jumped nearly 6%, hitting their daily upside limit, after Brazil’s Vale said it was cutting output following a deadly tailings dam disaster.
The most traded iron ore on the Dalian Commodity Exchange rose to 589 yuan ($87.51) a tonne, the highest since early September 2017.


The man later identified as, Douglas Perryman, 64, did not have permission to be on property or inside of the vehicles and also had pliers in his possession at the time officers had contact with him.
He was charged with Vehicle Burglary, Criminal Trespass, and Possession Of Burglary Tools. Bond was set at $1500. Perryman has previous criminal history involving burglary, theft, traffic violations, and unlawful drug paraphernalia.
The second burglary took place February 10th, around 8:30pm at the 800 block of Peachers Mill Road. A car owner went outside to check his Ford Mustang after he heard an audible alarm.
He found 14 lug nuts missing from the wheels, but saw no one around the vehicle. Fortunately, an aware neighbor saw a white Dodge Avenger, parked next to the Mustang, leave after the alarm activated.
Also officers saw a Green Nissan Pathfinder leaving the complex as they arrived. Officers tracked down the Dodge Avenger to a Northway Drive address and while on scene, the Nissan Pathfinder arrived.
During the course of the investigation, it was determined that Terelle Douglas and Stephon Tucker were responsible for the Burglary.
Terelle Douglas, 18, was charged with Vehicle Burglary. His bond was set at $10,000.
Stephon Tucker, 21, was charged with Vehicle Burglary and has an out of county warrant from Gallatin, TN for Violation of Probation (Original Charge: Burglary). Tucker’s bond was is set at $50,000.


KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 14 (Reuters) - Malaysia has given foreign-owned insurance companies until April to outline their plans to comply with local shareholding requirements, the central bank said on Thursday.
Bank Negara Malaysia, which regulates insurers, is pushing to enforce a 2009 rule that sets a 70 percent cap on foreign ownership of local insurance businesses. The central bank had issued a directive in 2017 urging insurers to comply.
The bank is expecting insurers to come up with “concrete plans” by early April on how they will comply - via divestments, listings or corporate social responsibility contributions, central bank governor Nur Shamsiah Mohd Yunus told media after announcing Malaysia’s fourth-quarter economic performance.
Cutting back shareholding to increase domestic participation could thrust total deals worth more than $2 billion on foreign players, such as UK-based Prudential, Japan’s Tokio Marine Holdings Inc and Zurich Insurance.
Singapore-based Great Eastern Holdings has opted to contribute 2 billion ringgit ($492 million) to a national health insurance scheme, which the finance minister said was an alternative to complying with the ownership cap.
Foreign insurers have been expanding in Southeast Asian countries, attracted by the strong economic growth, rising middle-class income and lower insurance penetration.


A settlement has been reached, but not yet approved, that would raise the rates of Kentucky American Water's residential customers by 17 percent.
That's less that the 31 percent the company asked for last fall, but it comes with a warning that a much larger increase could be on the way as early as next year.
In testimony filed with the Public Service Commission, Kentucky American says the proposed settlement provides less money to pay for a controversial new $162 million treatment plant and pipeline that is expected to be completed in 2010.
The company said it would be back to ask for that money after the project comes on line.
The settlement would bring in an additional $10.3 million a year, $1.5 million of which would go toward the project. The plant and pipeline project is designed to meet Lexington's water supply needs through 2030. It is about 40 percent complete. The company has said it expects the project to eventually add $8 to $10 a month to the average customer's monthly bill.
When the rate increase request was filed last year, Kentucky American said it wanted part of that money now to prevent the "rate shock" of asking for enough for the entire project later.
In the settlement agreement, the attorney general, the city of Lexington and the Community Action Council agreed that they would not object to the next rate increase on the grounds of "rate shock" for the project.
The PSC regulates water, gas, sewer, electricity and telecommunications utilities. It is led by three commissioners who are appointed by the governor. The commissioners are David Armstrong, the chairman, who is a former Louisville mayor; Jim Gardner, the vice chairman, a former Lexington councilman and Fayette County school board member; and John W. Clay, a Lexington resident and former executive director and chairman of the state's Alcohol Beverage Control Board.


