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2018-01-08

Jan 8 (Reuters) - Guorui Properties Ltd: * ‍CONTRACTED SALES OF APPROXIMATELY RMB5,045 MILLION IN DEC​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2016-05-25

May 25 (Reuters) - Tcl Corp * Says it plans to issue up to 5 billion yuan ($762.16 million) worth of commercial paper Source text in Chinese: bit.ly/1Tz3Bye Further company coverage: ($1 = 6.5603 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom)

2018-03-27

Sallie Krawcheck's Ellevest is rolling out new funds that will invest in women, specifically in a way that helps get more money directly into the hands of women and organizations that support their advancement. The digital investing firm is calling the five new funds the Ellevest Impact Portfolios. Last year, it rolled out a series of exchange-traded funds designed for women to save for retirement. Socially responsible and impact investing is becoming more popular with investors who want to make money while trying to achieve social and economic change. Investments in the new funds announced Tuesday could include small business loans to women business owners or sustainable housing for workforce tenants and families. "There's a greater urgency among women investors to use their growing financial clout in support of other women and to invest in the future they want — rejecting outdated views about sacrificing the potential for investment returns or forgoing their own goals in order to do so," Krawcheck said in a statement. The funds include the Pax Ellevate Global Women's Leadership Fund, which invests in companies that have two or more women on their boards. Krawcheck has an ownership in that fund, according to the website, but is waiving her advisory fees. Krawcheck has a high profile on Wall Street, where she ran Bank of America's and Citigroup's wealth management divisions and was CFO of Citi.

2017-07-20

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European steel association Eurofer criticized on Thursday measures set out by the European Commission to counter dumping of hot-rolled steel from Brazil, Iran, Russia and Ukraine. The Commission, which oversees trade policy in the 28-member European Union, has set out plans to levy tariffs of up to 33 percent on the steel grade, used in construction and machinery, from the four countries. However, it has also proposed that duties should not apply if the product is sold at or above a set minimum price of 472.27 euros ($549.25) per tonne. If sold for less than that, the tariffs would apply, although with the minimum price as a limit. The Commission said its proposal reflected a rise in prices since the investigation period - the 12 months until mid-2016 - and that a cap would strike a balance between the interests of EU producers and steel users. Eurofer said the proposal set “an unworkable precedent” that would allow for continued dumping and promote over-capacity in the exporting countries. The group said the price was significantly below the average price level, with higher recent prices due to more costly raw materials, not increased margins, and that a single minimum price was unsuited for hot-rolled steel. “It comes in over a thousand, very different, grades and types – each with their own costs and prices,” said Eurofer Director General Axel Eggert in a statement, adding the raw materials fluctuated significantly in cost. Chinese imports of the same steel grade are already subject to duties of up to 35.9 percent, with no minimum price. The Commission has previously allowed China to export solar panels to the European Union at a minimum price free of duties to settle one of the most contested trade disputes between Brussels and Beijing. ($1 = 0.8598 euros) Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop; Editing by Adrian Croft

2016-03-17 00:00:00

(CNN)It's that strange time again in American politics when politicians support candidates they have repeatedly said they can't stand. For months, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has been warning the nation about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. But on Thursday, Graham told CNN that not only is he supporting Cruz, he's fundraising for him. Graham pointed to Donald Trump's rise as the reason, explaining that Cruz might be the only one to stop him. "I think he's the best alternative to beat Donald Trump," Graham told CNN. "I'm going to help Ted in any way I can." It's a strange position for Graham, who has said all kinds of terrible things about Cruz. Let's take a trip down memory lane ... Graham thought Cruz would kill the Republican Party. "If you're a Republican and your choices are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz in the general election, it's the difference between being poisoned or shot. You're still dead." Graham considered Cruz a phony. "Ted Cruz, at his core, is an opportunist when it comes to his political career. He has an ideological bent that won't sell with the American people. And when it came time to say what Ted Cruz has done in the Senate, what he's done is run down other Republicans. He hasn't solved any problems." Graham thought Cruz was terrible on foreign policy. "I think he's been just as wrong as Obama, if not worse." Graham hated Cruz so much, he's joked about murdering him. "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you." All of that culminated in Graham supporting Cruz for president. "I'm going to help Ted in any way I can." RELATED: Caitlyn Jenner: I did not endorse Cruz or Trump

2016-09-29 00:00:00

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Britain must seek bespoke multi-lateral and bilateral trade arrangements after it exits the European Union rather than fall back on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said on Thursday. Fox said in a speech Britain would take part in WTO efforts to reduce red tape across borders, phase out distortive export subsidies, and scrap trillions of dollars’ worth of tariffs. “However, where progress has stalled at the multi-lateral level, the UK must be ready to look to more bespoke plurilateral and bilateral arrangements to ensure that the global market place remains fair and free,” he said. In his 25-minute speech, Fox stuck to generalities and gave no new details about how Britain would approach negotiations on the terms of its exit from the EU. “My message today is a simple one: free trade has and will continue to transform the world for the better,” he said. “The UK has a golden opportunity to forge a new role for ourselves in the world, one which puts the British people first.” Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; writing by Estelle Shirbon and Helen Reid; editing by Stephen Addison

2018-10-19 00:00:00

Time is running out to buy your ticket for today's Mega Millions lottery. The jackpot has topped $1 billion, officially making it the second highest jackpot ever and the highest ever Mega Millions jackpot. And according to researchers, the winner might gain in ways beyond just mere money. A recent study finds that those who win big cash prizes won't see a change in their day-to-day happiness, but could feel a boost in their life satisfaction overall. In fact, this satisfaction could last for at least 10 years and might not dissipate over time. And contrary to popular belief, these winners aren't actually likely to blow through their financial windfalls. The study, led by researchers out the Stockholm School of Economics, Stockholm University and New York University, was circulated by the National Bureau of Economic Research as a working paper earlier this year. "Large-prize winners experience sustained increases in overall life satisfaction that persist for over a decade and show no evidence of dissipating with time," the researchers concluded. As lead researcher Robert Ostling explained to MarketWatch, "life satisfaction" refers to how people feel about the quality of their lives overall, whereas "happiness" measures respondents' day-to-day feelings. "Our results suggest it is more difficult to affect happiness than life satisfaction," Ostling added. Researchers studied 3,362 winners of lotteries from five to 22 years after winning. The participants' overall gains totaled $277 million. The researchers measured happiness, mental health, satisfaction with their personal finance and overall life satisfaction through several questionnaires posing questions such as: "'All things considered, how happy would you say you are?" and "Taking all things together in your life, how satisfied would you say that you are with your life these days?" The researchers hypothesized that lottery money would make the large prize winners happier and improve their mental health, but that was not the case. When studying the psychological impact, researchers discovered that for those who won at least $100,000 in the lottery happiness and mental health weren't significantly impacted. Winners do, however, "appear to enjoy sustained improvement in economic conditions that are robustly detectable for well over a decade after the windfall," the authors note. The long-term impact, they add, is one of the most substantial findings in the paper. Winners, they found, also didn't typically blow through their cash. This finding has been backed up by others, including the National Endowment for Financial Education. In fact, NBER found that winners tend to exercise more self-control than you might expect. As one of the researchers explained to Time Magazine: "We saw that people who won large sums of money were still wealthier 10 years after the fact, compared to people who won small sums of money." Winners, according to the research, tended to invest a portion of their wealth in financial assets and spread out their spending evenly, which runs counter to common lottery winner stereotypes. Many even continued to work, even though they did cut back their hours. The study mainly looked at the effect of receiving lottery prizes in lump sums as opposed to monthly installments, researchers warn. They also suggest that future researchers look at the short-term effects of winning the lottery, including the effects of receiving so much money at once. While this study proves there can be a lasting psychological benefit to accepting a lump sum payment, in terms of life satisfaction if not happiness, many planners say that's not a risk worth taking. "If you get a huge lump sum, it's easier to make a mistake, whereas if you choose the annuity, then at least if you mess up and blow the first year's worth, you have another chance," said Betterment certified financial planner Nick Holeman. Billionaire investor Mark Cuban agrees. In 2016, he advised the winner of a Powerball jackpot: "Put it in the bank and live comfortably. Forever. You will sleep a lot better knowing you won't lose money." Still, CNBC's "Mad Money " host Jim Cramer believes that getting the cash upfront is the way to go. "Take the money all at once," Cramer said. "Don't let them string it out like that. You want the time value of all that cash working for you. That's vital." If you do find yourself winning the Mega Millions jackpot, make sure to avoid these 3 mistakes.

2019-02-17 00:00:00

Don Cheadle hosted Saturday Night Live for the first time ever Saturday night, and the best part of his debut wasn’t his Spike Lee impression during Celebrity Family Feud. Instead, it was his statement shirts that had everyone talking. Before the night's musical guest, blues-rock musician Gary Clark Jr., took the stage, the Black Monday star stood in the audience to introduce him wearing a simple black shirt with white letters that read “Protect Trans Kids.” Later, towards the end of the show, Cheadle wore a Soviet Union hockey jersey. Pretty meh. That is, until the actor turned around and revealed to viewers that the name “Trump” was affixed across the top with the number 45 below. At that point, no mental gymnastics were needed to decipher who Cheadle was throwing shade at. Both shirts were so subtle, yet so powerful. A quick sweep of Cheadle’s Twitter account and you’ll see that he’s very outspoken and constantly plugged in to what’s happening around the world. But, if I’m being totally honest, so are a lot of celebrities. What separates Cheadle from most, though, is that he brought the conversation to a large platform like SNL and seamlessly weaved the messaging in between jokes and sketches. That takes skill. Cheadle thanked the show on Twitter Sunday afternoon for "the opportunity to play and pay respect and throw shade in an historic space in an historic time." Twitter responded well to Cheadle’s fashion choices for the episode, particularly when it came to the “Protect Trans Kids” shirt. Actress Laverne Cox was one of many who gave praise. “Ditto! Thank you @DonCheadle. You rock!” she wrote. We have to agree.

2020-03-23 00:00:00

Last Monday, the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Mark GreenMark GreenBlunting a global pandemic: An open memo to the new head of USAID Trump designates new acting head of USAID The risk of fracture: Coronavirus in the Middle East MORE, resigned his post in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. On Tuesday, President Trump designated John Barsa as the new acting head of the agency. Barsa, currently USAID assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean and with relatively little public health or emergency crisis response experience, will lead the USAID global response to the pandemic. As the Trump administration has learned, what happens in Wuhan — or any other remote corner of the earth — can have a profound impact on American lives, economy, and security. The global response to the coronavirus remains highly uneven, and even if the United States does everything right to flatten the curve of transmission in the days and weeks ahead, unmitigated hotspots — say in Yemen or Syria — will profoundly affect Europe, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian subcontinent and, ultimately, all of us. Here are four suggestions to help the new acting administrator succeed: First, decentralize the response to the USAID missions overseas. The administrator should Immediately authorize each USAID mission director to establish and lead a coronavirus team; this team should include staff officers with experience in humanitarian assistance, global health, stabilization, economic growth, and governance. Also, the mission directors should identify local senior foreign service nationals to be detailed to host governments' ministries of health and finance as well as local military or security services for civil-military coordination. All of these nodes should coordinate at the overseas mission with liaisons attached to USAID headquarters and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to make certain host countries and the United States are sharing best practices and accurate data. The USAID mission director should re-direct appropriated obligated money in currently existing contracts — where possible — to the pandemic response, and the Office of Management and Budget should release the nearly $1 billion in supplemental funding to the missions and Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance this week. Second, USAID and U.S. embassy teams must integrate into the United Nations (UN) emergency cluster systems led by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to ensure the international community is aligned with the best practices and real-time, accurate data. Further, USAID and CDC should strengthen the World Health Organization’s (WHO) analytical capabilities immediately at the country and regional levels, which may require technical assistance to WHO headquarters. Through the UN clusters and in diplomatic discussions, the U.S. should leverage funding from as many donors as possible, starting with China. Third, global data from each USAID mission must be channeled daily to the USAID Coronavirus Task Force. This USAID task force must be expanded to include private sector leaders and draw upon public health experts, supply chain and operational research analysts, business leaders, technology entrepreneurs as well as government employees. The USAID Coronavirus Task Force must be fully aligned and embedded into the White House Response Team, headed by Vice President Pence. Finally, USAID should set aside $100 million of the coronavirus supplemental appropriation to support immediate response, innovative solutions driven by the private sector. These funds must bypass the normal long cycle, bureaucratic procurement process and be dispersed with bankable ideas within 10 to 30 days. USAID can mirror fast moving Department of Defense innovative procurements as a model — or adopt USAID development lab practices rolled out during the Ebola crisis. America learned on Sept. 11, 2001 that events in Kandahar can have profound implications on our lives. Americans are re-learning this lesson in 2020. Fortunately, the U.S. can draw upon dedicated foreign service officers, civil servants, and foreign service nationals in some of the toughest places on earth to save lives in Seattle, New York, and throughout the homeland. A fast and effective domestic response is necessary but not sufficient to beat back the coronavirus pandemic. R. David Harden is managing director of the Georgetown Strategy Group and former assistant administrator at USAID’s Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance, where he oversaw U.S. assistance to all global crises. Follow him on Twitter @Dave_Harden. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2020 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2016-08-02

Shares of Royal Caribbean Cruises dropped more than 6 percent Tuesday following the company's second-quarter earnings release. The cruise line reported second-quarter earnings of $1.09 per share on revenue of $2.11 billion, compared to analysts' projections of $1.01 per share on revenue of $2.17 billion, according to a Thomson Reuters consensus estimate. CEO Richard Fain joined CNBC's, "Power Lunch " to discuss the factors driving the revenue miss. He said he believes bookings with Royal Caribbean have been shielded from current events like Britain's vote to leave the European Union or the presence of the Zika virus in Miami. Instead, Fain identified foreign exchange as the culprit for the company's light sales. "More than half of our bookings are coming from outside of the United States, and in each market we price in the local currency. Sometimes the currency moves in our favor as it did in the first quarter, and sometimes it moves against us, as it did in the second and we managed that over time," said Fain. Royal Caribbean shares have dropped more than 33 percent this year.

2019-01-29

(Reuters) - U.S. Democratic Senator Patty Murray sent a letter to Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday seeking information related to allegations in a Reuters Special Report that the healthcare company knew about the presence of asbestos in its talc-based baby powder. The letter addressed to J&J Chief Executive Alex Gorsky asks for documents and information related to testing of its talc products for the presence of carcinogens and “how it presented that information to regulators and consumers.” Reuters on Dec. 14 published a Special Report detailing that the company knew that the talc in its raw and finished powders sometimes tested positive for cancer-causing asbestos from the 1970s into the early 2000s - test results the company did not disclose to regulators or consumers. While exposure to asbestos has been linked to mesothelioma, J&J has repeatedly said that its talc products are safe, and that decades of studies have shown them to be asbestos-free and that they do not cause cancer. J&J spokesman Ernie Knewitz, in an emailed statement, acknowledged receiving the letter and said the company looks forward to sharing its response with the senator. “As we have consistently stated, we firmly stand behind the safety and purity of our talc, which has been confirmed by thousands of independent tests by regulators worldwide, including the U.S. FDA and many of the world’s leading independent laboratories,” the company statement said. Murray, the top Democrat on the Republican-controlled Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, referred to the Reuters report in her letter. It began, “I am troubled by recent reports of an alleged decades-long effort by Johnson & Johnson to potentially mislead regulators and consumers about the safety of one of its products, which may have resulted in long-term harm for men, women, and children who used Johnson & Johnson baby powder.” J&J is facing more than 11,000 lawsuits alleging that use of its talc products, including baby powder, caused cancer. Murray asked for documents to support the company’s claim that its current talc products do not contain any level of asbestos, documents on the testing of its talc products and communications with the Food and Drug Administration about the safety of its baby powder dating from 1966 to present. Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen; Editing by Bill Berkrot

2017-03-16

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's proposed 2018 budget eliminates funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund nearly 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. The administration defended the move Thursday, calling funding for the corporation a "hard sell." But in 2014, Vice President Mike Pence, then Indiana's governor also known for frugal budgets, made a passionate defense for the role of public television. "I believe the state has the primary responsibility for educating our children and I will say from my heart through all of my life, one thing has been clear: Public television plays a vital role in educating all of the public, but most especially, our children," he said during an acceptance speech at that year's Public Media Summit. But that's not how Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney sees it. "It's a simple message by the way: I put myself in the shoes of that steelworker in Ohio, the coal-mining family in West Virginia, the mother of two in Detroit, and I'm saying, 'OK, I have to go ask these folks for money, and I have to tell them where I'm going to spend it,' " he said during Thursday's White House press briefing. "Can I really go to those folks, look them in the eye and say, 'Look, I want to take money from you, and I want to give it to the Corporation (for) Public Broadcasting.' That is a really hard sell, and in fact, it's something we don't think we can defend anymore." Funding for public television is often targeted by conservatives at the federal and state levels, but remains popular with the public and generally makes up a fraction of overall spending. Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said in a statement the proposed elimination "would initially devastate and ultimately destroy public media's role in early childhood education, public safety, connecting citizens to our history and promoting civil discussions." Pence, who won the Association of Public Television Stations' "Champion of Public Broadcasting Award" in 2014, called preserving public television's funding an "easy call." "Frankly, when we were going line by line through our budget proposal, when we came to deciding whether or not to include funding for public television in our budget, I want to tell you, it was an easy call," he said at the public media summit. The then-governor praised his state's nine public television stations, saying: "They enrich our local communities through distinctive programs and services and through collaborations with some of our most cherished institutions." "The Hoosier State has now and will continue to find the resources to support public media efforts in our state," he added, name-checking "Super Why," an animated PBS Kids show that aired until 2015. And he made sure the public broadcasters knew he was looking forward to that evening's "Downton Abbey" season four finale. "Mrs. Pence and I, we have an engagement at the White House this evening, but our DVR is set, and there is to be no discussion or tweeting among our children about what happens with Edith, what exactly Mr. Bates is up to, or whether Mary will pick a new suitor. We intend to learn those things on our own," he said. Video of the 2014 speech was first reported by Washingtonian. A spokesperson for the vice president did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment. America's Public Television Stations president and CEO Patrick Butler called Pence's award "well-deserved" at the 2014 ceremony. But on Thursday, Butler said the proposed budget would "devastate" the missions of public broadcasters. Butler told CNN he was "disappointed" in the decision and hopes to change the President's mind. "With respect to Vice President Pence, I still think of him as a champion of public broadcasting, but he doesn't get to make the final decision -- the President does, and he made the wrong decision today," Butler said, adding that he has been in touch with Pence over the last several weeks. Recent public opinion research, Butler said, found that a majority of Trump voters want to maintain or increase funding for public television. "If the president wants to be the president of the forgotten men and women of America, they are saying loud and clear that they would like federal funding for public television to continue." CNN's Elizabeth Landers contributed to this report.

2016-04-16 00:00:00

3B Alexi Amarista, is the Padres’ hottest hitter, although he missed a squeeze bunt and struck out with runners on first and third with none out in the ninth Friday night. Since he was recalled from Triple-A April 10 to take Solarte’s spot on the 25-man roster, Amarista has gone 7-for-15 with two RBIs. RHP Tyson Ross (shoulder weakness) is scheduled to start throwing by Monday and might need a rehab start before he returns to the top of the rotation. RHP Tyson Ross will start a throwing program no later than Monday. But Green said Ross, who has been on the disabled list since April 5 with shoulder soreness, might need a rehab start before he returns to active duty. “We’ll make that determination once he is able to start throwing.” 3B Yangervis Solarte took batting practice Friday when the Padres returned home from their road trip and ran in the therapy pool. But Padres manager Andy Green is hesitant to say Solarte will come off the disabled list when eligible on April 26. “I don’t want to rush him back,” Green said of Solarte, who has a right hamstring strain. “Hamstrings can be finicky.” LF Melvin Upton Jr., who hit in the cleanup spot for the second straight game Friday night, has hit safely in six of his last eight games, going 9-for-28 (.321) with five runs scored. He was 1-for-4 Friday night.

2019-08-22 00:00:00

(CNN)Nikki Haley is tired of all the chatter. Just sick to death of it! "Enough of the false rumors," the former ambassador to the United Nations tweeted Wednesday afternoon. "Vice President Pence has been a dear friend of mine for years. He has been a loyal and trustworthy VP to the President. He has my complete support." That would be a powerful statement if -- and this "if" is absolutely critical -- there were any sort of "rumors" (false or otherwise) currently floating around Washington about Haley and Pence. Which, well, there aren't. I presume that what Haley is talking about is the idea that President Donald Trump would -- or should -- replace Pence on the 2020 ticket with Haley. Which is a thing that people talked about -- two months ago! It was all triggered by a vague Trump answer and a Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Andrew Stein, a New York Democrat who supports Trump. In it, Stein wrote: "It's too late for Mr. Trump to revamp his political personality. But with the 2016 election in the past, Nikki Haley on the ticket could tamp down the antipathy for Mr. Trump that seems to afflict so many moderate and Republican-leaning women." Which makes some sense! Haley, the first female governor of South Carolina and second Indian-American governor in US history, would likely help -- at least in some quarters -- to take some of the hardest edges off Trump. And unlike most people who have left Trump's administration, Haley left on very good terms with the President. "She's done a fantastic job, and we've done a fantastic job together," Trump said of Haley during a gathering in the Oval Office to announce her departure in fall of 2018. "She's a fantastic person, very importantly, but she also is somebody that gets it." But Trump addressed the whole thing back in June. Asked by NBC's Chuck Todd whether "Mike Pence (is) 100% on your ticket in 2020," Trump replied: "Well, look, look -- 100%, yes. He's been a terrific vice president. He's my friend." Which seemed to be case closed. While there's the occasional tweet or comment on cable TV about the Pence-Haley swap, it's not something that has been part of the national political discussion for the better part of the last two months. It was floated and knocked down back then. So, what the heck is Haley talking about? Good question! There are two obvious theories. 1) There is a story coming soon -- that Haley got wind of -- that suggests either a) Trump is still considering replacing Pence on the ticket or b) Haley has been angling behind the scenes to replace Pence as the vice presidential candidate on the 2020 ballot. OR 2) She wants to gin up the "replace Pence" story again for her own political reasons and sees this tweet as a way to do it. Since I know of no sort of story about to drop on a ticket swap -- although I am not sure other media organizations would give me a heads up if they did have one coming -- let's assume that it's the second theory that applies here. (If a story pops on a Pence-for-Haley swap sometime soon, then we'll know exactly why she tweeted what she did.) Haley knows that by tweeting what she tweeted, she will start a conversation about the VP swap story. What "false rumors?" reporters will ask. And then they will make calls and check with sources to see what exactly, Haley is talking about. A few stories will be produced -- and a few more cable TV segments will be made -- that try to figure out whether there is any "there" there. Even if there is nothing to Haley's "false rumors" claim, she will have effectively pushed the narrative back into the political bloodstream. "The only person talking about Nikki Haley as VP is Nikki Haley herself," a senior administration official told the Washington Examiner. Of course, if you think about it, Haley's tweet is a decidedly Trumpian move. Float something that no one is talking about. Watch them talk about it. And then, well, see what happens! A source familiar with Haley's thinking told CNN, "She ignored it for months, and finally decided to say 'enough is enough.' She of course knew it would draw attention in the immediate term but hoped it would put an end to it longer term." Now, I'm not necessarily saying Haley is trying to get on the ticket. But she may well be stirring the pot for the sake of stirring the pot -- and ensuring her name gets back in the national mix. And Haley isn't elaborating on what she meant. (The tweet speaks for itself!) Which means we can only speculate about why she did what she did. One thing I'd like to make clear: Enough of the false rumors. I am not going to be the starting quarterback for the Washington Redskins this season.

2020-03-24 01:16:40

Washington state residents must remain home effective immediately, according to an order from Gov. Jay, which is Inslee intended to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus.Businesses deemed non-essential must close within 48 hours unless employees can work remotely.The order permits residents to leave for activities such as grocery shopping or medical appointments.The order notably comes later than similar orders in New York and California, despite Washington being an early epicenter of the outbreak.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Monday ordered residents in the state to remain home for at least two weeks due to the coronavirus crisis, effective immediately.The order requires all businesses deemed non-essential to close within 48 hours unless employees can work remotely. Essential businesses include grocery stores, pharmacies, and banks. Restaurants – which Inslee earlier this month ordered to close dining rooms – can continue offering take-out and delivery service.Residents can leave for "essential activities" such as grocery shopping or visiting the doctor, and they are permitted to go outside, but they must remain at least six feet away from others at all times.Inslee's order notably comes later than similar orders in New York and California, despite Washington being an early epicenter of the outbreak.Washington had 2,221 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 110 related deaths as of Monday afternoon. Loading Something is loading. Get the latest coronavirus news and updates on how COVID-19 impacts our daily lives and businesses. window._taboola = window._taboola || []; window._taboola = window._taboola || [];

2020-01-06 00:00:00

At the 2020 Golden Globes, Saturday Night Live star Kate McKinnon presented Ellen DeGeneres with the second annual Carol Burnett Award for Excellence in Television. In appropriate fashion, McKinnon's speech was the perfect mixture of hilarious and touching.  McKinnon routinely impersonates DeGeneres, so it was fitting that she was selected to give the TV personality the major award. She opened the speech by revealing all the things that DeGeneres personally gave her, which included “a road map for a way to be funny ... that is rooted in joy” as well as “two pairs of Stan Smith sneakers” and her “best collared shirts.” While DeGeneres apparently contributed quite a lot to McKinnon's wardrobe, the actress was particularly grateful to DeGeneres for paving the way for other members of the LGBTQ+ community to believe they could see themselves on television. As a teenager, watching DeGeneres’ sitcom while "lifting weights in front of the mirror" allowed McKinnon to ask herself if she, too, was gay. DeGeneres famously came out as gay during a 1997 of her sitcom The Ellen Show. The move — in which DeGeneres’ character inadvertently declares she’s gay into a microphone — garnered criticism, and her series was canceled a season later. Despite the cancellation, the episode is now remembered as a major moment of pop cultural representation for the LGBTQ+ community.  “The only thing that made [realizing I was gay] less scary was seeing Ellen on TV,” McKinnon said of DeGeneres’ famous moment. “She risked her entire career to tell the truth, and she suffered greatly for it. Of course attitudes change, but only because people like Ellen jump into the fire to make them change.”  “Thank you Ellen for giving me a shot at a good life,” a teary-eyed McKinnon added, just before mentioning: “And thank you for the sweater with the baby goat on it.” Following a montage of DeGeneres’ biggest moments, the talk show host arrived on stage with a message for McKinnon. “Kate, you’re incredible. I hate being asked to do things like this, so thank you for flying here, thank you for writing this, thank you for your words,” DeGeneres said, in a sparkling suit that nearly matched McKinnon's. “I love you.” DeGeneres, who attended the event with wife Portia de Rossi (and joked for their non-existent kids to "go to bed") then expressed just how much the working on television has meant to her. "All I've ever wanted to do was make people feel good and laugh, and there is no better feeling than one someone says I've made their day with my show, or that I've helped them get through a sickness or a hard time in their lives," DeGeneres said. "The real power of television for me, is that people watch my show and are inspired to do the same thing in their own lives: They make people laugh or be kind or help someone less fortunate than themselves. That's the power of television and I'm so grateful to be part of it." Related Content:

2016-12-23 12:27:15

Tesla has a habit of including Easter Eggs (aka hidden software features) in its software updates, and the latest update includes two doozies. The first is a holiday light show for Model X owners that takes full advantage of the electric SUV’s folding gullwing doors, along with its turn indicators, fog lights, headlights and more. Plus a rousing soundtrack to get you in the holiday spirit. That’s not all, though – for people looking for an even more escapist experience from their car, both Model S and Model X owners with the update can ‘transform’ their vehicles into a Mars-bound spacecraft; the one his other company, SpaceX, is building to send colonists to the red planet. This bonus feature, triggered by entering ‘Mars’ as the access code for your vehicle’s software system, will turn your in-car map to a map of the surface of Mars, and as you drive around the position of your virtual red planet rover will cross new Mars planetary terrain, too. Both Easter Eggs, and the way to enable them, can be seen in the DragTimes YouTube clips above and below.

2017-04-25 07:00:01

If President Donald Trump follows through on his threat to end some crucial Obamacare payments to health insurers, he could actually end up costing the federal government billions of dollars. Trump has been making veiled threats against those subsidies, known as cost-sharing reductions, all month. They are payments that the federal government makes to health insurers because the plans are reducing out-of-pocket costs, such as deductibles and copays, for lower-income Americans who buy insurance through Obamacare. But if Trump stopped the payments, the federal government could actually end up on the hook for quite a lot more — $2.3 billion more than if the payments were allowed to continue, according to a new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That’s because under Obamacare, health plans are required to reduce out-of-pocket costs for lower-income Americans regardless of whether they are paid these subsidies by the federal government. So if the subsidies stopped, health plans would still have to offer very low deductibles and copays to those Americans anyway. They’d then have to increase their premiums to make up for the lost revenues, if they don’t pull out of the market altogether. And because the federal government also provides tax credits through Obamacare to lower premiums for people buying their own insurance, the government would end up eating the cost of those increased premiums. The math works out to a $2.3 billion increase in federal spending, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s estimates. The cost-sharing reduction payments were challenged in court by House Republicans, who sued the Obama administration in 2014 for making the payments without congressional approval. Initially, they prevailed in court. (This explainer has much more details on the subsidy and the lawsuits.) The lawsuit is under appeal. But now Trump’s administration must defend the subsidies. He could stop the lawsuit at any time by dropping the appeal — and is trying to leverage that position to force Democrats to either work with him on health care or provide government funding for his promised Mexican border wall. Democrats are so far refusing to engage with him. Trump might do it anyway, because nixing these subsidies may be his best chance to undermine the law now that the GOP’s repeal-and-replace effort has stalled. It could also drive health plans out of the market, if they no longer consider the government a reliable partner. That could lead Obamacare to implode — though the president risks taking the blame for it himself. Killing the subsidies is essentially Trump’s nuclear option.

2019-12-11 00:00:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Qwil, a startup that provides financing to freelancers and small businesses, has raised $24.4 million in equity and $200 million in debt funding from investors including Jefferies Financial Group Inc, the company said on Wednesday. The equity round was led by venture firm PeakSpan with participation by Mosaik Partners, Reciprocal Ventures, Silicon Valley Bank, Cantos, Sam Hodges, and Prosper President Emeritus Ron Suber. The San Francisco-based company will use the cash injection to grow the business by making new hires and increasing the pipeline of individuals and small businesses it lends to, Johnny Reinsch, CEO and co-founder of Qwil, said in an interview. Reinsch came up with the idea for the company after he had nearly defaulted on his mortgage in 2014 when he was freelancing and a client had not paid him on time, he said. Having been denied financing from his bank, Reinsch had few options other than high-interest and predatory loans, he said. He co-founded Qwil in 2015 to help provide a solution for others faced with a similar problem, he said. The company works with on-demand and freelancer marketplaces to enable them to offer their workers access to payments earlier rather than when their invoices are due. Like some other fintech lenders, it does not rely on traditional credit scores to make its underwriting decisions, but uses alternative data, such as payment information. This helps keep its costs down, Reinsch said. “We have been able to price this very competitively given the price doesn’t rely on FICO scores,” Reinsch said. Qwil’s flat fee for the advance pay equates to a 20% rate on an annualized basis, he said. The company can send payments to 140 countries in all major currencies and says that it can help marketplaces attract better freelancers by giving the earlier access to pay. Qwill is one of a growing number of young companies taking advantage of technology to offer more user-friendly and cheaper financial services to consumers and businesses than banks and other traditional providers. “We’ve partnered with Qwil in their mission to provide fair alternative financing to those typically underserved by the financial industry - contractors and small businesses,” Brian McGrath, head of principal finance and fintech investing at Jefferies, said in a statement. Qwil has advanced more than $150 million in pay through its platform so far, with nearly half of the customers using its services consistently after their first transaction, it said. Reporting by Anna Irrera; editing by Nick Macfie

2016-04-20

These firefighters better be ready to put out some fires after people lay eyes on their newest calendar. The Firefighters Calendar has become a yearly tradition in Australia and we thank the hot guy gods for it every single time a new photo emerges.  The upcoming calendar will still include all the sexiest Australian firefighters, with the addition of puppies. Yes, puppies. The calendar began in 1993 and benefits the Children's Hospital Foundation and the Westmead Children's Hospital's burn unit. Since its inception, funds from calendar sales have raised over $1 million.  This year, proceeds will also go to the RSPCA, which provides care and protective services for animals. Naturally, with the newest charity addition, the firefighters decided to feature cute creatures in need in their calendar photos. The pups used in the shoot were on loan from Safe Haven Animal Rescue and are all available for adoption.  It's unclear if the firefighters are available, too. Below are several more photos from the 2017 calendar shoot, courtesy of the Firefighters Calendar Australia Facebook page and Instagram.  A photo posted by #FireFightersCalendar (@firefighterscalendar) on Apr 13, 2016 at 8:46pm PDT A photo posted by #FireFightersCalendar (@firefighterscalendar) on Apr 11, 2016 at 1:42am PDT A photo posted by #FireFightersCalendar (@firefighterscalendar) on Apr 14, 2016 at 4:25pm PDT A photo posted by #FireFightersCalendar (@firefighterscalendar) on Apr 11, 2016 at 6:31pm PDT Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

2020-02-21 00:00:00

St. Charles Police Department The mother, father, and brother of an 11-year-old girl are facing criminal charges after she gave birth at home in a bathtub in St. Charles, Missouri. The girls' parents are facing charges of child endangerment, while her brother, 17, is charged with incest, statutory rape, and statutory sodomy, according to charging documents provided to BuzzFeed News. (BuzzFeed News is not naming those charged as it would identify the victim.) Police were called on Feb. 11 after a baby boy was brought to a hospital with the umbilical cord and placenta still attached and a body temperature of 90 degrees. According to an affidavit, the girl’s parents brought the baby boy to the hospital, with her father initially claiming that the baby was his and had been dropped off on his porch by a woman he sometimes had sex with. But he later told investigators that his daughter had given birth to the boy and that his teenage son was the father. Both parents said they weren't aware that their daughter was being raped or had become pregnant, according to charging documents. The 17-year-old boy allegedly told police that he had had sex with his sister about 100 times. He couldn't remember how long it had been going on for and didn’t know she was pregnant, according to charging documents. The girl's parents allegedly provided no medical care for her after she gave birth. The baby, who was born premature, is still in the hospital, but will eventually be taken into state custody, St. Charles police Lt. Tom Wilkison told BuzzFeed News. All three relatives are currently in jail at the St. Charles County Department of Corrections, and the 11-year-old girl is staying with relatives, according to Lt. Wilkison.

2018-03-08 18:00:01

Metropolitan Diary Dear Diary: In 2002, I was completing my master’s of fine arts degree at a local college. The writing program held a fund-raiser at the Culture Project on Delancey Street. The evening was hosted by George Plimpton and featured a panel of luminaries reading from their work. My professor wanted two students to read as well and I was one of those chosen. Among the impressive lineup that night was a Pulitzer Prize winner, a poet laureate, and some dude from Long Island trying not to hyperventilate. I remember being distracted at the bright wall of light separating the stage from the audience and the awkward sound of my voice coming from the microphone. I finished my selection to polite applause and immediately began to question everything: Had I picked the right story? Did I read it too fast? Does this haircut look stupid? As I returned to my seat, an elegant woman to my left smiled sweetly and reached out to me. I didn’t know if she was congratulating me or if she just she felt sorry for a young man in over his head. All I knew was that Nora Ephron had just patted my knee.

2016-12-31 00:13:53

Sports Briefing Ten suspended Minnesota football players will not face charges in connection with an alleged sexual assault near campus, prosecutors announced Friday after taking a second look at the case. It was the second time the Hennepin County attorney’s office weighed in on the September events that led to suspensions, potential expulsions, talk of a bowl-game boycott and questions as to whether Coach Tracy Claeys should continue with the Gopher football program. County Attorney Mike Freeman declined to press charges in October, citing a lack of evidence. After reviewing the details of the university’s own investigation, Freeman said that inquiry had not added enough information to warrant criminal charges. “That report shined a light on what can only be described as deplorable behavior,” Freeman said in a statement. Lee Hutton, the players’ lawyer, did not immediately respond to a phone message and an email seeking comment. The university suspended the 10 players after completing its own investigation, the results of which it kept private, citing federal privacy laws. But a local TV station published a redacted copy of the 82-page report, which quoted the woman as saying that she believed 10 to 20 men had had sex with her, though she was not certain. She told university investigators she was too traumatized to remember events clearly. Soon after the report was leaked, players still on the roster — who had vowed to boycott Tuesday’s Holiday Bowl unless their teammates were reinstated — relented, going on to beat Washington State, 17-12. Butler Athletic Director Barry Collier has dealt with plenty of turbulence during his basketball career, but nothing like Thursday night’s flight home from New York. Collier said the lights on the plane went out about 40 minutes into the flight. Oxygen masks deployed, tears flowed, and text messages were sent as the Bulldogs descended from 35,000 feet to 10,000 feet before an unscheduled landing in Pittsburgh, he said. In Collier’s opinion, it was eventful and unusual but not terrifying. “It felt a lot like a normal descent for a landing,” he said. “It wasn’t dramatically different, other than the cabin was dark. After about five or 10 minutes, the lights came back on.” The charter plane was flying from La Guardia Airport to Indianapolis after Thursday’s 76-73 loss to St. John’s. Collier said the Bulldogs still had not received an explanation about what happened. BAYLOR REMAINS UNDEFEATED Johnathan Motley had 19 points and 13 rebounds as undefeated No. 4 Baylor jumped on host Oklahoma early and breezed to a 76-50 victory in the Big 12 opener for both teams. The Bears (12-0, 1-0) remain one of five unbeaten teams in Division I. The suspended Oakland Raiders pass rusher Aldon Smith will not be reinstated by the N.F.L. this season. Brian McCarthy, a league spokesman, said Friday that the league would begin considering Smith’s petition for reinstatement in March. Smith was suspended in November 2015 for violating the league’s policy on substance abuse. He was eligible to be reinstated on Nov. 17. Oakland Coach Jack Del Rio was not pleased with the league’s choice to put off a decision until 2017. “Little disappointed, honestly,” Del Rio said. “Obviously it’s not my job to make a ruling, but from everything I’ve gathered, he’s done his duty to take care of all the things he needs to take care of.” The Raiders (12-3) finish the regular season on Sunday in Denver and will make their first playoff appearance since 2002. COLTS LINEBACKER TO RETIRE Indianapolis Colts linebacker Robert Mathis announced that he would retire after Sunday’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, ending 14 years with the organization. Mathis, 35, spent his entire career with the Colts after being selected in the fifth round out of Alabama A&M in 2003. Mathis, a five-time Pro Bowler, has 122 career sacks — tied for 18th on the career list. “I want to walk away, not limp away,” Mathis said. Isaiah Thomas scored 29 of his career-high 52 points in the fourth quarter, setting a franchise record for points in a period and leading host Boston to a 117-114 victory over the Miami Heat. Thomas hit six 3-pointers and converted a 3-point play in the fourth quarter and broke the franchise record of 24 points in a quarter set by Larry Bird in 1983 and matched by Todd Day in 1995. Thomas also topped his career high of 44 points, scored on Dec. 20 at Memphis. HARDEN GETS HIS SEVENTH TRIPLE-DOUBLE James Harden had a triple-double with 30 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists, and the Houston Rockets rolled to a 140-116 victory over the visiting Los Angeles Clippers. The triple-double was the seventh this season for Harden and his third straight 30-point game. CURRY AUCTIONS OFF SNEAKERS TO HELP FIRE VICTIMS The Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry raised $45,201 for victims of the Ghost Ship warehouse fire in Oakland, Calif., on Dec. 2 by auctioning off two pairs of sneakers. Jay McClement scored the what proved to be the winning goal 2 minutes 54 seconds into the third period, and the host Carolina Hurricanes beat the Western Conference-leading Chicago Blackhawks, 3-2. Elias Lindholm and Lee Stempniak scored early goals 1:05 apart to give the Hurricanes a 2-1 lead, and they held on to earn a point in their 11th straight home game. “I think we’re kind of firing on all cylinders at home,” McClement said. “We’ve just got to continue to do that on the road.” The Hurricanes are 10-0-1 at PNC Arena since Nov. 12 PREDATORS END THEIR SKID IN ST. LOUIS Juuse Saros made 25 saves for his first career shutout, Filip Forsberg got a goal and an assist, and the Nashville Predators beat the St. Louis Blues, 4-0. Yannick Weber, Viktor Arvidsson and Colin Wilson also scored, and Saros won his second career road game. The Predators ended a five-game losing streak on the road against St. Louis.