Don’t know the graduate next to you? You’re not alone. One-third of students take at least one class online.
Two decades ago, when I was a student in a part-time master’s degree program at Johns Hopkins University, I would hurry from my office twice a week to make class, hoping like many of my classmates for a few minutes to grab coffee and a bite to eat before settling in for the 2 1/2-hour seminars.
Next week, when I address the graduating class of the same school, most of them will probably be meeting face to face for the first time at commencement: Seventy percent of this year’s graduates earned their master’s degrees online.
Once the backwater of higher education, online learning is now mainstream. At a time when overall enrollment in higher education is declining, the number of online students continues to climb. More than 6.3 million students took at least one online class in 2016, according to an annual analysis of federal data by the Babson Survey Research Group. That represents 32 percent of all students in higher education, up from 26 percent in 2012.
The expansion of online education has coincided with concerns about the price of brick-and-mortar education. And it has arrived as much-improved technology gives time-pressed, place-bound adults the flexibility to earn a degree. That flexibility has often translated to concerns from campus-based academics about the quality of online classes. But those worries seem to be subsiding. In part, that’s because the big for-profit providers, which were responsible for the early growth of online education, are losing market share to traditional brand-name colleges, particularly public universities.
Employers are also playing a significant role in the enhancement of online education. The United States has 6 million vacant jobs — 1 million in health care alone — according to the Labor Department. While employers might have been skeptical of online degrees a decade ago, today they are most worried about hiring workers with high-quality skills.
As hospitals increasingly require nurses to have a four-year degree, one of the most popular online degrees is the “R.N. to B.S.N.,” for people who are already registered nurses to earn a bachelor of nursing degree. There are 4.2 million nurses in the United States, and about one-third lack a bachelor’s degree.
One of the largest online nursing programs is at the University of Texas at Arlington, with nearly 11,000 students — part of a broader online strategy the university has pursued over the past few decades. The school started to put courses online in the 1990s to offset a sharp drop in enrollment. By 2008, it had 5,100 students enrolled in at least one online course. That’s when it partnered with Academic Partnerships, one of several companies that help nonprofit universities build online programs and recruit students.
Given that the largest online programs UT-Arlington offers are in nursing and education, Karbhari told me, the university can’t afford to turn out low-quality online degrees. Hospitals and schools usually recruit at institutions based on their previous hiring experiences. “You’re always judged on your last class of graduates,” he said.
I first became familiar with the University of Texas at Arlington in 2013, when I contributed to a project at New America, a nonpartisan public policy think tank. It studied public universities that had been able to expand enrollment and achieve higher graduation rates in a cost-effective manner. The Arlington campus was one of six selected after an analysis of federal higher-education data.
In the five years since that report was published, UT-Arlington’s online enrollment has continued to climb, making it one of the fastest-growing universities in the country. Today, 57 percent of UT-Arlington students take at least one class online, and of those students, 45 percent are enrolled exclusively online.
One of the fully online students is Tara Bordeaux, who is scheduled to graduate in August with a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. Bordeaux started online courses with UT-Arlington in 2012, while working in the film industry in Los Angeles. She wanted to become certified as a teacher. Now, she teaches audio and video production, filmmaking, and photography at Lanier High School in Austin, where she was recently named teacher of the year in the state.
Bordeaux was an early pioneer in online education 20 years ago, when she took a few online courses by checking out videotapes from a community college. “I felt like those were watered-down courses,” she said. But with the widespread use of broadband, online courses have improved enough, Bordeaux told me, that they are often as challenging as, or in some cases more difficult than, face-to-face classes.
If they’re only about making money, the online efforts of universities will fail. But for many colleges, online programs are part of a broader movement to ensure that students graduate with a credential. In the California State University System, more than 100,000 students choose to take at least one online course because face-to-face courses are often full and unavailable. Without the online option, it would take students longer to graduate, or many might drop out short of a degree.


Election commission says holding the vote on January 8 would be "impossible".
The commission has said many of its offices in Sindh, Bhutto's home province, were burnt in rioting after her murder, and election material including voter rolls, polling cards and ballot boxes were reduced to ashes.
"We will inform the political parties about the situation in Sindh where our 13 offices were burnt. We will inform them about the ground realities and then we will fix a date in consultation with them," Dilshad said.
The panel held an urgent meeting on Tuesday to review reports from around the country dealing with whether the election could be held.
Earlier, the AFP news agency quoted an election official as saying that the polls would be delayed until February to give officials more time to prepare after the unrest that followed Benazir Bhutto's assassination on Thursday.
But with the government facing calls from the US not to put off the vote too long and opposition parties arguing against a delay, the official said the election commission could not hold off longer than that.
Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's husband who is now co-chairman of her party along with their 19-year old son, Bilawal, issued a joint statement on Tuesday calling for the elections to be held on January 8 as planned.
"It is up to the people of Pakistan to choose their future, and the time is now," it said.
"The January 8th elections must proceed as scheduled. This will not only be a tribute to the memory of Benazir Bhutto, but even more important, a reaffirmation of the cause of democracy for which she died."
Sharif's party had previously said that a "short postponement" would be acceptable.
On Tuesday, a PPP official said Bhutto was killed just hours before she was to go public with "proof" that Pakistani intelligence and electoral officials were planning to rig the vote.
"Bhutto was scheduled to reveal a document containing proof of rigging plans by the election commission and Inter-Services Intelligence the night she was assassinated," Latif Khosa, a senator, said.
Khosa, who along with Bhutto authored the 160-page dossier documenting alleged rigging tactics, said they ranged from intimidation to fake ballots, and were in some cases unwittingly funded by US aid.
"The state agencies are manipulating the whole process," he said.
However, a spokesman for Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, dismissed the claim as "ridiculous".
"It makes one laugh," Rashid Qureshi said.
"The president has said a free, fair, transparent and peaceful election is essential, which forms part of his overall strategy for transforming Pakistan into a fully democratic [nation]."
"Take it from me, it's going to be perhaps the best election that Pakistan has ever had."


But Edwards has said little about the allegations since the Enquirer reported last week that Edwards had visited Hunter and the child at a Beverly Hills hotel and then was confronted by its reporters as he was leaving in the middle of the night. The newspaper claimed that Edwards ran and hid in a restroom to elude its reporters.
Edwards withdrew from the presidential race in January, but remained a major figure in the presidential contest throughout the primary contest as analysts tried to guess which candidate, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, he would endorse. He unveiled his support for Obama May 14 at a major rally in Michigan that was televised nationally.
Edwards, a former U.S. senator from North Carolina, was expected to play a major supporting role as Obama tries to win North Carolina and become the first Democrat to have done so since 1976.
The Enquirer allegations, if unresolved, are likely to hurt Edwards' ability to participate in the presidential campaign. They've been the subject of heated commentary on the Internet and have become fodder for jokes by late-night hosts Jay Leno and Conan O'Brien, raising questions about his prospects for a spot in an Obama administration.
At a July 23 speech in Houston, Edwards responded to a reporter's question about the Enquirer story by referring to it as "tabloid trash."
Afterward, he avoided waiting reporters, exiting through a side area used by the kitchen staff at Washington's historic Hotel Monaco.
Edwards emerged near the rear of the hotel with two men. When approached by a reporter, Edwards said, "Can't do it now, I'm sorry" and quickly walked past.
Asked about the Beverly Hilton, Edwards said "sorry" and got into a waiting car with the other men. Asked twice more to address the Enquirer story, Edwards was silent until the car doors closed.
McClatchy obtained the birth certificate through a routine public records request to the Santa Barbara County Recorder's Office, which provided an "informational copy" for a fee of $17. A certified copy, which can be used to establish identity for legal transactions, is available only to family members and government agencies.
Asked Thursday why no father was listed on the birth certificate, Hunter's attorney, Robert Gordon of New York, said, "A lot of women do that."
Reminded that he and Hunter had publicly revealed the father's identity two months earlier to the National Enquirer, Gordon said, "That's a personal matter between them."
The certificate shows that the girl was born at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, Calif., to Rielle Jaya James Druck, also known as Rielle Hunter. Hunter, 44, was a videographer on Edwards' presidential campaign last year.