2018-10-10 00:00:00

Ernest Moniz, former energy secretary for President Barack Obama, is suspending his involvement advising Saudi Arabia on a proposed city mega-project until more information is made available regarding the disappearance — and possible assassination — of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Why it matters: Moniz’s move shows how geopolitical disputes, and in this case a potentially tragic one, can have spillover effects into wholly unrelated issues like business and energy. The details: Moniz said he was invited to join an international advisory board for the development of NEOM, whose cost is estimated to be around $500 billion. The project is meant to be a smart city of the future, built from the ground up in Saudi Arabia, Moniz said in a statement. Saudi Arabia, whose state-owned oil company pumps out far more oil than any other company, is seeking to diversify its oil-dependent economy. “In particular, I have been asked to offer guidance on achieving zero net greenhouse gas emissions. Success with this vision will have global implications for a low-carbon future,” Moniz said. In awkward timing, the board was announced Tuesday, according to media reports in Saudi Arabia. Go Deeper: Khashoggi disappearance could impact Saudi Arabia's business deals

2016-02-08 16:40:00

Trinidad and Tobago’s biggest annual festival, Carnival, calls to me in a way that nothing else in my life ever has. As an Afro-Caribbean Black woman who immigrated to America when I was just 4, visits to my homeland feed my soul and put me in touch with my Blackness and womanhood in a way nothing else ever has. I was 18 the first time I experienced Carnival. My extended family invited me down for a visit. Until that time, I had never really connected with the land of my birth. I had been there many times, but the culture still felt elusive to me, blurred by my American upbringing. Carnival completely changed that. In many ways, for diasporic Trinbagonians, like myself, who long ago departed from their native country in search of opportunities elsewhere, Carnival (which takes place this week) is a pilgrimage. We save money all year to cover airline tickets, lodging, fetes (large parties), J’ouvert (the opening event), and Monday and Tuesday Mas. Until the plane lands at Piarco Airport, and I step foot out into the warm embrace of my homeland, my chest is always knotted with anxiety — the anxiety of struggling to merely survive; to get through 40-hour work weeks, internships, and a full-time college course load. Carnival is my time for release. It’s a moment of true freedom, where my waistline can bounce to the rhythm of Soca and Chutney music — inspired by the African and Indian history of the twin-islands' people. Whether it’s the bass erupting from a speaker, the banging of tassa drums, or a steel pan orchestra, the music demands that your body respond. It’s infectious. It’s like I’m "Possessed," as best described by Kerwin Dubois’ song:"Taking over me / Taking over meh soul / This the kinda feeling that I cannot control / Messing with meh body, messing with meh mind / Every time it hit me, my mind does start to wiiinnnneee." The spirit and rhythm of Carnival courses through the veins of island people. From its inception, it signified the reclaiming of freedom, when slaves appropriated the French tradition of wearing masks while parading in the streets, adding their own cultural flair and political meaning. Since then, the festival has transformed into all-out bacchanalia. Men and women take to the streets in the wee hours of the morning for J’ouvert, dancing behind huge music trucks with stereo systems that can be heard for miles, while dousing each other in buckets of mud, oil, and paint — all traditions that trace back to the ancient Indian and African cultures that managed to bring people of different colors and creeds together under the banner of one flag. The vibrant paints celebrate all global citizens coming together to reclaim their freedom and rebel against oppression. People covered in mud or oil are indistinguishable — everyone is black or brown. It is this authentic celebration of brownness and Blackness that quells my anxiety.In America, I grew up one of few Black people in spaces that constantly felt unwelcoming. I moved quite a bit, and each time, a feeling of isolation loomed. In New Jersey, my then-boyfriend’s white family told me I was not welcome in their home. In Texas, while walking down the street with my family, a driver screamed that there were "too many..." using a racial slur as he sped by. In Florida, my family was priced out of the good neighborhoods that welcomed minorities. Even New York City — America’s “melting pot” — feels divided, even segregated, as a wave of gentrification continues to push many people of color out. When I shared videos and images of Carnival with an American friend, her response was, “Oh, you guys twerk like Miley Cyrus?” — mislabeling Trinidad’s native dance, while also misappropriating African-American culture. In a conversation about catcalling, a male acquaintance took the position that, “When women dress with everything hanging out, they shouldn’t be angry when men treat them like sluts.” It’s a sentiment I have repeatedly heard among American men. These and other experiences have led me to conclude that in many ways, I simply do not belong; that I am not wholly accepted, respected, wanted, or even understood as a Black immigrant woman.For me, Carnival is the ultimate expression of freedom — a source of revitalization, even. When the music takes over me and my body shakes, I am filled with a sense of pride, and the spirit of my ancestors pulses through me. It is like an antidote to the constant slights I am subjected to at all other times. It is my remedy for the sickness of racism, sexism, and cultural marginalization.This marks the eighth year that I will be participating in Carnival. Now, at 26, I finally feel whole and complete — my position in society and the greater world is more defined; I feel stabilized and rooted in my culture and heritage. This week I will cover myself from head to toe in paint, and jump in the mud with friends and strangers to the hard thumps of Soca music. I will put my curves on full display and wine to the ground with my head held high. I will feel at one with all of the people of my island homeland, no matter their race, creed, or gender.And I will return to the U.S., a proud Afro-Caribbean-American woman.

2018-07-18 01:39:02

A decision in a long running EU antitrust probe of Google’s Android OS is due to land shortly. European Commission officials are trailing a press conference with competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager — to announce an “antitrust decision” at 1pm CET, with a link to watch the event streamed live. Press conference with Commissioner @vestager today at 13h00 CET on an antitrust decision – follow it live here: https://t.co/cN0JhSI5Yw — Ricardo Cardoso (@RCardosoEU) July 18, 2018 Bloomberg is reporting the EU’s fine for Android will be in the region of $5BN — which would be the largest ever antitrust penalty handed down by the Commission. The case focuses on whether Google has abused its market dominance and crowded out rivals by taking steps to ensure its own-brand apps and services are pre-loaded on Android devices. In April, Reuters reported on a 2016 document it had reviewed which said the Commission planned to levy a large fine against Google and would also order the company to stop giving revenue-sharing payments to smartphone makers to pre-install only Google Search. Reuters also reported then that Google would be ordered to stop requiring its own Chrome browser and other apps to be installed alongside Google’s Play store. The Commission will confirm the full details of its Android decision in the next few hours. Stay tuned for more as we get it… Update: Full report here.

2016-01-19 19:00:00

Humans of New York is a pretty uncontroversial fixture in our social media lives. Photographer Brandon Stanton has been stalking the streets of the Big Apple since 2010, documenting its denizens and posting brief snippets of their life stories to various social platforms. The project has generated two books, garnered more than 16 million Facebook likes, and received praise from major figures in the public sphere.But a firestorm of criticism erupted when Stanton posted a picture of two track-suited teens with the caption, “We've been together for ten months now so we're trying to keep the passion alive.” Most commenters focused on what we would have: Ten months is nothing you little zygotes, come back when you’ve done ten years hard labor in the salt mines that we labor in day after day to appease our alien overlords. “you're in trouble if after 10 months you're already trying to keep the passion alive…” one commenter said. “You mean "we've been alive for 10 months"?” another agreed.But Stanton was having none of it. He rarely weighs in in the comments section, preferring to let his work do the talking, but he decided he needed to step in for what's right.“Not sure why the comment section is trying to force an adult perspective of relationships on two high schoolers. Let them be sixteen. Ten months is 8 percent of their lives,” he wrote. His comment has garnered a nice 69,000 likes. “You know when Brandon has to say something, it's gotten ridiculous,” the top comment on his comment agrees.And we agree. How many songs and movies have focused on young love? Romeo and Juliet is about 14-year-olds (gross)! Since Stanton weighed in, the commentariat have turned positive, proving that it is possible to be nice online. Now, if you'll excuse us, we have to together our statement outfits and prepare to lie outrageously when a guy approaches us with a camera.

2020-01-28 00:00:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma LP is the unnamed company that surfaced in criminal charging documents filed earlier this week in a probe of illegal kickbacks from drugmakers, according to people familiar with the matter. Purdue Pharma, which faces U.S. Justice Department probes and sprawling litigation over allegations it played a central role in the deadly U.S. opioid crisis, faces new scrutiny in connection with a case Vermont federal prosecutors unveiled on Monday against a San Francisco electronic health records vendor. The vendor allegedly received a roughly $1 million illegal kickback from an opioid company identified in the documents as “Pharma Co. X.” The unnamed company is Purdue Pharma, the people familiar with the matter said. Purdue was not criminally charged in the case or accused of wrongdoing. “As Purdue Pharma has previously stated, the company is cooperating with investigative demands by various components of the U.S. Department of Justice in connection with criminal and civil investigations of the company,” the Stamford, Connecticut-based drugmaker said in a statement, adding that it had no further comment. Members of the wealthy Sackler family who control Purdue but no longer sit on its board have also been named in litigation and issued a separate statement. “Throughout their time on the board since 2007, the directors were regularly and consistently assured that the company was in full compliance with all legal and regulatory requirements, and so we would be profoundly disappointed if any of those assurances turned out not to be true,” they said. A spokesman for the Vermont U.S. attorney’s office and a Justice Department spokeswoman in Washington declined to comment. The development intensifies pressure on Purdue and the Sacklers as the company holds talks aimed at resolving the Justice Department investigations. Resolving those probes is a condition of a tentative multibillion-dollar settlement with more than 2,600 cities, counties and states that have sued Purdue and its wealthy owners seeking to hold them responsible for the opioid epidemic. The company and the Sacklers deny they are to blame for the crisis that has caused some 400,000 deaths between 1999 and 2017, according to U.S. health officials. Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in September in the hopes of hammering out a final settlement it values at up to $10 billion. The vendor at the center of the kickback investigation is Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc’s (MDRX.O) Practice Fusion unit. It agreed to pay $145 million to resolve criminal and civil allegations that it solicited and received kickbacks from several drugmakers in exchange for embedding alerts in physicians’ software to boost sales of their products, the Vermont U.S. attorney’s office said. As part of the settlement, Practice Fusion entered into a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve criminal charges linked to the illegal kickback it received from the unnamed company, which sources identified as Purdue. Practice Fusion also resolved a civil allegation that it submitted false claims to federal healthcare programs in relation to the kickback arrangement with the unnamed opioid company, prosecutors said. Reuters was unable to learn the identities of the other pharmaceutical companies involved in the case. Practice Fusion began soliciting payments from Pharma Co. X in late 2013 in exchange for creating an physician alert designed to boost opioid prescriptions by suggesting doctors focus on assessing and treating a patient’s pain symptoms with opioid medication as a preferred option. Practice Fusion pitched the software as a way to influence doctors and counter the unnamed company’s declining opioid sales, stemming from heightened public awareness of addiction risks, according to court documents. The goals of the alerts was to create new opioid patients and convert current users from immediate-release opioid medications to highly addictive extended-release drugs, according to court documents. The alert on the Practice Fusion platform, used by tens of thousands of healthcare providers, was triggered 230 million times from July 2016 until the spring of 2019, according to court documents. Allscripts General Counsel and Chief Administrative Officer Brian Farley said in a statement the allegations predate his company’s 2018 acquisition of Practice Fusion for $100 million. He said Allscripts has strengthened Practice Fusion’s compliance program and is aware of the devastation opioids have caused to U.S. communities. Reporting by Mike Spector in New York and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Bill Berkrot

2018-07-04 05:00:11

This month, the writer takes the helm of the Marvel Comics series. He breaks down where he’s taking the Star-Spangled Avenger. Captain America enjoys a rarefied position in the superhero pantheon. Since his 1940 debut (in which he punches Adolf Hitler in the face), Captain America has been defined as the quintessential patriot. In stories that have riffed on divisive political moments — Watergate, the War on Terror — the Captain, also known as Steve Rogers, has emerged as a complex man, one willing to question the direction his country takes. Marvel announced in February that the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates would assume writing duties on a new Captain America series, with the first issue rolling out on Independence Day. Mr. Coates, now in his second year of working on the acclaimed “Black Panther,” noted that he relishes the chance to adapt “a walking emblem of greatest-generation propaganda” for the contemporary moment. For Coates, taking on this icon was not about leaving his mark on the character but embodying what he called the character’s “Lincolnesque optimism.” “The opportunity of writing ‘Captain America’ wasn’t to make Steve Rogers talk like the son of somebody who had been in the Black Panther Party,” he said in a phone interview with The Times. “The opportunity was the son of somebody who had been in the Black Panther Party to talk like Steve Rogers. To get into that perspective.” The following are pages from “Captain America” No. 1, annotated with excerpts from an interview with Mr. Coates. Spoilers ahead. Captain America is “trying to say, ‘What happened?’ How can it be that this country that he loves and believes in was taken over by Hydra?” — Ta-Nehisi Coates In last year’s “Secret Empire” series, Steve Rogers revealed himself as the supreme leader of Hydra, an ancient terrorist organization once allied with the Nazis and long depicted as the enemy to Marvel’s greatest heroes. That the good guy was in fact one of the bad guys struck characters and even fans as a kind of blasphemy. The one, true, Captain America did finally return (it’s a complicated story), and managed to defeat his evil doppelgänger. In this issue, Cap is fighting new enemies, but wondering if something deep in the American psyche made the nation susceptible to Hydra’s power. For Mr. Coates, the story is informed by the current climate — just as past Captain America stories were informed by theirs. “Captain America is a political hero,” he said. “It’s impossible to write an apolitical Cap story. My dude has a flag on his chest. It’s not incidental.” “The idea is that Cap almost stands apart in many ways from the organs of the country. Really, he is supposed to be about something bigger, and that is the ideal of what America is supposed to be. So what he is doing when he talks about these stories is he’s trying to figure out — and this is a consistent notion in Captain America stories — is how can he operate in a country that falls so far?” — Ta-Nehisi Coates In this installment, Cap is attacked at Washington’s National Mall; his enemies are a group of clones of Nuke, a flag-faced super soldier he first encountered in 1986’s “Daredevil” No. 233. If the clones represent a nation tipping into chaos, so, too, did Captain America, at least in his last outing as the leader of Hydra. America fell, and he, in a sense, fell with it. Even the dialogue is an explicit echo of that earlier story, in which our hero affirmed that he was loyal to nothing — “except the Dream.” His belief in the American ideal is unwavering. “I think what we were trying to do, more than anything, was to get some sense of what the wreckage had been. What damage this attack by these Nukes, who are this warped vision of Captain America, had actually wrought on the Mall. It was the literal storytelling.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates The challenge faced by Mr. Coates and the artist Leinil Yu in the panels above is to convey scale; to establish that “something really bad had happened,” Mr. Coates said. Even amid this destruction, Cap finds a way to tell a small child to be brave for his father and for all Americans. This moment shows the writer choosing to embody the character’s “Lincolnesque optimism” about his nation, reminding fans that he stands for something good. “This is a comic book about ideals in actual crisis. What happens when we stray too far from our ideals? Cap is interrogating that. Hydra was able to take over — in his view, we had forgotten something.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates The book’s final scene takes place in Russia. Selene, an X-Men supervillain, is seen draining the life force from a Hydra agent. The moment is framed as neither glorious nor righteous, but as horrific. Even despite the scale of the destruction the artist and writer set out to convey, it’s obvious that something worse is on the horizon. In the months ahead, Mr. Coates plans on exploring the idea that America may have forgotten something ineffable about itself. “Captain America” No. 1 isn’t the start of his treatise on the Trump era nor is it making a case against the character. Instead, Mr. Coates seems committed to approaching his hero thoughtfully, untroubled by comics fans’ political leanings. “You have to write what you feel,” he said. “Comics are art. So the art that is conceived strictly to make people happy, that’s not art I’m interesting in consuming.”