With unmarried couples, California state law requires both parents to sign a "Declaration of Paternity" form prior to the father's name being put on the birth certificate. If the father is not present, his name may be added to the birth certificate at a later date after proper forms are obtained from the Department of Vital Records.
Young was a fund-raiser for Edwards' campaign. Federal Election Commission records show he was earning about $3,200 every two weeks before he left the campaign last fall. In 2004, Edwards included Young and his wife in a list of people whose contributions he acknowledged in his book "Four Trials."
A December statement attributed to Young’s Washington attorney, Pamela J. Marple, said, "As confirmed by Ms. Hunter, Andrew Young is the father of her unborn child. Senator Edwards knew nothing about the relationship between these former co-workers, which began when they worked together in 2006. As a private citizen who no longer works for the campaign, Mr. Young asks that the media respect his privacy while he works to make amends with his family."
Marple didn't return phone calls seeking comment Thursday, and Young could not be located for comment.


Teenager A. J. Manker felt he needed an increase in his allowance.
Drawing on the American talent for marketing, the South Bend, Ind., teenager lit upon a creative idea. He wrote his folks an essay explaining his predicament. Costs were rising, he argued. As kids get older they need more expensive items. A.J. searched for the right words.
"We increased his allowance from $5 to $7.50 a week," says his mom. "It was well written."
A.J.'s family illustrates how parents and children can work together to master the nitty-gritty of financial management.
Paula and Randy Manker readily concede that resolving money issues isn't always easy.
But what's important is that they work at it continually.
"We don't want [the children] to be fearful of money," says Mrs. Manker, who along with her husband runs a multimedia company. "We also want our children to see the costs and benefits" associated with money.
"Children need to have the world of financial choices made real to them as early as possible" says Paula Hogan, a financial planner at Hogan Financial Management in Milwaukee. They need "hands-on learning experiences" at the earliest possible age.
By the time children head off to school, financial experts say, they should know the rudiments of coins and bills: putting coins together to buy, say, a 25-cent item and sub-dividing bills into $1s, $5s, $10s, and $20s.
Up to junior high, they should learn the importance of choices. Example: A.J.'s sister, Ashley, has definite tastes in clothes. So Mrs. Manker now gives her daughter a precise clothing allowance. "I tell her: 'Spend it any way you want,' but I remind her that that's the total clothing allowance."
* Money is a tool to make good things happen, not to be feared or coveted.
* Conservation, such as turning off lights and recycling, both cuts the family's costs and helps the environment. Such issues lift the concept of money to a sense of sharing and making a better world.
* Responsibility counts. Look for ways to let children earn money. Ashley, for example, gets paid for doing light housework. But when she cleans a room, her mother says, "I want it to be a thorough job," just like a professional cleaning person would do.
* Be a good consumer with children. At the grocery store, compare prices. Analyze ads in magazines. Even very small children, such as Kristin Manker, not yet in school, can learn to critique TV and radio ads.
* Most important, make money a family matter, Ms. Hogan says.
And finally, don't underestimate the power and importance of an allowance. It helps kids control and understand money. - how it works; what it can and can't do.
Some parents give enough allowance to cover certain expenses, such as clothing, movies, or trips to the video arcade. So if they want those things, they have to budget.
Other parents let the allowance go to "whatever." But it's important to let the kids count their own pennies. They make the decisions; they feel the consequences.
Experts also stress that an allowance should be neither punishment nor reward. It's a paycheck, so be wary about docking it for misdeeds or boosting it for good grades.
This is about the babies of baby boomers - the offspring of the wealthiest generation in US history.
These kids have, literally, billions of dollars, and how they spend and save can affect the quality of both their young and adult lives - how they invest, how well they invest, even their job performance.
For boomer parents, the key is helping children understand money, learning to use it as a tool and not to be lured into either the love or fear of it.
Parents can take specific steps and have lots of resources to help. The process starts with preteens and their allowances, and it goes as far as open discussion with parents about their own investment successes and failures.
* Making the Most of Your Money, by Jane Bryant Quinn (Simon & Schuster, 1997).