2017-06-08 19:25:10

Five percent of pregnant women with a confirmed Zika infection in the United States territories, including Puerto Rico, went on to have a baby with a related birth defect, according to the most comprehensive report to date from federal officials. The report, published on Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also provided for the first time preliminary estimates of this risk by trimester. Previously, there were not enough births following exposure to the Zika virus to make such estimates. This new report reviewed nearly 2,550 cases of women with possible Zika virus infection who completed pregnancies — meaning they gave birth, miscarried or experienced stillbirth — from Jan. 1, 2016 to April 25, 2017. Roughly 1,500 of those women had Zika infection actually confirmed by laboratory testing. Eight percent of offspring of pregnant women in U.S. territories with a positive nucleic acid test for Zika infection in the first trimester had birth defects linked to the virus. By contrast, 5 percent of these infants did when infection occurred in the second trimester, and 4 percent in the third trimester. “It’s incredibly useful,” said Dr. Laura Riley, a specialist in high-risk pregnancies and infectious disease at Massachusetts General Hospital. “Patients want to know what is the likelihood their baby could be damaged. At least now, I feel like I had some numbers I can utilize in counseling.” C.D.C. researchers classified cases by the trimester in which the laboratory test was conducted or symptoms were reported, said Peggy Honein, the chief of the birth defects branch at the C.D.C. That “may not represent the precise timing of infection.” The data reported to C.D.C. came from the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of Marshall Islands, American Samoa, and the United States Virgin Islands. In total, the agency counted 122 babies with possible Zika-related birth defects, such as neural tube defects, eye abnormalities or microcephaly, an unusually small head. Previously, Puerto Rico’s department of health had only reported about 35 cases in which a fetus was lost or baby was born with Zika-related birth defects, raising concerns that the extent of damage to infants has been underplayed on the island. On a call with reporters, Dr. Anne Schuchat, the acting director of the C.D.C., replied, “We do believe that Puerto Rico authorities are doing a very good job right now in evaluating babies whose mothers had Zika infection, and characterizing them and reporting in.” On Monday, Puerto Rico declared that its Zika epidemic had ended, based on data showing the number of new cases had fallen. Regardless, C.D.C. officials said today that they still advised pregnant women to avoid traveling to Puerto Rico and to protect themselves against mosquito bites, if they do. “We do agree that the disease went up and it’s come down, but that the risk is ongoing and that’s why they are continuing intensive surveillance and outreach,” Dr. Schuchat said. Dr. Tom Frieden, the former director of the C.D.C., said of Zika, “It may not be epidemic anymore, but it’s endemic” in Puerto Rico. “What we often see with this type of infection, it’s really bad in the first year and less bad in future years,” he added. “That’s why C.D.C. has retained its travel guidance.” Dr. Frieden also cautioned that this report “is a minimum estimate of the number of infants who may be Zika-affected,” in Puerto Rico, because not all women whose infections were confirmed in the first trimester have given birth yet. “The report mentions that only 18 percent of pregnancies they identified were in the first trimester, while you’d expect it to be a third,” he said. Testing pregnant women for Zika will be routine in Puerto Rico, Dr. Schuchat said. Women who do not have any symptoms of Zika virus still may give birth to a baby with Zika-related birth defects, research has shown. The only way to catch those infections is to screen women because they may have been exposed to Zika-infected mosquitoes or may have had sexual contact with an infected partner. In this new report, “The presence or absence of symptoms was not predictive of whether a baby would be damaged,” Dr. Riley said. “There were women who had asymptomatic Zika whose babies were damaged.” Currently, only about 60 percent of babies born alive in United States territories had results of Zika laboratory testing reported to pregnancy and infant registries. It’s important that all babies who may have been affected are monitored, as early intervention can help. For instance, some babies who appear normal at birth later develop an unusually shrunken head. Only with long-term tracking can health officials get an accurate estimate of the scope of the problem. Even now, Puerto Ricans often do not take every precaution to avoid Zika infection. In another C.D.C. report released on Thursday, roughly 88 percent of residents with a recent birth said they had used screens on doors to keep mosquitoes at bay. But 56 percent of roughly 1,800 sexually active pregnant women reported never using condoms to protect themselves from getting Zika from a sexual partner.

2017-07-28

Outgoing White House chief of staff Reince PriebusReinhold (Reince) Richard PriebusTrump blasts Scaramucci as 'incapable' Trump taps Sean Spicer to join Naval Academy board of visitors Trump's no racist — he's an equal opportunity offender MORE on Friday pushed back on the possibility that he may become the next U.S. ambassador to Greece following his departure from the White House. "No, that's not going to happen," Priebus told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room" in his first interview since President Trump announced Friday he would replace him with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly. "I think I'm going to take a little vacation, spend sometime with my wife and kids, and enjoy the future, and continue to be supportive," Priebus continued. The New York Times reported in May that Trump had joked with Priebus, whose mother is of Greek descent, that he would make him the U.S. ambassador to Greece.  Speculation mounted when Priebus requested a list of ambassadors to be compiled and the Greek ambassadorship was left black, according to the Times.  Priebus' interview Friday followed the latest in a major staff shakeup at the White House. Trump tapped Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci as his new communications director last Friday, resulting in the resignation of press secretary Sean Spicer.  Scaramucci, who had tension with Priebus, lashed out at the chief of staff in an interview with The New Yorker this week in which he called Priebus "a f------ paranoid schizophrenic." Priebus chose not to respond to Scaramucci's comments on Friday, but praised Trump's decision to "hit a reset button." "The president has a right to change directions. The president has a right to hit a reset button. I think it was a good time to hit the reset button," Priebus said.  "I think it was something the White House needs," he added. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2016-05-04 16:52:55

Knoxville Journal KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Zenobia Dobson removed the envelope from her mailbox and placed it, unopened, in her apartment in the Lonsdale Homes public housing complex, her living room already crowded with artifacts of mourning, respect and unrecoverable loss. There were the football jerseys, framed but not yet hung on the walls, in honor of her dead son. Proclamations from the city and county. A large painting of his face in the clouds. His weight bench, still by the front door. There was also a collage, produced for his funeral, that included a reproduction of the Twitter message from President Obama that made her son Zaevion posthumously famous. It declared him “a hero at 15,” and asked, “What’s our excuse for not acting?” on gun control legislation. Ms. Dobson ran some errands and then came home and opened the envelope. It was full of poems from University of Tennessee students she had never met, and their professor, the poet Marilyn Kallet, who wrote: I want to kill the bullet that Killed your son, Zenobia. Want to stop this madness. Ms. Dobson read the poems, and then she cried as if it were still Dec. 17. That evening last year, Zaevion, the youngest of her three sons and a promising high school football player, was shot in the chest a couple of blocks from home in what the police say was a retaliatory gang attack. Zaevion, the police said, was an innocent bystander with no gang affiliation. He died shielding two young women from the attackers. On Jan. 5, a few days after the president’s Twitter post, Mr. Obama mentioned Zaevion again in a tearful speech in which he proposed more vigorous gun-control legislation. The killing of this innocent teenager, he said, should allay any doubt “as to why you should feel that fierce urgency of now.” But that was not the feeling in Knoxville, the third-largest city in a state where there has been little political appetite for a new gun-control crusade. The Republican-controlled legislature here is one of the most gun-friendly in the nation. In February, it passed a resolution naming a semiautomatic weapon, the Barrett Model M82/M107, as the official state rifle. On Monday, Gov. Bill Haslam, a Republican, allowed a bill to become law that will allow faculty and staff members at public colleges and universities to be armed. The mayor of Knoxville, Madeline Rogero, a Democrat in a city with a strong Republican presence, has decided that Zaevion’s story would best serve as an argument for strengthening programs for at-risk youth, and addressing the root causes of gang violence. In an interview, Ms. Rogero, with what seemed like a mix of pride and exasperation, noted that she had been named as a defendant in two lawsuits challenging a city policy that banned firearms at the annual Tennessee Valley Fair. The National Rifle Association opposes the policy. “When you make it just about guns, then you don’t really get more to the root cause of why somebody takes up a gun,” she said. The police chief, David Rausch, who joined the mayor for an interview at City Hall, agreed that it would be tricky to make the teenager’s death a gun issue. “Because then you polarize people,” he said. And so, with guns off the table, the response to the killing in this city of 184,000 has played out instead with a focus on themes that do not polarize in the American heartland: a respect for chivalry, sacrifice, football and mothers who resolve to raise good sons. The state legislature has voted to name a freeway overpass for Zaevion, and at the Lonsdale Homes, a playground will be built and dedicated in his name. Fulton High School, where Zaevion, as a sophomore, played linebacker and fullback for a football program that has won numerous state championships, has created a scholarship named for him. A countywide Zaevion Dobson Day will be commemorated each Jan. 24, in honor of the number — 24 — that he wore on the field. Among the items in Ms. Dobson’s living room is a “citation of excellence” presented by the Knoxville Police Department, extolling Zaevion’s “heroic act of valor and bravery in giving his life by placing himself in grave danger to protect others.” Ms. Dobson, 46, is a single mother who grew up in the same project where she raised her boys, encouraging their interest in sports and staying in close contact with their teachers. With the death of Zaevion, she has become something of a public figure. Strangers recognize her from the news. “They just stop me at the mall and want to give me a hug,” she said. The response, for many here, was an example of Knoxville at its best, transcending the dividing lines of partisanship, race and class. State Representative Eddie Smith, a Republican who represents Zaevion’s neighborhood, was instrumental in having the overpass named in his honor. “His first thought was to jump on top of those girls and protect them,” he said. “What high school student would have thought to react that way?” But Mr. Smith is among those who are adamant that gun control should not be part of the conversation. “Criminals will always find a way,” he said. “I’m a Christian, so I go back to Cain and Abel. It didn’t involve a gun. It involved a rock.” After burying her son, Ms. Dobson returned to her job at a meals-on-wheels program for the elderly. Her politics are no secret: A digitally altered image hanging in her kitchen shows Mr. Obama, Malcolm X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. together, striking similarly pensive poses. She is grateful for the posthumous recognition Zaevion has earned, but frustrated that gun control is not part of the discussion. On April 16, Zaevion’s 12-year-old cousin, Jajuan Hubert Latham, was killed in an unrelated gang shootout that is under investigation. “All I can do is just pray that one day they’ll have a change of heart,” she said of Tennessee lawmakers. Ms. Dobson has been following her son’s case closely. Chief Rausch said that five people of interest had been picked up and questioned. None have been charged for the killing, though four are being held on other charges. The police have not released information about the weapons used, except to note that there was more than one. Last week, the mayor invited Ms. Dobson to the unveiling of the proposed city budget, which includes funding for a new recreation and jobs center for young people, and increased funding for an antiviolence program called Save Our Sons. Ms. Dobson could not attend. She had to work. But she did go, during her lunch break, to hear Ms. Kallet and her students at their poetry reading on Friday afternoon. They were poems of condolence, mostly, with hints of bewilderment and rage. “‘Senseless shooting spree,’ ” Ms. Kallet’s poem read, echoing the language of news reports, As if there could beA meaningful shootingSpree — After reading, most of the poets approached Ms. Dobson and hugged her. She hugged them all back. And when they were done, she dried her tears, and made her way back to work.

2019-01-07 11:13:12

Front Burner Learn more about Californian wines and cheeses at a talk at the 92nd Street Y. Several of California’s most notable cheeses, including Vella Dry Jack and Cypress Grove Lamb Chopper will be served at the 92nd Street Y alongside powerful cabernet sauvignons and zinfandels from Napa and Sonoma Counties. The occasion is a talk by Martin Johnson, a cheese expert, and Michael Whidden, a wine distributor. They’ll explain the state’s big wines and big cheeses. California Dreamin,’ $45, 7 p.m., Jan. 31, 92nd Street Y, 1352 Lexington Avenue (92nd Street), 212-415-5500, 92Y.org. Follow NYT Food on Twitter and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.

2017-03-01

March 1 (Reuters) - Volkswagen Of America: * February sales totaled 25,145 units, an increase of 12.7 percent over February 2016 Source text (bit.ly/2mtAlDN) Further company coverage:

2016-01-21 15:40:01

After a week in which the Democratic primary has been dominated by wonky back and forth over the details of health plans and bank regulation, Bernie Sanders's campaign dropped an ad that goes 180 degree in the other direction. It has no voiceover and no text except for the word "America" superimposed over a series of images of Sanders campaigning set to the music of Simon & Garfunkel's "America." If you're a certain kind of person (the kind of person that I am, in fact) you will find this ad very powerful. It illustrates the kind of forces and feelings that have taken Sanders to where he is now, and also to the challenges he'll have in going all the way to the nomination. Check it out: Now the striking thing about this ad, as Jamelle Bouie hints, is that especially for a Democrat it's very white. There are a handful of nonwhite faces, but you are looking overwhelmingly at white people often in very white settings like northern New England. The soundtrack is very white. That's not because Sanders has a problem with black and Latino people. It's because the ad is very sincere and very genuine. It shows Sanders in his home region, which is very white, and it has footage from the crowds at Sanders rallies, which are very white. But given the demographics of the Democratic Party in 2016, it's pretty striking. On the other hand, cutting this ad shows the Sanders campaign is putting its pants on one leg at a time. His path to the nomination involves winning in both Iowa and New Hampshire, which are very white states. His proximate challenge in that goal is broadening his appeal to older people. A song from 1968 that helps connect the youthful idealism of today's Sanders supporters to the days when today's old Democrats were themselves youthful idealists is a good way to do that. Now, in the long term, Sanders is going to need to go beyond this niche. The Democratic Parties of South Carolina and Nevada are very black and Latino, respectively, and ultimately the campaign will move on to big, diverse states like California and New York. That will be a challenge for him. But the first order of business is to win in two white, rural states, and this ad is optimizing for that. Be sure to subscribe to Vox on YouTube for more explainer videos

2017-01-19

When I joined the Business & Sustainable Development Commission last year, I remember the sense of urgency we shared as new Commissioners. The world had just signed up to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and we all realized that the only way for the Goals to be achieved would be for private capital to fund them and for private business to implement them. As Commissioners, we sensed that the Sustainable Development Goals were not only goals for the global community, but also a signpost for business leaders looking for guidance on how to grasp the new market opportunities offered by a changing world. The Goals would need to become as central to the business world as they are to the world of development. The key question we asked ourselves was how could we build a powerful and evidence-based case that successful realization of the Goals would be the greatest business opportunity of our generation. We knew from the beginning that the challenge was to quantify the opportunity and explain how business, suitably financed, could address it. We wanted to make the business case for the SDGs and the SDG case for business. After a year’s work, we have indeed found that the business case is compelling. The Commission's team have calculated that achieving the Goals will open up a US$12 trillion market opportunity - difficult for a forward-looking business to ignore. The Commission's newly published report articulates the opportunity and shows how many of the market winners of tomorrow are already promoting sustainability in their business models today. But even for these companies, investment on this scale requires a new more sustainable approach from investors, the providers of their capital. What is required to bring about a more sustainable financial sector? Let me highlight three immediate action points which could strengthen the flow of capital to sustainable investments in emerging markets.  First, we need greater transparency and a more consistent approach to measuring the sustainability performance of business. We need to link these standards explicitly to the Sustainable Development Goals. Today, most of the world’s largest companies do in fact report on sustainability, but we need a common benchmark and a more standardized system for reporting. This will make performance more transparent and it will be less time-consuming and expensive for companies to report and for investors to use. Secondly, we need more widespread use of financial instruments that efficiently share risk in a way that attracts more private finance into sustainable development. Part of this relates simply to having more information on the underlying financial performance of sustainable investments in developing countries. In many cases the perception of risk is much greater than the real risk and this can be overcome through more detailed and transparent data on existing investments. This is the cheapest form of risk mitigation. More expensive, but still good value, is the use of blended finance, where policy-driven funders can help structure transactions that reduce the risk profile for large long-term commercial investors. The Commission is calling for a scaling of such blended finance with greater sharing of risks between private and public investors and closer public-private cooperation. Such financial innovation is key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Thirdly, we need regulatory reforms that promote long-term investment and avoid short-termism. This is may be the most important point since sustainable development often requires a longer-term perspective. Institutional investors with long-term liability streams, such as pension funds and insurance companies, should not be discouraged from matching these liabilities with long-term assets. They are the natural providers of the capital that is required.  Across the business, financial and regulatory sectors, we must take practical steps to change the prevailing mindsets. Leadership of course must start at the top. In their succession planning, Boards should be looking for CEOs who understand the business opportunity presented by the Goals, and the need to bring purpose into their company's mission. Not only does this address the market opportunity itself, but it also helps to attract more customers and the best employees looking to work for a company with a sense of purpose. The Commission's estimate is that a consistent focus on sustainability can give a company a five year market advantage. In other words, sustainable business is simply good business. But the challenges ahead of us are not inconsiderable. Investors do face elevated uncertainty and are understandably more cautious about investing in unfamiliar locations at times of geopolitical instability. Yet our call as Commissioners is: learn more about these markets now, understand the new dynamics, be present, get on the field of play. Companies with a bias for purpose-driven action are the ones likely to secure the first mover advantage and grasp the greater share of the SDG business opportunity. They will be the ones acting on Goethe's aphorism that “Knowing is not enough. We must apply. Being willing is not enough. We must do”. This is the essence of the Commission's message. Wilson is the CEO of IFC Asset Management Company. The views expressed by authors are their own and not the views of The Hill. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2017-06-13

June 13 (Reuters) - Punch Taverns Plc * ‍Updates on recommended final cash acquisition of Punch Taverns Plc by Vine Acquisitions Limited​ * ‍Notes announcement by CMA of its initial decision in relation to anticipated acquisition by Heineken UK limited of Punch Taverns Holdco (A) Limited​ * ‍Parties confident proposals will enable transaction to be approved by CMA without a phase 2 referral, completion will occur by end of August Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2017-11-01

(CNN)From the forests of Malaysia to the streets of Harlem, they are all dedicated to improving the world around them. And for an 11th straight year, CNN Heroes will bring the stars together to honor 10 individuals from this prestigious group of everyday heroes and their extraordinary deeds. To kick things off, CNN's Anderson Cooper will reveal this year's top 10 CNN Heroes Thursday during the 8 a.m. ET hour of "New Day." Each top 10 hero will receive a $10,000 cash prize and be recognized for their work during "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute," a global broadcast event airing live on Sunday, December 17, at 8 p.m. ET. This year, Cooper returns to host from the iconic American Museum of Natural History in New York. These CNN Heroes were nominated by the public, and starting Thursday, voters can select the "CNN Hero of the Year" by voting for the top 10 CNN Hero who most inspires them. Supporters can vote at CNNHeroes.com by logging in via email or Facebook, or on Facebook Messenger by messaging VOTE to the CNN Heroes Facebook page. Viewers can vote up to 10 times per day, per method through midnight PT on Tuesday, December 12. The CNN Hero with the most votes will be named "CNN Hero of the Year" during the All-Star Tribute and receive an additional $100,000 for his or her cause. Jeison Aristizábal, the 2016 CNN Hero of the Year, provides educational and medical support for youth living with disabilities in Colombia. "Today I realize God chose me to help children with disabilities and their families and build a chain of dreams," he said after being named CNN Hero of the Year. Aristizábal insisted anyone can make an impact. "Sometimes when we see a big problem, we feel like we can't do something," he said. "But starting with the little things, helping fix the little things, we can transform many lives." To learn more about each 2017 CNN Hero, visit CNNHeroes.com. Watch New Day weekdays at 6 a.m.-9 a.m. ET. For the latest on New Day, click here.

2019-02-08

(Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers are pushing for stronger aviation security with a bipartisan bill that would require passenger airlines to install secondary security doors between cabins and the cockpit on current aircraft to prevent another Sept. 11-style attack. Hijackings remain a threat despite improvements in global aviation safety since Sept. 11, 2001, when hijacked planes flew into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, four U.S. representatives - Democrats Andre Carson and Josh Gottheimer and Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick and Peter King - said in a statement. Congress last year imposed a requirement for secondary barriers, aimed at preventing would-be hijackers from rushing the cockpit when pilots take bathroom breaks or meals, for future, newly manufactured commercial airplanes. But that legislation did not address existing aircraft. The new bill, introduced last week, would extend the requirement to all passenger jets. Secondary barriers would allow a pilot to close the cockpit door before opening another door to the rest of the plane. Current measures to protect the flight deck include stationing a flight attendant or food cart in front of the cockpit. A study by the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees aviation security, concluded that cockpits are vulnerable when pilots step out and cited secondary doors as the most efficient, cost-effective form of protection, according to the news release issued on Wednesday. The lightweight, wire-mesh barriers would cost $5,000 to $12,000 per aircraft, the lawmakers said. Airlines for America - an industry trade group representing large commercial carriers like American Airlines Group Inc, Southwest Airlines Co and United - said individual airlines should be the ones to decide whether to install such systems. Association spokesman Vaughn Jennings said the airline industry has worked closely with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to implement a multilayered security system following 9/11 and noted that some U.S. airlines have determined that secondary cockpit barriers are appropriate on some aircraft. The pilots’ union, The Air Line Pilots Association, said it supported the legislation and called on the FAA to immediately implement the language required by Congress last year on new passenger aircraft “to help ensure the security of our cockpits.” Following the 9/11 attacks, airlines reinforced cockpit doors and the TSA rolled out advanced airport screening equipment. The TSA also oversees the Federal Air Marshal Service, which deploys armed U.S. air marshals on flights across the world. But critics have questioned the effectiveness of passenger screening and the air marshal program. The new bill for secondary barriers is called the Saracini Enhanced Aviation Safety Act after pilot Victor Saracini, who was killed when his plane was hijacked during the 9/11 attacks. His widow, Ellen, has been an advocate of legislation for aviation safety. Reporting by Tracy Rucinski; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Diane Craft

2019-08-29 00:00:00

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke released a plan on Thursday that would end Republican President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, but would also demand that China stop unfair practices such as currency manipulation and corporate espionage. The former Texas congressman said that, if elected president he would immediately eliminate Trump’s tariffs against Chinese goods, demanding in exchange that China revoke its retaliatory tariffs against American products including soybeans, beef and cars, which have been hurting U.S. farmers and manufacturers. O’Rourke, 46, said his trade policy would prioritize American workers over corporate interests. At the same time, he said he would lead a global effort, through modernizing the World Trade Organization, to stop China’s anti-competitive behavior. “Trade is not the problem - Trump is,” O’Rourke said in a statement. “His trade war has been a disaster for American farmers and workers - but it’s on us to offer a compelling alternative.” Trump has defended his tariff war with China, saying it will benefit American producers in the long run and that his get-tough stance with China is hugely popular with his electoral base. Trump’s trade war with China has been part of a disruptive overall trade policy. While president he has renegotiated the NAFTA trade deal with Canada and Mexico, and sought new bilateral deals with Asian and European nations. His policies, which run counter to the Republican Party’s traditional embrace of unfettered free trade, have left many Democratic candidates unsure of how to address the issue. Free trade agreements such as NAFTA are unpopular with many Democratic voters because they believe the deal led to the exporting of U.S. jobs overseas. Most of the 20 candidates vying to become the Democratic nominee to take on Trump in next year’s November election have attacked his trade war with China, saying it hurts U.S. workers and companies. But many also share Trump’s view that China uses unfair trade practices. Another 2020 Democratic candidate, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, released a trade plan last month. It echoed some of Trump’s claims that previous trade deals have been unfair to American workers, but included more liberal remedies such as a “border carbon adjustment” tax that would be levied against imported goods that use a carbon intensive manufacturing process. She also wants to greatly reduce corporate America’s influence in how trade deals are negotiated. Reporting by Tim Reid; Editing by Sandra Maler

2019-05-30 00:00:00

JOHANNESBURG (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - In the shadows of the high-rise offices in Johannesburg’s wealthy Sandton district, Thembekile Mokoena concealed her recycling bag bulging with paper, plastic and tins under a tree. Such strategies are a necessity for informal recyclers across the city, like Mokeona, who are often forcibly moved by private security guards paid to “clean up” urban spaces. “If we go near the Sandton shopping center to use the toilets, we are chased out and told we are disturbing the people who have come to shop,” said 34-year-old Mokoena, sitting on a bench as office workers in suits streamed past. “Once I was beaten by security who told me he would lose his job if he let me inside.” Mokoena is one of an estimated 200,000 waste pickers or reclaimers who navigate the racial, economic and physical divides of South Africa’s largest and wealthiest city to sell tins, plastic and paper to recycling depots. Across Africa, governments keen to modernize booming cities often view poor people making a living sifting through rubbish or hawking on the streets as a hindrance, and as usurpers of public spaces meant for formal businesses and wealthy residents. Cities worldwide generated more than 1.3 billion tons of solid waste in 2010, which is predicted to reach 2.2 billion tons a year by 2025 - equal to the weight of the Great Pyramid of Giza, each day, according to UN Habitat. Increasing recycling would reduce deaths from pollution, flooding and planet-heating emissions, it said, calling for waste picking to be regulated to better protect workers. Reclaimers recycle 80 to 90% of plastic and packaging in South Africa, saving authorities up to 750 million Rand ($53 million) in landfill costs, the Pretoria-based Council for Scientific and Industrial Research estimates. Despite the valuable service reclaimers provide, they are stigmatized - on the street and at home. “People assume that because we are dirty, we are drug addicts, but it’s not true. We are hard workers. We are entitled to move through the city too,” said Mokoena. “I used to sell my body for food. My family said nothing. Now that I earn an honest living recycling, they are ashamed of me for working with trash. They have disowned me so I am forced to live on the streets.” The Thomson Reuters Foundation interviewed more than 10 reclaimers across Johannesburg who said they have been beaten or arrested by private security and police for sorting their waste in public spaces or for not carrying valid work permits. A spokesman for the city’s metropolitan police department, Wayne Minnaar, said he was not aware of any beatings, but recycling materials have been confiscated in public parks. “We are aware of the immense contribution of the recyclers but we have to make arrests if they create a health hazard, or if they are undocumented,” he said, referring to the fact that many reclaimers from neighboring Lesotho lack work permits. Often hiding their faces in balaclavas to avoid being identified, reclaimers ride between the city’s traffic on metal trolleys, piled high with household waste. They can pull the trolleys, weighing up to 200 kilograms for kilometers across the city, said Eli Kodisang of Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). WIEGO - a global network campaigning for informal worker rights - has launched what it calls “counter patrols” where they accompany reclaimers through gated communities to push back against private guards who sometimes demand bribes. “We photograph security guards who often carry guns and force the reclaimers to leave. We tell them that, legally, reclaimers are entitled to go through the bin placed outside a house,” said Kodisang. “If we create barriers around people trying to survive, how can we challenge this inequality?” Reclaimers’ visibility - wheeling past gated complexes, electric fences and closed off public roads - has made them a rallying point. “The reclaimers have become a symbol of injustice,” said Melanie Samson, a human geography lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. “But they also represent an informal mechanism of wealth redistribution in an unequal city.” South Africa remains the world’s most unequal country, according to the World Bank, more than 25 years after democratic elections ended decades of apartheid - when millions of blacks were forcibly removed from white-only urban areas. Many are disillusioned by a decade of slow growth and rising joblessness, this month returning the African National Congress to power with its lowest parliamentary majority since 1994. The Department of Environmental Affairs issued guidelines on reclaimers last month to better integrate informal recycling, which include registering and paying reclaimers for refuse collection and encouraging residents to separate their trash. Muzi Mkhwanazi, a spokesman for Johannesburg’s recycling service, said the city has registered about 1,600 reclaimers since February and will soon issue them with cards documenting their services. “If a resident complains that someone is loitering outside their house, the recyclers will be able to show their recycling card to the police,” he said. “This will help improve the relationship between recycler and resident.” Tight security is often justified by high crime rates, with almost 190,000 incidents reported in Gauteng province in 2018. “We believe safety comes in knowing the community around you,” said Sophia Welz, chairwoman of the Brixton Community Forum, a largely working-class neighborhood where residents have been meeting reclaimers for a year to talk about recycling. “It bothers them that they are seen as criminals.” Since the meetings began, she has noticed more residents greeting reclaimers by name, bringing them cold water and offering food. “This is not much yet, but it is the beginning of creating more inclusive spaces, spaces that work for everyone,” she said. Back in Sandton, Mokoena filled her bottle with water from a roadside tap. “People can talk all they want. At the end of the day, we have bread on our table,” she said. “I am not waiting to be paid by anyone. It starts with me.” She looked left and right, before darting across the road between passing cars on their way to work too. ($1 = 14.2717 rand) Reporting by Kim Harrisberg; Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit news.trust.org

2018-11-06

* Maputo strikes deal with 4 creditors of Eurobond holder group * New amortising $900 mln bond will pay 5.875 percent coupon * Government hopes to finalise restructuring early 2019 * Deal needs approval of parliament and 75 percent of bondholders (Adds context on fees paid, updates bond price) By Karin Strohecker and Alexander Winning LONDON/JOHANNESBURG, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Mozambique has reached an agreement with the bulk of its creditors to restructure a $726.5 million Eurobond, including extending maturities and sharing future revenues from huge offshore gas projects, the finance ministry said on Tuesday. Mozambique has been battling to recover from a debt crisis after admitting in 2016 to $1.4 billion of previously undisclosed lending, much of which was supposed to be spent on a tuna fishing fleet. The disclosure prompted the International Monetary Fund and foreign donors to cut off support to the southern African state, triggering a currency collapse and a default on sovereign debt. Under the deal, Mozambique would issue a new $900 million Eurobond maturing in 2033 with a coupon of 5.875 percent - just over half what the current outstanding bond was designed to pay in interest. Principal repayments of the bond, roughly equating to the outstanding sum plus just over $180 million in unpaid interest, would begin in 2029. Through a separate instrument, creditors would also receive 5 percent of future fiscal revenues from the Area 1 and Area 4 natural gas projects, though payments would be capped at $500 million. A bondholder close to the situation said the plan would provide Mozambique with cash flow relief of around 85 percent. “It is a good deal, there are no winners or losers here. All the parties wanted to define a package that is fit for the reality in Mozambique, finding a robust structure with low probability of default in the future and that will mirror the cash flows,” the investor told Reuters. Mozambique’s Rovuma Basin boasts natural gas resources of around 180 trillion cubic feet, enough to underpin massive liquefied gas export plants under development by global energy firms including Exxon Mobil, Anadarko and Eni . Eurobond holders had pushed for an instrument linked to the expected gas windfall, a demand Maputo had previously rejected. Investors welcomed the change in stance but some said it was not without risks. “If we get lower oil prices, higher construction costs or long delays, there is a risk of significantly lower recovery than $500 million,” the bondholder said. The existing bond rallied sharply following the proposal, rising more than 9 cents to above 92 cents. The ministry’s statement made no mention of a $535 million loan to Mozambique Asset Management (MAM) and a $622 million facility for maritime security projects at Proindicus arranged by Russian lender VTB and Credit Suisse. Mozambique was charged almost $200 million in arrangement and contractor fees by VTB and Credit Suisse, according to an independent audit of loans totalling $2 billion. Credit Suisse has said the contractor fees were effectively passed on to syndicate loan members or bondholders. Yet the deal is not quite over the finishing line. Support from creditors holding 75 percent of the bond will be needed to activate the collective action clauses. Mozambique said the four creditors who had agreed in principle to the restructuring - Farallon Capital Europe LLP, Greylock Capital Management, LLC, Mangart Capital Advisors SA and Pharo Management LLC - controlled around 60 percent of the 2023 bond. Apart from these four, the steering committee of the Global Group of Mozambique Bondholders (GGMB) that has headed the talks includes asset manager Franklin Templeton Investment Management Limited. “There is still some room to go to get everybody, but I think they must feel confident they can find that by making that statement,” said Stuart Culverhouse, head of sovereign & fixed income research at Exotix. Franklin Templeton did not respond to a request for comment. “The deal would only make a relatively small dent in Mozambique’s overall fiscal problem,” wrote William Jackson, chief emerging markets economist at Capital Economics in a note. “Mozambique’s public debt ratio, at around 120 percent of GDP, will remain the highest in sub-Saharan Africa.” (Reporting by Karin Strohecker in London and Alexander Winning in Johannesburg, Editing by Joe Brock and Ed Osmond)

2017-06-14 21:36:00

Katy Perry experienced “a full sexual liberation” after the election of Donald Trump, telling The New York Times it caused her perspective on her sexuality to shift. “The reality is that I was retriggered on the election,” Perry, 32, said. “I was retriggered by a big male that didn’t see women as equal. And that had been, unfortunately, a common theme in my upbringing.” Perry, born as Katheryn Hudson, was raised in a strict religious home with her parents working as Pentecostal pastors. She told the newspaper that she and her family were attending group therapy. “They don’t agree with some of the things I do.”-@KatyPerry on her parents https://t.co/0HKNElBenY — TODAY (@TODAYshow) June 12, 2017 “I went to that dark place that I had been avoiding, and I dug out the mold,” she said. “It was not fun, but I did that — I’m still doing that.” The “Chained to the Rhythm” singer recently spoke to Today‘s Natalie Morales during her weekend-long Witness livestream about her family. “My parents are great and I love them so much,” she said. “I cry sometimes thinking about how much I love them.” Yet, she admitted, “They don’t agree with some of the things I do and they do wish that I could do other things.” During the interview, Perry also revealed that she had not had an alcoholic drink since January.

2019-01-28

Nick Clegg, Facebook's new vice president for global affairs and communication, on Monday called on governments to find "a better way to tax companies like Facebook." Clegg, who made the comment in an interview with the BBC, also said it is "unbalanced" that Facebook pays the majority of its taxes in the U.S. "even though the vast majority of Facebook's users are outside the United States." "That is what needs to change," added Clegg, who is also a former U.K. deputy prime minister. Clegg also said in a speech Monday that Facebook plans to set up a "war room" based in Dublin to fight fake news ahead of elections in the European Union this spring. “This approach will help boost our rapid response efforts to fight misinformation, bringing together dozens of experts from across the company — including from our threat intelligence, data science, engineering, research, community operations and legal teams,” Clegg said, according to The Guardian. “They will work closely with the lawmakers, election commissions, other tech companies, academics and civil society groups to continue the fight against fake news, prevent the spread of voter suppression efforts and further integrate the large number of teams working on these important issues across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp," he added. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2016-01-03 12:18:02

Someone tried to kill Nigel Farage by sabotaging the wheels of his Volvo, the UKIP leader said. Farage told the Mail on Sunday that the incident took place in October near Dunkirk. He said that a wheel came off while he was driving. French police and mechanics that investigated the incident noticed that the wheel nuts had been loosened. Farage told the Mail: "It was the middle of bloody nowhere, and I was caught in a very bad position. There was a huge section of roadworks with cars going back and forth on the same side of the carriageway. I suddenly realised I was losing steering but there was no hard shoulder to pull on to. I slowed down, put the hazards on and then one of the wheels came off. I jumped over the wall as quickly as I bloody well could to get away from lorries and everything." He said: "The French police looked at it and said that sometimes nuts on one wheel can come a bit loose - but not on all four." Farage said he didn't "have a clue" who might have wanted him dead but added: "Quite frankly, the way my life's been over the past two-and-a-half years, nothing surprises me."

2019-11-19 00:00:00

As you might expect, Alexa-friendly devices tend to assume that you want to hear tunes from Amazon Music. If you prefer Spotify, Apple Music, or another music service, it’s not all that hard to set it up and use it with your Amazon devices. And you’re done. You can now use that service with your Alexa device. Specifying the exact station and service all the time can become tiresome. If you have a favorite service other than Amazon Music — or an internet radio station you usually listen to — you can set it as a default. Now if you have more than one service installed but you have set, say, Spotify as your default, you can ask for songs by a particular musician without having to add “from Spotify.” Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. For more information, see our ethics policy.

2017-04-26

April 26 (Reuters) - U.S. oil producer Hess Corp reported a smaller quarterly loss on Wednesday, helped by an uptick in crude prices and lower operating costs. The net loss attributable to Hess narrowed to $324 million, or $1.07 per share, in the first quarter ended March 31, from $509 million, or $1.72 per share, a year earlier. Excluding production from Libya, net production was 307,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the quarter, lower than 350,000 boepd a year ago. (Reporting by Swetha Gopinath and Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; ; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

2016-10-05 14:19:00

For her first television talk show appearance since transitioning, Caitlyn Jenner gets candid about how her new life has impacted her conservative views – and when she’ll be ready to jump back into the dating pool. In a pre-taped interview airing on Tuesday’s premiere episode of Ellen, host Ellen DeGeneres asks the former Olympian and parent of 10 about what’s going on in the romance department. “Everyone keeps talking to you about dating and you’re saying you haven’t even thought about it,” DeGeneres says. “Are you going to date men, women what are you doing?” “This is, and we deal with it in our show, a tremendous issue in the trans community,” Jenner replies. “It’s a very big issue. So many today transition at a very young age and the whole dating thing comes in. Everybody wants to have a partner everybody would love to have a family and for trans people sometimes that can be extraordinarily difficult to do. And so it is an issue that’s big in the community.” Jenner insists that she’s at a “different place” in life, joking that she already has “too many children.” “I’ve kind of passed that stage in my life, but yes would I like to find a partner in life to share my life with. Yeah,” she says. “I’m sure I will at some point. Right now I’m just very busy doing a lot of things and kind of just getting used to where I’m at and who I’m at. As time goes on I’ll deal with that subject.” When DeGeneres asks if this eventual life partner will be pal Candis Cayne, Jenner quickly brushes aside the question. “Actually, Candis is backstage, but that’s a whole other deal,” she says. [BRIGHTCOVE “20927896” “” “” “no” ] DeGeneres also asks the 65-year-old about her widely publicized conservative political views. “I know you’re very conservative and you have been very conservative,” she says, asking Jenner her opinions on same-sex marriage. “I have to admit that I remember 15 years ago, 20 years ago whenever it was the whole gay marriage issue came up at first, I was not for it,” she tells DeGeneres, who’s been with wife Portia de Rossi for seven years. “I thought am a traditionalist. I’m older than most people in the audience. I like tradition and it’s always been between a man and a woman and I’m thinking I don’t quite get it. But as time goes on like a lot of people on this issue I’ve really changed thinking here to I don’t ever want to stand in front of anybodys happiness.” The I Am Cait star adds “if that word marriage is really, really that important to you, I can go with it.” DeGeneres won’t let her off easy, however. “It’s funny cause you’re still kind of a little not on board with it,” she challenges. Jenner sets the record straight, firming stating, “I’m on board.” “It’s going to be pretty much the law of the land. So I still feel like yea, I’m okay with it,” she says.