Some thoughts on the benefits of saving, aimed at kids, parents, and teachers. Plus activity sheets (create a budget, investigate investing) and an inflation calculator.
Kiplinger's senior editor, Janet Bodnar, gives some basic wisdom and answers parents' questions about how to teach kids the value, and the values, of money.
Especially for teens. Contains a "reality check" survey that shows how much income you'll need to pay for the adult lifestyle you want. Also contains a "personal money" survey - testing knowledge about finance - and a "should you buy it?" test about spending.
Ideas for kids and parents on how to teach kids the values of earning and saving money. Includes charts, savings plans, and even a degree that your kids can receive once they reach their first savings goals.
A story on page B6, April 27, incorrectly identified one source. Her name is Vincenzina Santoro, economic adviser to the Portuguese Trade Commission in New York. Another name should have been Paolo Pesenti.


An asylum seeking raccoon found in Cambridgeshire had found a new home after hitching a lift into the UK on the back of a lorry.
Runaway Fifi fled France and survived by living off the land after arriving in the county late last year.
Despite numerous sightings of the critter, she managed to evade the authorities for six months before finally being detained in a rooftop scramble in Broughton, near Huntingdon in March.
She was captured by Fenland Animal Rescue workers following a protracted "cat and mouse" chase around different areas of the garden she was found in.
"We think she hopped in a lorry in Calais," said volunteer Josh Flanagan.
"Her microchip has never been noted as being imported, and it was confirmed that she escaped her enclosure in France."
Fifi, who was initially believed to be male, was found on the roof of a house in Broughton on March 23.
A spokesman for Fenland Animal Rescue said: "Our call handler was certainly puzzled after taking this call, but it is safe to say that Cambridgeshire never ceases to amaze us.
"With the animal moving to different areas of the property, it was a short game of 'cat and mouse', before we were able to secure him on a rooftop and bring him down to safety.
"Raccoons are not native to the UK, so they are not an animal our team have come into contact with previously and certainly not one that should be living wild.
"Once safely in our care, he was treated to a big lunch and plenty of fluids to make him comfortable and ensure he settled in nicely."
Following her capture, Fifi was taken in by new owners at a private animal sanctuary in Rochester, Kent.
She joined four other raccoons - Randall, Scooter, Rocket and Rosie, as well as pigs, monkeys, birds of prey and coatis - which are related to raccoons.
Vets confirmed Fifi had been registered in Europe and there was no trace of her being imported into the UK.
Her new owner Andy Cowell, 48, said: "She did come to us overweight, so she has been well-fed in the wild.
"She is very very good, she actually has got no issues whatsoever with other raccoons.
"We keep a tight enclosure that is dug into the ground, we have roofs, double doors on the enclosure, cameras.
"It's pretty much as raccoon-proof as you can make it."
Raccoons are native to North America, with some recently emerging in Europe and Japan.
Last year they featured on a list of animals banned as pets by the European Union.
While they have been known to be kept as pets, they are nothing like domestic animals in their nature.
They can be extremely destructive to property and often aggressive, lashing out at their owners.


Unlike most of the world, gold investors got it right when it came time to betting on the Brexit vote.
[NEW YORK] Unlike most of the world, gold investors got it right when it came time to betting on the Brexit vote. They were rewarded with a world-beating rally.
Hedge funds boosted their bets on price gains for bullion to an all-time high just two days before UK voters took to the polls and decided to leave the European Union, sending global markets roiling. Gold futures climbed to a two-year high after the referendum. The metal's wild ride isn't over yet. Prices could jump another 7 per cent by the end of the year, a Bloomberg survey showed.
Gold's surge shows the metal is delivering on its role as a refuge, with prices on Friday posting the biggest increase of any major global asset. The gains added to what's already been a stellar 2016 for bullion. Futures are heading for the best start to a year since 1979.
Speculation that the Federal Reserve will keep US interest rates low has boosted demand for the metal as a store of value, while a volatile geopolitical backdrop has increased haven buying.
The UK vote "is a fundamental change, and we could see the fallout go on for quite a while," said Adrian Day, president of Adrian Day Asset Management in Annapolis, Maryland, which oversees US$165 million. "There's a lot of uncertainty and conflict there, and uncertainty and conflict are good for gold."