2019-03-13 07:00:08

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — When Nationals catcher Raudy Read connected with a pitch in a game against the Mets on Field 2 last week, he watched it rocket out to left field. He believed it was a home run, and he trotted all the way to second base before realizing the ball had actually tailed foul. When he returned to home plate, teammates laughed. Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud welcomed him. “Did you know it was foul?” d’Arnaud said. “Nobody told me it was foul,” Read said. “You need some water?” d’Arnaud said. “We’ll wait for you.” D’Arnaud knew what it felt like to have others waiting on him. Nearly a year since he tore the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and had Tommy John surgery, it was his first time catching a live game this spring. His employers were anxious to see him throw. Behind the backstop, in a grandstand composed of five aluminum bleachers, the Mets owner Fred Wilpon sat in the top row. General Manager Brodie Van Wagenen, the assistant G.M. Allard Baird and several team scouts eyed d’Arnaud’s every move. It was just a B game, or a glorified practice game, but regular Mets starters like Brandon Nimmo were also in the lineup. No runners tested d’Arnaud’s arm on the bases, but he made three throws down to second with ease between innings. He also collected two hits in three innings of work. It was the latest milestone for d’Arnaud in a long journey back, one that he hopes will lead to a position on the 25-man roster for Opening Day. “It felt so good to be finally back out there,” d’Arnaud said. “To work with pitchers again, it was a lot of fun.” [Read more: For the Mets, It Could Get Crowded Behind Home Plate] D’Arnaud was no stranger to rehabilitation. Since his major league debut in 2013, his injuries have included: a concussion, a broken hand, a rotator cuff strain, a hyperextended elbow and last April’s elbow operation. For this most recent recovery, he did not start throwing again until August, and hitting did not start until December. He returned to the Grapefruit League lineup last week as a designated hitter for a pair of games, but he has yet to make the next step of catching in a regular stadium game rather than a side field. He was anxious in his first at-bats of the spring last weekend, though his legs passed one test when he scored from first against the Cardinals. His lungs were another story: He was winded when he slid across the plate and looked for help from a teammate coming to bat. “I was definitely gassed,” d’Arnaud said. “Took me a while to get up.” As d’Arnaud has worked his way back since his injury last April, plenty has changed around him. Van Wagenen replaced Sandy Alderson as general manager, and in December the Mets signed Wilson Ramos to be the team’s starting catcher. Just before spring training, the team also brought back Devin Mesoraco, a bulwark who was acquired by trade from the Reds last season and made an niche for himself by catching 21 starts made by pitcher Jacob deGrom during his Cy Young Award-winning season. Manager Mickey Callaway asserted at the start of camp that he would not rule out carrying three catchers on the team’s 25-man roster. He also made clear that despite d’Arnaud’s athleticism and ability to play other positions like third base — which he memorably did, sort of, in 2017 — or the outfield, he would be limited to catcher and designated hitter so as not to risk a setback to his arm. It was false advertising on Saturday when the lineup posted on the wall inside the main entrance at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium in Jupiter, Fla., listed d’Arnaud at third base. He served as the designated hitter that afternoon. “I’m just happy to be playing today,” he said. Beyond that, it’s still not entirely clear where he’ll fit in with the Mets when the regular season begins. Last April, d’Arnaud was splitting time at catcher with Kevin Plawecki, who has since moved on to the Cleveland Indians. D’Arnaud, who played all 14 postseason games during the Mets’ run to the 2015 World Series, started four of the first 10 games last season, going 3 for 15 with a home run and three R.B.I. Still, there was concern about his arm when he allowed seven stolen bases without catching a single runner. He experienced elbow discomfort, alerted the team, and, after the tear was discovered in New York, his season was done. Support came in from family members, his wife and former teammates. He maintained that he stayed confident in his belief that he could come back to his position. “I had a good foundation,” he said. “I never doubted it at all.” There is evidence of that support here, too. On Thursday, when d’Arnaud completed his game duties, Van Wagenen went up to the dugout, and exchanged a fist bump with him through a black chain-link fence. D’Arnaud remained on the move after taking a short breather. He walked over to Field 1, where he played catch with Glenn Sherlock, the first-base coach, before throwing down to third base, then second and finally first with no runners in sight. D’Arnaud then went back to the bullpen, where he warmed up relief pitcher Jeurys Familia before he entered the side game. Following the main team’s game in the stadium, Callaway noted that the report he received from team officials was that d’Arnaud was throwing bullets. D’Arnaud was finally ready to take aim at runners on the regular field. “Coming soon,” he said.

2019-07-24 00:00:00

(Reuters) - A Twitter account, which claimed to be from a soccer player who was preparing to come out as gay, has been deleted. The anonymous account ‘The Gay Footballer’ had stated a news conference wold be held on Wednesday where he would come out publicly as a “proud, confident, gay professional footballer”. There are no openly gay male players in professional football in England. A message was posted to the account saying “I thought I was stronger. I was wrong” before it was deleted. The account had attracted over 50,000 followers. Reporting by Simon Evans, editing by Nick Mulvenney

2016-07-04

(Adds details on the bidders) By Gilles Guillaume and Cyril Altmeyer PARIS, July 4 (Reuters) - The sale of 60 percent stakes in the French airports of Nice Cote d’Azur and Lyon-Saint-Exupery has attracted at least 11 firm offers while two potential candidates have dropped out of the race for Nice, sources close to the bidders said on Monday. Bidders had until midday on Monday to submit their offers, with a decision scheduled for August. According to one source offers ranged from 750 million to 900 million euros for Nice and from 500 million to 800 million euros for Lyon, or a valuation of 13 to 14 times annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA). The privatisation of France’s two biggest regional airports is expected to yield up to 1.6 billion euros for the government, which had already sold out of Toulouse-Blagnac airport in 2014. France is selling the stakes as part of a broader programme of privatisations in recent years to raise cash to help meet budget deficit targets. The Economy Ministry declined to comment on the offers. Five companies or consortia have bid for Nice airport, the sources said. These include Italy’s Atlantia along with EDF’s investment branch EDF Invest; a consortium led by Ardian and including Caisses d’Epargne; Spain’s Ferrovial with Meridiam; a consortium of Vinci, CDC and Predica ; Germany’s Allianz alongside Global Infrastructure Partners. The consortium comprising Zurich’s airport operator and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board has dropped out, another source said. The consortium declined to comment. According to another source, Turkish conglomerate Limak left the race after Nice mayor Christian Estrosi said he opposed the candidacy. Limak declined to comment. Reuters could not immediately confirm if Industry Fund Management (IFM) was still among bidders for Nice. Six companies or consortia have also bid for Lyon airport, according to the sources. These include Ardian-Siparex-Caisses d’Epargne-holding JCDecaux;Ferrovial-Meridiam; Vinci-CDC-Predica; Atlantia; Limak-the Cube fund-Geneva airport; and Macquarie along with FFP. Publicly owned Geneva airport is staying with the Cube consortium but with a symbolic stake of under 1 percent, a source said. Reuters could not immediately confirm if Industry Fund Management (IFM) was still among bidders. The Principality of Monaco has said it could join the consortium that wins Nice airport with a stake of around 10 percent, sources said. (Reporting by Gilles Guillaume and Cyril Altmeyer, additional reporting by Matthieu Protard, Arno Schuetze, Seda Sezer; Writing by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Bate Felix, Greg Mahlich)

2018-02-10

“Grid emergency” is not a household term. At least, not yet. A grid emergency is an event that threatens to shut down all electric power in a specific area, which could be a few states or the entire country. A grid emergency could come from a cyberattack from an enemy state, terrorists, or just hackers. It could also come naturally from our neighbor in the galaxy: the sun. An electromagnetic storm on the sun — called a Carrington Event — could shut down all electrical systems on Earth. On Dec. 17, 2017, no enemy — just a fire in an electrical switch room — caused a blackout at the Atlanta Airport stranding thousands of passengers in the dark terminal and disrupting thousands of flights all over the country. The power outage lasted 12 hours. That nightmare was just a micro-example of what could happen in a grid emergency. The Federal Power Act (FPA) gives the president the authority to declare a grid emergency and to delegate the authority to deal with it to the secretary of Energy. In 2015, Congress passed a law with a delightful acronym: the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act, or the FAST Act. This law authorizes the Energy Department to issue rules governing the secretary’s actions in a cyberattack.   After deliberating for about three years, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a final rule two weeks ago defining the powers of the secretary if the president declares a grid emergency. Let us say that an enemy state realizes that they could never physically invade the United States, but that they could bring the country to its knees by detonating nuclear weapons overhead at high altitude creating electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) that would cripple our power grid. (Best selling author, Brad Thor writes about this scenario in his 2014 novel Act of War. Over 30 years ago, another novel, Warday, also dealt with high altitude detonation of nuclear weapons knocking out our power.) And so we learn of this threat. The secretary of Energy gets a grid emergency declaration from the president. As the threat gets closer, the secretary orders all electrical generating and distribution systems — all power systems — to shut down to avoid being fried by the EMP. When this happens our power goes out. What happens to those running businesses from their computers? What about those on life support devices like dialysis machines or medical monitors that suddenly quit or go dark? Next the secretary advises all electrical systems that deliver critical human services — such as drinking water — to go to back-up power, such as generators, that would not be so vulnerable. There are over 52,000 community water systems in the United States. Many are very small. More than 31,000 systems have fewer than 10,000 customers. How many of these small systems do you think have back-up power? The common denominator with all of these consequences of grid emergency scenarios is to realize what could happen and to take preventative action today, long before the trouble starts. With the dialysis machine or health monitors it’s a battery or a home generator. With a business, there’s a real problem. A battery or generator will get the computer back on, but if the Internet is gone, what good will it do? What about fuel for a generator? If someone doesn’t have it, they have to get it. Drive to a gas station? An EMP will fry the electrical system in their car. No driving; they’ll have to walk.  Finally, when people get thirsty from all of this anxiety and hassle, they go get a drink of water. They turn on the tap. Nothing happens. The board of directors of the water system in their small town didn’t want to raise rates to pay for a back-up generator. What’s the secretary of Energy going to do about the dialysis machine or the health monitor, internet businesses, and drinking water? Some of these problems — like the dialysis machine — are easy. Others like the businesses can be very difficult. The drinking water problem is a question of money.  So what advice should we give ourselves today, before there is any threat of a grid emergency? “Let’s not wait until the cyberattack happens!” Michael Curley is a lawyer and visiting scholar at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington, D.C. He teaches and has written four books about environmental and energy law and finance. He has published over 40 articles. He served on the Environmental Financial Advisory Board at EPA for 21 years under four presidents. He is also on the Advisory Board of the 501(c)(4) corporation “Protect Our Power”. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2016-06-21 13:00:00

ABC Family/Getty Now it’s easier than ever to get the enviable looks seen on Pretty Little Liars! Just in time for the seventh season premiere on Freeform tonight at 8/7ct, PeopleShop – the e-commerce extension of PEOPLE – has announced that it teamed up with the show’s costume designer Cameron Dale to bring fans an online shop featuring looks inspired (and worn!) by the four main Liars on the show. “I’ve always loved People,” Dale tells PeopleStyle. “Since I was a girl, I’ve been reading it. I love the style issues and they’re always so on-trend and I think it’s a great partnership to bring the PLL style to the fans.” The Pretty Little Liars PeopleShop features sections for each of the four Liars — Aria (Lucy Hale), Emily (Shay Mitchell), Spencer (Troian Bellisario) and Hanna (Ashley Benson). Each piece is hand-picked by Dale, and some will even be featured on screen throughout season 7. “I really wanted to bring the fans the pieces that are featured on the show,” says Dale, noting that many are at “cool, affordable prices,” ranging from $10 to $150. Courtesy PeopleShop “The pieces for People Shop are designers that I’ve worked with in the past and also discovering new designers,” she continues. “It’s been a really wonderful collaboration.” Items include delicate jewelry by Dogeared, fringed bags by Street Level and colorful earrings by Bluma Project, and there will be 100 more products added as the season continues. Overall, the shop is focused on accessories, which “elevate the look completely,” Dale says. In Aria’s section, she explored the flirty and playful look of the character. “What’s been really important with Aria is to incorporate a lot of color, colorful purses and hair accessories and really cute statement jewelry,” says Dale. “We also have some really cute little elephant charms. Lucy loves elephants so I like to incorporate a little of their personal style also once and a while into their shop, too.” Emily is more of the minimalist, says Dale. “Emily’s style I would say is more classic and less trendy than the other girls but just really well-made classics,” says Dale. “Shay really loves small pieces of jewelry so we’ve done some cool chokers for her. She loves chokers this season. And for bags, we’re keeping her handbags really cool and neutral.” Hanna’s section is where you’ll see the trendiest pieces. “Hanna works in fashion and all of her stuff is of the moment,” says Dale. “The western jewelry is really important for Hanna’s look this season so we’ve done a lot of that and the fringe bag has been great for her.” Spencer focuses on the classic, sophisticated silhouettes, as always. “Spencer’s style has stayed really preppy over the years,” says Dale. “She stayed true to that. She’s really classic just with beautiful brown leathers and simple, silver jewelry. We’ve done a lot of rings with her this season.” Courtesy PeopleShop So, what’s Dale’s favorite part about working on the show? “I love reading the next script just to see what happens,” she says. “I got an outline today for the next one and I’m like, ‘Omigod!’ A certain outfit could play out for the whole season and you just don’t know so you have to be so careful. You have to be like okay, this outfit has to be amazing ’cause we may see this 10 episodes later.” See all of the pieces from the Pretty Little Liars PeopleShop on peopleshop.com/pll. Tell us: Which Liar’s look is your favorite? Let us know in the comments below! —Sharon Clott Kanter

2020-02-27 00:00:00

Feb 27 (Reuters) - Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd: * CANNOT DETERMINE DURATION OF CORONAVIRUS AND THEREFORE NOT YET ABLE TO QUANTIFY FULL FINANCIAL IMPACT * PROLONGED CORONAVIRUS CRISIS MAY HAVE MATERIAL EFFECT ON 2020 FINANCIAL RESULTS AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS IN MACAU * MACAU MAY CONTINUE TO EXPERIENCE GEO-POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CHALLENGES THAT MAY IMPACT CONSUMER CONFIDENCE IN 2020 Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2019-03-09

BERLIN, March 9 (Reuters) - It is crucial to prevent Britain crashing out of the European Union in a disorderly way without a deal, the head of the European Parliament told a German media outlet. In an interview with the Funke group of newspapers, Antonio Tajani added the date of Brexit can be delayed past March 29 by only a few weeks at most. British lawmakers are due to vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan for a second time on Tuesday. May has said that, if her plan is defeated, lawmakers will be able to vote on Wednesday and Thursday on whether they want to leave the bloc without a deal, or ask for a short delay to Brexit. "It's a matter now of avoiding the biggest mistake of all - a chaotic Brexit without contractual arrangements in place," Tajani said in an interview due to be published on Saturday. Such a disorderly no-deal Brexit would be a disaster for the British economy and would also hurt the EU, Tajani said, adding that he would be happy if Britain were to remain in the bloc. Tajani said the political declaration on Brexit could perhaps be slightly more clearly formulated but he ruled out changing the withdrawal agreement, especially on the Northern Ireland issue. "I'm convinced that the exit date can only be delayed by a maximum of several weeks - from the end of March to the start of July at most," he said. Tajani said Britain would need to provide a reason for postponing its exit from the EU such as wanting to use the extra time to hold fresh elections or a new referendum. "They've decided to leave - it's their problem, not ours," he added. Tajani said Britain's departure from the EU would deter other countries from leaving the bloc, adding: "We need to change the European Union but we need to stick together." (Reporting by Michelle Martin, Editing by William Maclean)

2016-07-12 00:00:28

This spring, we asked readers who support far-right parties in Europe to tell us why they had turned away from mainstream political movements. We received hundreds of responses from voters, most of whom cited concern about immigration and a desire to challenge the European Union in explaining their views. Some took issue with being identified as far-right supporters, saying they were simply challenging a mainstream that did not reflect their beliefs or experiences. And many of the readers, who were predominantly male, would not give their names, saying they feared stigmatization. These responses have been edited for length and clarity. And because many of the issues raised are highly contentious across Europe, we have provided context with each submission. Mikael Jakobsen, 24, law student, Aarhus, DenmarkParty: Danish People’s Party Symbolic politics of “helping” those who need help by inviting them in regardless of circumstances and economy don’t help. Our economy doesn’t increase along with the never-ending supply of immigrants. To help, you figure out the cause of the problem and fix it. It’s like buying buckets for a leaky roof instead of just fixing the roof itself. • Denmark, along with other Nordic countries, has moved to slash benefits for migrants as arrivals increased last year. • Parliament, where the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party is the second-largest force, approved a law requiring new refugees to hand over valuables to help pay for lodging them. Right-wing parties have been achieving electoral success in a growing number of nations. Oscar Lind, 43, economist, StockholmParty: Sweden Democrats Three things make me consider voting for the Sweden Democrats, even if I find the party’s historical links to white supremacy repugnant and don’t agree with their anti-E.U. and anti-NATO membership stances: mass immigration and open borders, identity politics, and “establishment” propaganda for the previous two. Sweden has had massive immigration over the past couple of decades. Instead of acknowledging the problems related to mass immigration, the mainstream parties and mainstream media have for decades either ignored them, blamed them on Swedish/Swedes’ racism, blamed them on lack of social services or claimed that while there may be initial cost with immigration, it’s profitable long term. Why would a male, ethnic Swedish worker want to vote for political parties which see “white men” as oppressors and regularly denigrate their ethnicity and culture? • Immigration in Sweden has been rising at a steady pace in the past three decades. Last year, almost 10 times as many people were granted residency as in 1980. While crime has increased in recent decades, the number of reported offenses did not grow proportionally with the number of immigrants. • Sweden’s reputation as one of the most welcoming nations in Europe has been challenged. Attacks against immigrants from Eastern Europe have risen, and anti-immigrant sentiment has grown with the arrival of migrants from the Middle East. Mark Cserepes, 24, management student, Pecs, HungaryParty: Jobbik, Movement for a Better Hungary As a young adult, I would like to vote for something fresh with no or few connections to the previous regime. Only the far-right party is speaking about real problems, e.g., the two largest parties promise to solve Gypsy-related issues (their low education, their low income), but they never do anything. As a master’s student, I can say most of my friends, most of the people I know, think in the same way. They want to support something new, because neither Fidesz nor the Socialist Party works, and we would like to see the country improve. • Anti-establishment rhetoric is at the center of Jobbik’s policies. It rose to prominence during violent street protests against the government in 2006. • Jobbik’s supporters praise its outspoken stance on issues like what the party calls “Gypsy criminals,” alleging that the country’s Roma are especially prone to petty crime. Studies point to poverty and social exclusion, not ethnicity, as sources of crime. Samuel Teodosio, 28, business analyst, Lille, FranceParty: National Front I like Europe and have plenty of friends from other countries in Europe, but this does not alter the fact that I do not feel a sense of belonging to Europe, especially not the “Europe” sold to us by the E.U. project. I feel that France’s destiny lies with Africa and our close European neighbors, which is something that the National Front embraces: a truly independent France working for its own destiny. I may not embrace all of the party’s solutions and proposals, but everything starts and ends with sovereignty. • Under the leadership of Marine Le Pen, the National Front has split with the party’s radical past and worked to capture a broader electorate. • After Britain decided to leave the European Union, Ms. Le Pen came out in strong support to endorse “Brexit” and called for similar referendums across Europe. Amid a migrant crisis and discontent with the European Union, many far-right parties have achieved electoral success. Here are eight of the most noteworthy. Robert Meyer, 58, technical writer, Dieburg, GermanyParty: Alternative for Germany (AfD) Watching 800,000 uninvited illegal migrants wander into the country, and seeing Germany allow these people to ignore the law and do what they wanted, I realized that countries that can’t control their borders — or won’t because of misguided naïve ideas about “human rights” — are doomed unless the people who pay the taxes and make things work have some say in the matter. It is a new “silent majority” that has been cowed into submission by a liberal press and cowardly politicians. Time to end this. • More than a million migrants have arrived in Germany since last year, but the government emphasizes that far fewer will stay. • Many voters feel that hosting migrants in their communities is a burden imposed by higher authorities who do not care about the consequences. Werner Farkas, 36, construction supervisor, ViennaParty: Freedom Party (F.P.Ö.) The F.P.Ö.’s candidate, Norbert Hofer, could become president in a repeat runoff to be held this year. I’ve voted for the F.P.Ö. for many reasons related to foreigners, but in most cases, the foreigners are not guilty. Our government is responsible for the hate against foreigners, because many Austrians feel like second-class citizens in their own country. In Austria, it’s mandatory for young men to serve in the army. If your military service is not over, it’s nearly impossible to get a job. So when I dropped out because of problems with high blood pressure, I had to apply for social care. Because I had never worked before, I only got the absolute minimum of 313 euros a month. Refugees got more than €700 a month at the same time. • Last year, close to 90,000 people applied for asylum in Austria, a country of 8.6 million — three times as many as the year before and the largest number since 1956-57, when 170,000 Hungarians, fleeing Soviet reprisals, crossed the border. • Austria provides social assistance to legal residents and people with refugee status of up to €837 ($925) for a single person each month. In reality, people receive an average of €300 ($332), and asylum seekers waiting for a decision get a maximum of €320 ($354).

2020-02-21 20:20:39

Gen Z has already mastered the popular video app TikTok.But more recently, older generations including millenials, Gen Xers, and even boomers are starting to catch on, and are joining the app in growing numbers.Brands have caught on to this wave of new users and potential customers, and these three are quickly transforming their TikTok marketing to target this new demographic.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Unless you've been living under a rock (or perhaps just returned to earth after a very long trip away) you've probably heard that Tik Tok is the hottest new social platform. You've read up on it, downloaded it to your phone, scrolled the feed, and maybe even posted a clip or two yourself. If you did all that — and you're over the of age of 25 — consider yourself way ahead of the game. While Gen Z originally catapulted TikTok and its quirky, 15 to 60-second vertical videos into the zeitgeist, users from other generations — millennials, Gen X, and even boomers — have also been getting involved in ever-accelerating numbers. Together, these more established generations — along with the brands who want to court them — have been redefining the way that we leverage the TikTok platform. Here are a few fascinating ways that big brands are making inroads with TikTok's users across generations. ESPN Early TikTok adopter ESPN was on a mission to capture younger audiences — and its done an impressive job by jumping on the platform and posting clips (like this one of ESPN sports television personality Stephen A. Smith walking along to viral music hit "Old Town Road") along with jaw-dropping sports stunts and ridiculously impressive young athletes. However, ESPN has no doubt noticed that its more mature fan base — like millennials, Gen X, and even boomers — are scrolling through, so the brand's video content is evolving.The brand, which has nearly 4 million followers, now consistently uploads game replays and video highlights on TikTok, which has been a content mainstay for older sports fans who have watched the TV network over the years. It's important to note that these videos are set to the trending hip hop beats that Gen Z loves, so ESPN keeps both younger and older fans coming back for more. Apple Music If you scroll through all the videos featured on Apple Music's TikTok account (which has nearly 200K followers), you'll come to find that Apple Music isn't necessarily trying to make a play at Gen Z — the brand is sending marketing messages in the exact same tone as you would see in its distinctive ads running on TV, in print, and other digital media.The bulk of what you can watch on the brand's TikTok account are quirky interviews of trending music artists and polished lyric videos — a far cry from the comedy-centric and "memeable" videos that made the video app so popular with Gen Z in the first place.Unlike the majority of brands that tailor or recreate their marketing strategy to suit TikTok user and Gen Z preferences, Apple stays true to its core consumers, and uploads videos  millennials and earlier generations will appreciate. e.l.f Cosmetics Beauty brand e.l.f Cosmetics has been making a major splash on TikTok since joining the platform in 2018 (the year Tik Tok itself launched). The brand has even gained a reputation for creating arguably "the most influential campaign on TikTok" when it launched a sponsored hashtag challenge campaign, #eyeslipsface, that included an original song.Inspired by Kash Doll's hit "Ice Me Out," the song is called "Eyes Lips Face" as a parody on the acronym namesake of the brand. Campaign engagement went through the roof, with videos tagged #eyeslipsface being viewed collectively over 1.2 billion times. But here's an interesting twist — many of the campaign participants are not a part of Generation Z.e.l.f. Cosmetics has been a long-time favorite of the millennial generation and the brand's TikTok account reflects that. While e.l.f wants to play cool with Gen Z, it still never alienates its millennial followers — even on TikTok.  Read the original article on Inc. Copyright 2020. Follow Inc on Twitter. How I went from having zero video experience to building a following of over 10 million on Facebook by creating my own content window._taboola = window._taboola || []; window._taboola = window._taboola || [];

2019-07-18 10:01:00

PEOPLE’s first-ever podcast, Cover-Up, digs into the Chappaquiddick scandal that scarred two families and may have changed the course of American presidential history. In the seven episodes of the series, PEOPLE’s East Coast Editor Elizabeth McNeil seeks answers to the burning questions from the 1969 tragedy, 50 years ago on Thursday, which left one woman dead. Below, McNeil details 10 surprising things listeners will learn about the tangled case in the podcast. This article was originally published on May 31, 2018. Over eight months, I investigated what really happened on the tiny Massachusetts island of Chappaquiddick on July 18, 1969, when Sen. Ted Kennedy drove his car off a narrow wooden bridge — an accident which took the life of his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne. The results of my reporting can be heard in Cover-Up, which PEOPLE produced with Cadence 13. The podcast explores the events of that night and the scandal that ensued — starting with the 10-hour delay between the time Kennedy escaped from the car and when he reported the accident to the police — all in an effort to understand a mystery that has lasted half a century. 1. Mary Jo Kopechne almost didn’t go to Chappaquiddick. According to her cousin and closest living relative, Georgetta Potoski, 79, “Mary Jo was never supposed to go to Chappaquiddick that weekend.” Potoski tells PEOPLE Kopechne had a work obligation in New Orleans that was going to prevent her from attending the reunion party for her fellow campaign workers in Sen. Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential run. But, at the last minute, Potoski says, “She got someone to cover for her and she went because she wanted to see her friends.” 2. Mary Jo Kopechne was much more than just a “a blonde secretary,” which is how she was often described after her death. Her story was overlooked by the media, who instead focused on Ted. Kopechne was one of the “Boiler Room girls,” a group of accomplished women who worked for Robert’s presidential campaign, gathering campaign information in designated regions of the country and researching convention delegates. (They got their nickname from the windowless office where they worked.) Kopechne was at the Ambassador Hotel on June 5, 1968, the night Robert was assassinated and she rode on the slow moving funeral train, along with his family and close friends, that brought his body from New York City to Arlington National Cemetery. “She was more than the girl in the car,” says Potoski’s son, William Nelson. “But her story was forgotten.” 3. Gwen Kopechne, Mary Jo’s mother, always regretted that she had opposed an autopsy for her daughter. “Years later, Gwen said it was the biggest mistake she ever made,” says Potoski. “There should have been an autopsy. She knew it would have cleared up a lot of things.” But at the time, Mary Jo’s parents were afraid the autopsy was solely to determine if their daughter was pregnant. And they did not understand its importance. Although it was ruled that Mary Jo died by drowning, there were always lingering questions about exactly how long she survived in the car and whether she suffocated or drowned. An autopsy would have answered those questions. 4. Many believe the accident at Chappaquiddick changed presidential history by keeping Ted from the White House. “It hung over him like a permanent cloud,” a friend tells PEOPLE. “He felt like he let himself, his family and the country down in Chappaquiddick.” The tragedy haunted Ted for the rest of his life. As he wrote in his 2009 memoir, True Compass, “Atonement is a process that never ends … maybe it’s a New England thing, or an Irish thing, or a Catholic thing, Maybe all of those things. But it’s as it should be.” 5. Mary Jo’s final conversation with her parents left them with unanswered questions. In their last phone call, several days before she died, Mary Jo told her mom she had three things to tell her. “The first was she was thinking of getting engaged,” says Potoski. (Her boyfriend worked in the Foreign Service.) “The second thing was she had taken a job working for Matt Reese, a political consultant. But before she could tell them the third thing, her father got on the phone to say ‘hi’ and they never found out the third thing. We’ll never know what the third thing was.” 6. Many people were haunted by what happened at Chappaquiddick. Edgartown Police Chief Dominick Arena, who took Ted’s statement the next morning and later charged him with leaving the scene of the accident, still wonders why the senator waited so long to report what happened. Arena, who died earlier this year, told PEOPLE in 2018: “I’ll never understand why he left Mary Jo in the car for 10 hours before he reported the accident.” 7. Deputy Sherriff Huck Look saw Ted’s car 90 minutes after Ted said his car went over the Dike Bridge. On July 19, 1969, around 12:45 a.m., Look was driving back to his home on Chappaquiddick when he saw a dark car and thought the driver appeared “unsure or lost.” He parked his car and got out to see if the driver needed help, but before he could get there the car took off and went down Dike Road toward the bridge. Look continued home. But the next morning, when he went to the scene of the car accident on Dike Bridge and saw Ted’s car overturned in the water, he said “That’s the same car I saw last night.” The 90-minute time difference between 11:15 p.m., when Ted said the accident occurred, and 12:45 a.m., when Look said he saw the senator’s car, was never fully explained. 8. The Ballou family had a strange encounter on the water that night. A little before 2 o’clock on the morning of July 19, 1969, C. Remington Ballou and his family were on their boat, which was moored close to the ferry channel. As Ballou told the New Bedford Standard Times, he saw a small boat, carrying three people, douse its lights and its motor — an unusual occurrence. He then saw the small boat drift toward a larger boat that had crossed the channel to the Chappaquiddick landing. And that boat also turned off its lights. A few minutes later, the smaller boat revved up its motor and sailed out of the harbor. At the time, Ted’s press aide Dick Drayne denied any connection. “If there was a boat, the senator wasn’t on it,” he said. “The senator swam across [the water].” But Remington’s daughter, Cristy Ballou, tells PEOPLE her father always wondered if the boats were somehow linked to what had happened earlier that night. “The next day when he heard what happened at Chappaquiddick, he thought they were definitely connected,” says Cristy. “He thought it was very odd for that time of night.” 9. Mary Jo’s family is hoping for a “death bed confession” from someone who knows more about what happened that night. “The truth has never come out,” says Nelson, her cousin. Adds Potoski, his mom: “Mary Jo’s parents never had her final hours explained to them. We are hoping some day more information will come out. Maybe someday there will be a death bed confession.” 10. Last year, Potoski and Nelson, received a letter titled “The Untold Story of Chappaquiddick.” The man who wrote the letter — who declined to participate in Cover-Up — wrote about a lunch he had had years earlier with a woman who had attended the party the night Mary Jo died. (He referred to the party guest by a pseudonym “Betty.”) According to the letter, the woman said Mary Jo had too much to drink the night of the accident and wasn’t feeling well, so Betty laid her down in the back seat of Ted’s car where Mary Jo fell asleep. Then Betty went back to their cabin where the party was still ongoing and also fell asleep. The letter went on to say later that night, Ted went for a drive with another woman. But that neither he nor his female passenger realized Mary Jo was in the back seat. According to the letter, Potoski says: “The car went off the bridge and Ted and his female companion escaped from the car and returned to the party. And Ted was not aware Mary Jo was asleep in the back.” According to the letter, it was only the next morning, when Betty asked where Mary Jo was, that she was shocked to find out Ted’s car had gone over the bridge. That’s when she told her fellow party guests she had placed Mary Jo in the back seat to rest the night before. According to the letter, once they all realized what had happened, Ted was informed Mary Jo had been asleep in the back. Still, says Potoski, “It doesn’t answer all the questions. If he hadn’t known she was asleep in the back seat, why didn’t they just say that?” Now that a year has passed since she received the note, Potoski adds: “I’m still not convinced the mystery has been solved. There are still things we do not know about what happened that night.” But she and her son try to focus on the positive, including the scholarship in Mary Jo’s name at Misericordia University, Potoski’s alma mater. “In that way Mary Jo continues to help people,” says Potoski, “and she has brought the recipients happiness. And we’re grateful for that.” For more on the Chappaquiddick scandal, listen to PEOPLE’s podcast Cover-Up on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or wherever podcasts are available. And to continue the discussion, join our Facebook group to share your thoughts and theories or reach us directly at coverup@people.com.

2019-07-16

(Recasts after Salini issued corrected statement) MILAN, July 16 (Reuters) - Italy's biggest builder Salini Impregilo gave the go-ahead on Tuesday to a takeover bid for stricken rival Astaldi, kickstarting a state-backed plan to revive the country's moribund construction industry. Salini said it would take a controlling stake in Astaldi, in bankruptcy proceedings, in return for an equity investment it had earlier put at 225 million euros ($253 million), though it removed that figure from its latest announcement on Tuesday. The takeover is at the centre of a much larger financing plan designed to fix Astaldi and create a new national champion. As part of the overall exercise, Salini said it would raise 600 million euros in new shares and that banks would provide various credit lines worth a total of almost 1 billion euros. Salini wants to be the cornerstone of an industry consolidation, using a takeover of Astaldi and subsequent mergers to create a business capable of competing head-on against global firms for major projects at home and abroad. Salini's board approved the Astaldi takeover on Monday night but confused the market on Tuesday by issuing two main statements in the space of a few hours: the first giving key financing figures and the second deleting some of them. A Salini spokesman declined to comment when asked why the company had omitted these figures in its corrected statement. Salini said its offer for Astaldi was conditional on receiving funding commitments for the plan by Aug. 1 from state lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) and from a group of commercial banks. So far, CDP and the banks, including Italian lenders Intesa Sanpaolo and UniCredit and France's BNP Paribas, have only sent letters expressing a willingness to negotiate with Salini over funding support. In relation to the 600 million euros share issue, Salini said 150 million euros would be set aside for the market. It deleted an earlier reference to CDP taking 250 million euros of its share offer. It also omitted earlier references to its major shareholder, Salini Costruttori, taking 50 million euros and financial institutions 150 million euros. In addition to the Salini share offer, the construction firm said the overall merger plan would be supported by various lines of credit worth a total of 984 million euros. Salini has said a variety of funding would be needed to pull off a successful takeover of Astaldi and position the merged group to expand further. The overall project to revive Italy's construction industry is known as Project Italy. Astaldi is Italy's second largest builder. Salini also has heavy debt and fears a failure of Astaldi could harm its own business, given they are partners in some major projects. ($1 = 0.8883 euros) (Reporting by Claudia Cristoferi; Editing by Mark Bendeich, Mark Potter and David Evans)

2018-07-12 05:00:06

Netskope, a company that focuses on security in the cloud, announced today it has acquired Sift Security, a startup launched in 2014 to help secure cloud infrastructure services like Amazon, Microsoft and Google using machine learning. The company did not share terms of the deal, but Sift’s 10 technical employees will become part of Netskope’s 500+ person team and Sift CEO Neil King will lead the Netskope IaaS product management team moving forward. While Netskope provides comprehensive cloud and website security from a single interface, Sift uses machine learning to provide breach detection and automated response for Infrastructure as a Service environments, even across multiple clouds. Netskope founder and CEO Sanjay Beri says together the two companies can offer more security visibility than they had previously. “Sift Security enhances Netskope’s ability to uniquely gather and visualize the richest set of contextualized data on transactions across nearly all of the services provided by the Netskope Security Cloud — including transaction visibility, DLP (data loss prevention), threat protection, adaptive access control and anomaly detection,” he explained. As with many deals these days involving companies with machine learning expertise, while Netskope clearly values the Sift Security technology, it also is getting a technical team with machine learning chops in the bargain. “Sift Security has robust deep machine learning and behavioral analytics capabilities that help with the detection, correlation and response. Sift engineers also bring valuable expertise in machine learning and anomaly detection to Netskope’s growing team of data scientists,” Beri said. Beri explained that it was ultimately more than a pure technology purchase or talent acquisition because at the end of the day the two companies have to work together. That requires a good cultural fit too. “Neil King — Sift’s CEO and now head of IaaS Product Management for Netskope — and I met and started talking early in the year and over time through many discussions (and over time having our engineering teams meet and spend time together) realized that together our companies would be a great fit,” Beri wrote in a blog post announcing the deal. While the infrastructure cloud vendors do a good job of securing their data centers against attack, Beri says best practices point to a “shared responsibility model”, which holds that both cloud providers and their customers play a role in overall security. “Public cloud vendors are the first to tell [their customers] that they themselves are also responsible for protecting their data. For instance, companies should not rely on public cloud vendors for application level security; nor can they rely on public cloud companies to centralize the governance of multiple IaaS platforms,” Beri says. That’s where a company like his comes in. Netskope was founded in 2012 and has raised over $231 million. Sift Security was founded in 2014 and raised over $3 million in seed capital. The deal closed last month.

2020-03-25

March 25 (Reuters) - Sparebank 1 Nord-Norge: * SPAREBANK 1 NORD-NORGE RECOMMEND DIVIDEND REDUCTION DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS * SPAREBANK 1 NORD-NORGE - BOARD RECOMMEND REVISING DIVIDEND PAYOUT FROM LAST YEAR’S PROFIT FROM 58.6 PER CENT TO 42,6 PER CENT. * SPAREBANK 1 NORD-NORGE SAYS NEW DIVIDEND IS RECOMMENDED AT NOK 4.00 PER EQUITY CERTIFICATE. * SPAREBANK 1 NORD-NORGE - NEW DIVIDEND IS RECOMMENDED AT NOK 4.00 PER EQUITY CERTIFICATE. Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2019-06-26

The UBC Thunderbirds, a team at the University of British Columbia, charges the line. Kiki Roust appears suited up to play with Vermont's NAHA White, part of the Junior Women's Hockey League. Caitlynn Caine, a 16-year-old referee in British Columbia, stands in the snow. Mary-Jane Alexander, a player with the Chicago Young Americans, during a Junior Women's Hockey League tournament in Vancouver, British Columbia. A hair brush appears on a bench beside players with the NAHA White team from Vermont, during a Junior Women's Hockey League tournament. Twin sisters with the BH Blazers from Manitoba, Canada, pose during a Junior Women's Hockey League tournament. Goalies with the Greater Vancouver Comets, a female midget AAA hockey team from British Columbia. A young player laces up her skates. A helmet casts shadows across the face of Mia Glassco, a player with the NAHA White team from Vermont. Players with the Chicago Young Americans wait at the starting line at a Junior Women's Hockey League tournament. A player with the UBC Thunderbirds dons pads. A player with the Pacific Steelers, part of the Junior Women's Hockey League. Players with the Pacific Steelers pose for a photo. Players whiz across the ice during a Junior Women's Hockey League tournament. Alana Paterson knows how isolating it can be to compete in an intensely male-dominated arena. She's not only a photographer—a job disproportionately occupied by men—but also a skateboarder. Growing up in the late 1990s in British Columbia, she’d enter competitions with dozens of male contestants but just two or three other girls. The only other female skateboarders she saw in those pre-Instagram days were in magazines, "and they published maybe a handful of photos a year," she says. Now that Paterson's behind the camera, she's turning it on female athletes like herself. For her series Title IX, she documented junior and college hockey players from 14 teams across the US and Canada. It's part of a larger body of work that gives visibility to women in sport.

2018-02-06 00:00:00

The Trump administration on Tuesday took credit for the “incredibly strong” U.S. economy, even as global markets continued their recent wild ride. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the economy remained strong and was better off with President Donald Trump in office. “There’s nothing that’s taken place over the last couple of days in our economy that’s fundamentally different than it was two weeks ago, and we’re very comfortable with where we are right now,” Sanders said at Tuesday's news briefing. U.S. markets ended the day higher, after a selloff that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s worst one-day point drop. European and Asian markets continued their declines. Sanders said on Tuesday that the president had no second thoughts about taking credit for the economy and that unemployment remained historically low. “The economy is incredibly strong right now,” she said. “We’re infinitely better off today than where we were before the president took office, particularly on the economy. We have historically low unemployment and we actually have increasing wages for American workers.”