Money managers boosted their net-long position in gold futures and options by 6.7 per cent to 256,898 contracts in the week ended June 21, according to US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data released three days later. That's the highest since the data begins in 2006. The previous record was 253,653 reached in August 2011 - just a month before gold futures touched US$1,923.70, the highest ever.
In New York, futures advanced 0.6 per cent to US$1,330.50 on the Comex at 12.50pm Singapore time, extending last week's 2.1 per cent increase. The metal climbed as much as 7.9 per cent on Friday, topping the gains of other major haven assets including the yen and Treasuries.
Most global equity markets tumbled as many investors were stunned by the results of the British vote, which sparked panic on trading floors and prompted UK Prime Minister David Cameron to resign.
Prices could reach as high as US$1,424 by the end of the year, according to the median of 12 forecasts in a Bloomberg survey of analysts and traders from New York to London conducted on Friday. That would be the highest since August 2013.
The precious metal has long been prized as a universal store of value immune to the whims of political leaders. The UK Royal Mint, which makes circulation and collector coins, and specialist online brokers reported surges in new customers after the Brexit vote. In London's spot gold market, the biggest in the world, prices jumped as much as 8.1 per cent, the most since the height of the global financial crisis in 2008.
Investors were also quick to snap up options contracts in New York betting on further price gains. On Friday, the most- traded gold option on the Comex was a call giving owners the right to buy the metal at US$1,350 by July, exchange data show. The contract, which expires Monday, more than doubled in price. The August US$1,350 call more than tripled.
Money has been pouring into gold all year amid increasing expectations that a volatile global growth environment will force Fed officials to hold off from raising US interest rates. Holdings in exchange-traded products backed by the metal climbed to the highest since October 2013 last week. The SPDR Gold Shares alone attracted US$10.8 billion in new money this year, the most of more than 6,000 ETPs tracked by Bloomberg.
Gold's gains in 2016 come after three straight annual losses when low inflation, a stronger dollar and an improving US job market spurred some investors to lose faith in the metal as a store of value.
The recent jump higher could be a "selling opportunity," if the greenback continues to strengthen, said Sameer Samana, a St Louis-based global quantitative strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute, which oversees US$1.8 trillion. The dollar rose as much as 0.7 per cent against a 10-currency basket on Monday.
But, bullion and the dollar climbed together in 2008 amid the global recession. Speculation that the world economy will sputter has spurred traders to cut the odds of a US rate increase by December to 15 per cent. That's down from 78 per cent just a month ago.
"Global growth, negative interest rates and the fear trade: that's what drives gold the most," said Frank Holmes, who oversees US$800 million as chief executive officer of US Global Investors in San Antonio, Texas.


EXCLUSIVE: Babak Anvari and Lucan Toh, the team behind hot Sundance pic Wounds, have struck a first-look deal with AMC.
I hear the broadcaster has recently closed the pact to partner with Anvari and Toh’s Two & Two Pictures for television projects.
It comes after their horror feature Wounds, which was written and directed by Anvari and produced by Toh, premiered this year at the Sundance Film Festival. The film, which stars Armie Hammer, Dakota Johnson, Zazie Beetz, Karl Glusman, and Brad William Henke, centers around the mysterious things that impact a bartender after he picks up the phone left behind at his New Orleans bar. It is based on Nathan Ballingrund’s horror novella The Visible Filth.
Wounds was Anvari’s second directorial feature; the British-Iranian helmer previously directed Under The Shadow, a Farsi-language horror pic that stars Narges Rashidi, Avin Manshadi and Bobby Naderi. Set in 1988 Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war, the story sees a mother and daughter struggle to stay together amid the bombing campaigns and bloody revolution while a mysterious evil stalks through their apartment. It was picked up by Netflix in 2016 and earned the pair BAFTAs for Outstanding Debut.
Elsewhere, Anvari is developing projects with Black Bear and Film4. At the former, he is developing a drama set in the deadly Syrian crisis zones about female freedom fighters of Kurdish and Western descent who joined forces to battle against ISIS in an effort to reclaim Raqqa and restore stability to one of the most dangerous places on earth.
At the latter, he is working on contemporary Hitchcockian thriller I Came By.
The first-look deal is the latest struck by the Breaking Bad and Mad Men broadcaster; in 2017, it struck deal with Addictive Pictures, the indie set up by former Guillermo del Toro development executive Russell Ackerman and ex-Scott Rudin exec John Schoenfelder, and One-Two Punch Productions, run by former Mark Gordon Productions president and Criminal Minds producer Deborah Spera. It is thought that the Two & Two Pictures deal is one of a number of new deals that is brewing at The Walking Dead network.
Anvari and Toh are represented at WME, Grandview, and ITG in the UK as well as Ziffren.


Setting up lots of Macs? Want an offline installer? Here's how to roll your own.
Enlarge / Even in the download-only era, it's easy to make yourself offline OS X install media.
It was 2009 when Apple last released a new operating system on physical media. Things have proceeded remarkably smoothly since version 10.7 switched to download-only installers, but there are still good reasons to want an old, reliable USB stick. For instance, if you find yourself doing multiple installs, a USB drive may be faster than multiple downloads (especially if you use a USB 3.0 drive). Or maybe you need a recovery disk for older Macs that don't support the Internet Recovery feature. Whatever the reason, you're in luck, because it's not hard to make one.
As with last year, there are two ways to get it done. There's the super easy way with the graphical user interface and the only slightly less easy way that requires some light Terminal use. Here's what you need to get started.
A Mac that you have administrator access to, duh. We've created El Capitan USB stick from both Yosemite and El Capitan, but your experience with other versions may vary.
An 8GB or larger USB flash drive or an 8GB or larger partition on some other kind of external drive. For newer Macs, use a USB 3.0 drive—it makes things significantly faster.
The OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer from the Mac App Store in your Applications folder. The installer will delete itself when you install the operating system, but it can be re-downloaded if necessary.
If you want a GUI, you need the latest version of Diskmaker X app. Version 5 is the one with official El Capitan support.
Diskmaker X is free to download, but the creator accepts donations if you want to support his efforts.
Install Diskmaker X to the Applications folder.
Download the El Capitan installer from the App Store and then select El Capitan in Diskmaker X.
We'll use a flash drive but you can use pretty much anything with enough free space.
The new version of Diskmaker supplies better progress information than the old one.
Once you've obtained all of the necessary materials, connect the USB drive to your Mac and run the Diskmaker X app. The app will offer to make installers for OS X 10.9, 10.10, and 10.11, and it should run on OS X versions all the way back to 10.7—support for 10.6 was dropped in the most recent release.
Diskmaker X has actually been around since the days of OS X 10.7 (it was previously known as Lion Diskmaker), and it's still the easiest GUI-based way to go without intimidating newbies. If you're comfortable with the command line, it's still possible to create a disk manually using a Terminal command, which we'll cover momentarily.
Select OS X 10.11 in Diskmaker X, and the app should automatically find the copy you've downloaded to your Applications folder. It will then ask you where you want to copy the files—click "An 8GB USB thumb drive" if you have a single drive to use or "Another kind of disk" to use a partition on a larger drive or some other kind of external drive. Choose your disk (or partition) from the list that appears, verify that you'd like to have the disk (or partition) erased, and then wait for the files to copy over. The process is outlined in screenshots above.
If you don't want to use Diskmaker X, Apple has actually included a terminal command that can create an install disk for you. Assuming that you have the OS X El Capitan installer in your Applications folder and you have a Mac OS X Extended (Journaled)-formatted USB drive named "Untitled" mounted on the system, you can create an El Capitan install drive by typing the following command into the Terminal.
The command will erase the disk and copy the install files over. Give it some time, and your volume will soon be loaded up with not just the OS X installer but also an external recovery partition that may come in handy if your hard drive dies and you're away from an Internet connection.
Whichever method you use, you should be able to boot from your new USB drive either by changing the default Startup Disk in System Preferences or by holding down the Option key at boot and selecting the drive. Once booted, you'll be able to install or upgrade El Capitan as you normally would.


There was no wiping the smile off Katarina Johnson-Thompson’s face as she sat atop the leaderboard after a history-making opening day at the Hypo-Meeting in Gotzis, Austria.
Having declared she had come here with the intention of “falling in love” with athletics again, Johnson-Thompson’s elation suggested she had achieved her goal in the space of just a few remarkable hours.
Competing in a heptathlon for the first time since relocating to Montpellier, France, last winter she had left the Olympic champion in her wake and set herself on course for a huge personal best as she builds towards a gold medal tilt at this summer’s London World Championships.
“I honestly didn’t expect it,” she said. “I just feel good – I feel like I’m enjoying it.
“Sometimes I think you can get overwhelmed by the heptathlon. I’m trying to approach the event differently and I’m surprised at the shape that I’m in because I didn’t feel like I was in top form.
The signs had been promising from the outset: a 100m hurdles personal best of 13.29 seconds, 1.95m in the high jump and then a mark of 12.72m in the historically problematic shot put – the furthest she has ever managed during a heptathlon.
By the time she crossed the line for the 200m, not even an enormous headwind could prevent her from finishing in 22.81sec to take the overnight lead on 4059 points.
Incredibly, just six points separates her from Belgium’s Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam (4,056) in second and Carolin Schafer (4,053), of Germany, who completes the top three.
What made the performance even more impressive was the fact that Thiam was 71 points ahead of her respective first-day score when winning gold in Rio and Schafer had set personal bests in all four events. Indeed it was the first time in history that three women had scored in excess of 4050 in a single day.
Well on track to smash her heptathlon best tomorrow, Johnson-Thompson looks a vastly changed character to the athlete nicknamed “Droopy” by her own coaches on account of her downbeat demeanour over the past couple of years.
The key, she says, is enjoyment.
“Normally I come here and I’ve over-exaggerated what I expect to get,” she said. “But this time I’m going to try and take the momentum from today into tomorrow and do the same.


The bill filed Thursday in Congress would block Attorney General Jeff Sessions from cracking down on pot in states where it’s legal.
President Donald Trump "really" supports new legislation in Congress that would let state marijuana legalization thrive, untouched by the Justice Department, he said Friday.
The endorsement was a jolt for the bipartisan bill, but it also jabbed at Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has relentlessly threatened a pot crackdown and would be hamstrung and humiliated by the measure.
Trump has carped about Sessions recusing himself from Justice Department's Russia probe. But the president has been unwilling to fire him, and Sessions has refused to quit, leaving Trump to explore ways to snub and belittle the attorney general. Trump’s eagerness to sign the bill may be another effort to flog Sessions, roughly the equivalent of kicking a dog while it's tethered to a stake in the yard.
Formally titled the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States Act, the bill filed Thursday is sponsored in part by Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican.
The bill probably wouldn't even exist if Sessions hadn't threatened a crackdown.
"I support Senator Gardner," Trump said before hopping on Marine One Friday morning. "I know exactly what he's doing; we're looking at it. But I probably will end up supporting that, yes."
Dubbed the STATES Act, the bill riffs on popular conservative ideas about state sovereignty and would decree that the Controlled Substances Act cannot apply to people and businesses — including growers and stores — complying with state or tribal pot legalization laws. A bipartisan companion bill was also filed in the House.
The bill responds to Sessions’ decision in January to rescind an Obama-era policy that tolerated pot businesses that follow state laws. Sessions followed up by insisting the Justice Department has the right to enforce federal law. The irony for Sessions is that the STATES Act probably wouldn't exist — certainly not with bipartisan backing — were it not for Sessions' own policy positions and saber rattling.
"This guidance was withdrawn earlier this year, creating legal uncertainty, threatening public health and safety, and undermining state regulatory regimes," said a press release from the bill's sponsors Thursday. "It is critical that Congress take immediate steps."
The next question, however, is whether Republican congressional leaders will back it. Even though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has cosponsored a bill to legalize hemp — the industrial, nonpsychoactive version of cannabis — that bill has been stagnant until it was added to the Farm Bill on Friday. Perhaps the more telling sign of McConnell’s thinking on drug policy, he has refused to provide a floor vote for a separate bipartisan bill on sentencing reform, even though it passed out of committee in February.
A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment Friday evening.