2019-03-18

Pollster Emily Ekins said on Monday that Democrats are concerned that if they are too aggressive in impeaching President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE ahead of the 2020 election, they run the risk of making him sympathetic.  "I think a lot of these Democrats realize that if they go too far on the offensive, they're going to make Trump appear like a victim," Ekins, polling director at the Cato Institute, told Hill.TV's Jamal Simmons on "What America's Thinking."  "Going into 2020, that's actually not going to go well for the Democrats," she continued. "So I think some of them want to back off for this reason."  Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiWhy President Trump needs to speak out on Hong Kong Anti-Trump vets join Steyer group in pressing Democrats to impeach Trump Pelosi warns Mnuchin to stop 'illegal' .3B cut to foreign aid MORE (D-N.Y.) made news last week when she told The Washington Post that impeaching Trump was "not worth it" for Democrats.  "Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country,” she said. “And he’s just not worth it." Multiple progressive lawmakers, including freshman Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezOmar says US should reconsider aid to Israel Pro-Trump Republican immigrant to challenge Dem lawmaker who flipped Michigan seat 3 real problems Republicans need to address to win in 2020 MORE (D-N.Y.) and Rashida TlaibRashida Harbi TlaibWorld Jewish Congress condemns Tlaib for suggesting boycott of Bill Maher's show F-bombs away: Why lawmakers are cursing now more than ever A lesson of the Trump, Tlaib, Omar, Netanyahu affair MORE (D-Mich.), have called for moving forward with impeaching Trump.  Trump last year warned voters ahead of the 2018 midterms that Democrats would move to impeach him if they didn't elect more Republican representation in Congress.  “We have to keep the House because if we listen to Maxine Waters, she’s going around saying ‘We will impeach him,’ ” Trump said at a Michigan rally last year, referring to the California Democrat. — Julia Manchester An overwhelming majority of voters are concerned that the U.S. will enter a recession in 2020, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released Monday. A majority of Republican voters -- 62 percent -- identify as both fiscally and socially conservative, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll released on Friday. More than half of voters would not consider reelecting President Trump in 2020, according to a new poll released on Thursday. Top-tier candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Two-thirds of voters said in a poll released Tuesday that President Trump’s next round of China tariffs will increase prices on U.S. consumer goods. Mental illness, weak gun laws and hateful public rhetoric are largely to blame for mass shootings in the United States, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll. Just over half of Republicans — 51 percent — said in a new Hill-HarrisX poll that the federal deficit is a problem that the government needs to deal with immediately.  Less than half of U.S. voters trust companies headquartered in Mexico and China, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll. President Trump’s job approval rating has dropped six points among voters between the ages of 18 and 34 in the latest Hill-HarrisX poll. A plurality of voters — 44 percent — say they think President Trump responds more fiercely to critics who aren’t white, according to a Hill-HarrisX poll released on Tuesday. Almost half of voters polled — 47 percent — say there was no clear winner from last week’s Democratic presidential primary debate in Detroit, according to a new Hill-HarrisX poll. Twenty-seven percent of Americans said that they thought the latest two-year budget deal would have no impact on their financial situation, according to a new poll out Friday. Support for impeachment proceedings against President Trump has slipped among Democratic voters following special counsel Robert Mueller’s public testimony before Congress last week, according to a poll released on Thursday. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2019-11-08 22:16:00

Kristen Stewart might consider herself an “overtly serious person” — but playing Sabina Wilson in the upcoming Charlie’s Angels movie brought out her comedic side! When asked if she’s similar to the funny — and at times cocky — character she portrays in the film, Stewart, 29, said that the experience was “a really nice opportunity to just sort of live and breathe in the moment” with her costars, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska. “Sabina wants to find her people,” Stewart said of her character to PEOPLE during a recent video Q&A. Stewart was joined for the interview by Scott, Balinska, and writer/director Elizabeth Banks, who also plays Bosley in the movie. “That’s like, I think, kind of a huge mission statement that the movie has, but that I get to exemplify in a really literal way,” the Twilight alum continued. “She’s from a family that, in certain ways, make you feel elitist and important, and so she has this sort of, like, cockiness and sort of like self-possessed thing that’s like, ‘God, how are you so comfortable?&apos” But there’s also a softer side to Sabina: “And yet, and really underneath the surface, she’s like, ‘yeah, but can you, like, please love me?&apos” Stewart added. The Adventureland star said that in real life, she enjoys making Scott, 26, and Balinska, 23, “laugh when things get too serious” — Scott even interjected to say, “she is funny in real life!” “But then at the same time, I’m like an overtly serious person, too,” she added. “So I think [I relate to] both.” “I do really like my character,” Stewart went on. “It’s kind of rare when you don’t play somebody who is very defined, and outside of yourself, and your job really is to just bring something natural and something true and something that reflects maybe closer to what you are.” Stewart added that while playing Sabina, she knew that “if I was having a good time, and if I felt the love, then it would be in the movie.” In addition to being able to flex her comedic chops with Charlie’s Angels, Stewart also said she appreciated the sense of sisterhood both on set and in the film. When Balinska pointed out that Banks’ Bosley was a “nurturing” version of the character, and offers hugs throughout the movie, Stewart said she would have loved a sister figure in her own life growing up. “A big sister is everything,” Stewart said. “I only have brothers. If I had a big sis to be like, ‘hey, hugs work,’ I would have really loved that.” Charlie’s Angels opens in theaters November 15.

2018-01-04 00:00:00

Jan 4 (Reuters) - AB SCIENCE SA: * REG-AB SCIENCE ANNOUNCES THAT BASED ON INTERIM ANALYSIS, IDMC RECOMMENDED THE CONTINUATION OF THE MASITINIB PHASE 3 STUDY IN PROGRESSIVE MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS WITH NO REQUIREMENT TO INCREASE THE SAMPLE SIZE * ‍IDMC DID NOT REPORT ANY SAFETY CONCERN WITH MASITINIB IN STUDY POPULATION​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

2017-12-06

Donald Trump Jr., President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE's eldest son, said Wednesday that he spoke with a member of senior staff rather than directly with his father about crafting a response this past summer acknowledging his controversial June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians. Trump Jr., speaking behind closed doors to the House Intelligence Committee, did not dispute that his father was involved in crafting the statement but said that he did not speak with President Trump directly about it, according to CNN. He said that he spoke with White House communications director Hope Hicks instead. Hicks talked to the president while crafting the statement, according to CNN's sources.  Reports previously had said the president was directly involved in helping his son craft the statement about the meeting.   The president's son's remarks to the panel of lawmakers, who are investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, come during a voluntary, hours-long interview behind closed doors. CNN also reported that Trump Jr. failed to recall "key details" about the White House response.  The president's eldest son came under scrutiny earlier this year when reports surfaced that he met with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya after an associate promised him that she could provide incriminating information on Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonTop Sanders adviser: Warren isn't competing for 'same pool of voters' Anti-Trump vets join Steyer group in pressing Democrats to impeach Trump Republicans plot comeback in New Jersey MORE's campaign. Trump Jr. in his initial statement in July said the two talked "about the adoption of Russian children," likely meaning Russia's ban on adoptions by Americans, and denied that the meeting was related to the campaign. His statement on the matter, however, continued to evolve through additional media reports and Trump Jr. ultimately acknowledged in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in early September that he spoke to the Russian lawyer about Clinton. He said he wanted to review information the Russian representatives had "concerning the fitness, character or qualifications of a presidential candidate." "I believed that I should at least hear them out,” Trump Jr. added. View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2020-01-08 04:00:06

current events In this lesson, students will learn about the most bike-friendly city in the world and consider ways to promote cycling in their own town. Find all our Lessons of the Day here. Featured Article: “The City That Cycles With the Young, the Old, the Busy and the Dead” Nearly half of all journeys to school and work in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, take place on bicycles. And people like it that way. In this lesson, you will learn how one city grew to become the most bike-friendly city in the world and the reasons residents love it. In a Going Further activity, you will imagine how you could transform your own town or city into a more bike-friendly environment. Do you ever ride a bicycle? If yes, how regularly? Do you ever ride your bike to school? Do members of your family ever ride bikes to work? In Copenhagen, 49 percent of all trips to work or school are on bicycles. In fact, in Denmark’s capital and most populated city, bikes vastly outnumber cars. In the United States, roughly 100 million Americans ride their bikes each year, but only about 14 million bike at least twice a week and less than 1 percent bike to work. Imagine a situation where all cars and public transportation suddenly disappeared — and all you had for travel was a bicycle: How would it affect you and your family? Take a few minutes to reflect on how life would be different: How would you feel? Do you think the transition would be easy? Or do you think getting around with only a bike would be an impossible task? What would be the biggest challenges for you and your family? Are there any ways that riding a bike would benefit you and your community? Write a short journal entry describing a life with only bikes to get around your town. If you are in a classroom setting, share and discuss your journal writing with a partner. Reflect and discuss together: In what ways would you and your community be better off with bicycles as the only mode of transportation? Would you want to live this way for a day, a month or even a year? Do you think it is possible or desirable for your town or city to become, if not a bike-only place, a more bike-friendly one? Read the article, then answer the following questions: 1. Why does the article begin with the story of Natalie Gulsrud’s trip home after work? What details in the opening paragraphs illustrate Copenhagen’s commitment to bike riding? 2. Give at least three reasons residents of Copenhagen use bicycles as their primary means of transportation. What advantages do bikes have over other modes of travel? 3. What factors have influenced Copenhagen’s transformation into a bike city over the past 30 years? What role has city government played in this shift? 4. Why did Ms. Gulsrud move to Copenhagen from the Pacific Northwest? How do the bicycles parked outside of her home illustrate both the diversity and needs of cyclists in the city? 5. What can you tell about the role of bicycles in Copenhagen residents’ daily life from the photographs featured in the article? Select one image and write about how it reveals the city’s commitment to biking. 6. The article concludes: Not long ago, modernity felt bound for something like the Jetsons, with families zipping around via jet packs. But maybe this is the future, a resumption of the past, upgraded by contemporary design. “The infrastructure is there and it’s safe,” said Mr. Rasmussen, as he prepared a comforting dinner of squash soup and home-baked sourdough bread. “Why wouldn’t you bike? It’s stupid not to bike.” Do you agree with Mr. Rasmussen? If you lived in Copenhagen, would you make bike riding your primary means of transportation? Are bikes rather than jet packs the future of transportation? Choose one or both of the following two writing activities: 1.) Tell us about your views on bicycles: Compare your writing from the warm-up activity to life in bike-friendly Copenhagen as described by the article. What was most surprising, provocative or memorable about the way the city supports, facilitates and encourages a biking culture? Does the article change how you think about transportation in your own town or city? Do you own a bike? If yes, how often do you ride? Do you consider yourself an enthusiast? Or is your bike collecting dust in a closet or garage? Does reading this article make you want to change your bike-riding habits? How common is bike riding in your town? Do you consider your town to be a bike-friendly place? What aspects of bike culture in Copenhagen do you think are replicable in your town? Do you think a shift from car culture to bike culture is possible where you live? What about in America as a whole? What obstacles do you think prevent making bike riding a priority? 2). Make a recommendation (or series of recommendations) to make your town more bike-friendly. How can you make bike riding more common, convenient, accessible and safe? Think imaginatively: While increasing bike riding might be your goal, consider possible changes to the physical environment in your community as well as ways to change public attitudes. Additionally, take into account the benefits of increased bike use like improved health for individuals and protecting the environment. First, based on your own experience, assess your town’s current bike-riding use: Do many people you know ride bikes? Are the streets frequently filled with bike riders? Or rarely? How safe is it to ride a bike? How easy is it for people to get around on a bike? Are there any local policies and initiatives that support bike riding? What obstacles might prevent the increase of bike riding? Next, research existing bike-friendly policies, initiatives and programs such as: bike-share programs in New York City, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Charlotte, N.C.; improvements to bike infrastructure (which include bicycle boulevards, bike parking, better streetlights); the creation of designated bike lanes as in Boulder, Colo.; the use of cargo bikes instead of delivery trucks; e-bikes; car-free zones; programs that promote cyclists’ safety like the “Safe Routes to Schools” program in Eugene, Ore.; educational campaigns like the “No Ridiculous Car Trips” in Malmo, Sweden; and creative ways to promote a strong bike culture that welcomes and celebrates bicycling, like National Bike Month and Bike to Work Day. Finally, develop a recommendation or recommendations to promote a more bike-friendly community where you live. Be sure to consider your community’s needs and strengths and to anticipate concerns from residents who might be skeptical.

2018-11-23 19:25:19

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to allow it to leapfrog federal appeals courts in several cases concerning the president’s decision to bar transgender people from serving in the military. Federal district courts have entered injunctions against the new policy, but no appeals court has yet ruled on it. The Supreme Court does not ordinarily intercede until at least one appeals court has considered an issue, and it typically awaits a disagreement among appeals courts before adding a case to its docket. The Trump administration has, however, repeatedly asked the justices to hear appeals directly from district court rulings, most recently in several cases concerning its attempt to shut down a program that shields some 700,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation. Like the ban on transgender service in the military, that policy has been blocked by federal trial judges. In both sets of cases, Solicitor General Noel J. Francisco told the justices that prompt action was required to ensure that the Supreme Court could rule before its current term ended in June. The Supreme Court’s rules say that it will review a federal trial court’s ruling before an appeals court has spoken “only upon a showing that the case is of such imperative public importance as to justify deviation from normal appellate practice and to require immediate determination in this court.” In a brief filed Friday, Mr. Francisco said, “This case satisfies that standard.” “It involves,” he wrote, “an issue of imperative public importance: the authority of the U.S. military to determine who may serve in the nation’s armed forces.” Trial judges have ruled that there is no evidence that service by transgender people threatens military cohesion or readiness. “There is absolutely no support for the claim that the ongoing service of transgender people would have any negative effective on the military at all,” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, of the Federal District Court in Washington, wrote last year. “In fact, there is considerable evidence that it is the discharge and banning of such individuals that would have such effects.” The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is set to hear an appeal of her ruling next month. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, has heard arguments in a separate appeal but has yet to issue a ruling. The Ninth Circuit has been the subject of scathing attacks from President Trump in recent days. The administration has also recently filed unusual requests asking the Supreme Court to block trials in cases concerning climate change and the addition of a question concerning citizenship to the next census. Critics said the administration’s request to bypass ordinary appellate procedures in the transgender cases was presumptuous. “Today, the U.S. Department of Justice announced its intent to short-circuit established practice, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a preliminary district court ruling before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has even had an opportunity to rule,” said Peter Renn, a lawyer with Lambda Legal, which represents the challengers in one of the cases Mr. Francisco asked the Supreme Court to consider. “This highly unusual step is wildly premature and inappropriate,” Mr. Renn said. “Yet again, the Trump administration flouts established norms and procedures. There is no valid reason to jump the line now and seek U.S. Supreme Court review before the appellate courts have even ruled on the preliminary issues before them.”

2016-08-02 00:00:00

Aug 2 (Reuters) - Jive Software Inc * Q2 GAAP loss per share $0.09 * Q2 revenue rose 5 percent to $51 million * Q2 non-GAAP earnings per share $0.02 * Sees Q3 2016 non-GAAP earnings per share $0.02 to $0.03 * Sees Q3 2016 revenue $49 million to $50 million Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Bengaluru Newsroom: +1 646 223 8780)

2017-11-20

Nov 20 (Reuters) - Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd * Fund raising committee approved issue price of 280 rupees per equity share for QIP​ Source text - bit.ly/2AeJwPh Further company coverage:

2017-09-05 11:00:54

Front Burner Nespresso, the coffee company with storefronts in New York and other cities like Miami and Chicago, is opening a more expansive American flagship on the Upper East Side. In addition to complimentary coffee tastings and a retail shop, it will have a lower level area for demonstrations, classes and discussions of coffee history and lore. There will also be a comfortable cafe with coffee and light food for purchase, including meringues from Aux Merveilleux de Fred: Nespresso, 935 Madison Avenue (East 74th Street), nespresso.com, opening Wednesday. At Ceres, a Chelsea gallery that represents mostly contemporary female artists, there is an exhibition of paintings by Elizabeth Downer Riker of farms and farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico, and their rooftop farming counterparts in New York. On Sept. 13 from 7 to 8:30 p.m., a panel of urban farmers at the gallery will discuss rooftop farms:“Beneath the Same Sky: From Oaxaca’s Central Valley to the Rooftops of New York,” Tuesday through Sept. 30 (except Mondays), Ceres Gallery, 547 West 27th Street, Suite 201 (11th Avenue), 212-947-6100, ceresgallery.org. You have to know a great deal about the shrimp you are buying, if you plan to follow the sustainability advice of the Monterey Bay Aquarium. But there is a much simpler way. Head to the Greenmarket and look for Eco Shrimp. These are Pacific white shrimp that Jean Claude Frajmund is raising indoors in a former mattress factory in Newburgh, N.Y. Using a system that recycles saltwater, he adds no chemicals, antibiotics or hormones. He sells the shrimp in their shells, head-on, fresh and never frozen. The shrimp are purged (not fed) just before they are sold so there’s no “vein” (digestive tract) to clean. The shrimp are sweet and nicely firm-textured: Eco Shrimp, $28 a pound for large, $30 a pound for jumbo; Greenmarkets at Union Square, Wednesdays and Saturdays; TriBeCa and Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, Saturdays, ecoshrimpgarden.com. When French cheesemakers started selling their products in stores in the late 19th century, they began sticking labels on the boxes and containers. Many of the labels are little works of art, showing historic figures, rural scenes, cartoons and the like. Examples from the collection of the Besnier family, the owners of Lactalis, one of the world’s largest dairy groups, will be on display at the French Cheese Board, with cheese tastings and cheese for sale for the opening weekend: French Cheese Labels, Sept. 8 and 9 for tastings and sale, on display for six months, 41 Spring Street (Mulberry Street), cheesesoffrance.com. A summer perennial on the menu at Crave Fishbar is a side dish of watermelon with feta. This year, the chef Todd Mitgang has taken the dish — a breakfast staple in the Middle East and in Greece that has become a popular refresher in America — and given it some vibrant energy. He adds spicy gochujang as an ingredient in the apple cider vinaigrette for his salad of cubed watermelon and crumbled sheep’s milk feta. You can, too. A shower of chopped scallions is his recommended finishing touch for the dressing: Crave Fishbar, 945 Second Avenue (51st Street), 428 Amsterdam Avenue (West 81st Street), cravefishbar.com. Follow NYT Food on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.

2018-03-05 14:30:02

The director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency responsible for deporting unauthorized immigrants living in the United States, likes to say that immigrants should be afraid of deportation: “If you entered this country illegally,” said Tom Homan in June 2017, “you should be looking over your shoulder and you should be worried.” Two new studies offer evidence for a disturbing reality: The fear is real — but it isn’t limited to unauthorized immigrants. It’s affecting other immigrants who have reason to feel their immigration status isn’t secure. And it’s trickling down to US citizen children of immigrants, and even their children’s classmates. It’s shaping their behaviors and weighing down their inner lives. We’re beginning to get a more detailed picture of the miasma of fear hanging over immigrants in the Trump era, and the ways it’s seeping into daily life. Two recent studies — one from researchers at George Washington University, based on a survey of Latino parents of teenagers, and another from the UCLA Civil Rights Project, which surveyed school professionals — help demonstrate that the fear of family separation is pressing down on immigrant parents and families. It’s a fear they aren’t equipped to handle, and that’s being passed on, deliberately or inadvertently, to children born in the US. The George Washington University study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, is based on a survey of 213 parents of adolescent children in “a large mid-Atlantic city.” The subjects in the study weren’t necessarily representative of the broader immigrant population: They were overwhelmingly Central American (55 percent of all respondents were born in El Salvador), while Mexican immigrants made up only 8 percent of the sample. What the survey was equipped to do, however, was compare immigrants — and families — across a variety of immigration statuses. A third of parents were unauthorized immigrants; a sixth had Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which is given to people in the US from countries that have suffered natural disasters or civil war; a third were green card holders; and a sixth were US citizens. Importantly, most (70 percent) of the teenage children in these families — regardless of their parents’ immigration status — were US citizens. The study’s authors expected to find that unauthorized immigrants were worrying about immigration enforcement and changing their behavior (and what they told their kids) accordingly. But study author Kathleen Roche says, “We were quite struck by the impacts on parents living in the US legally” — in particular, parents who had TPS. Over the time the researchers were conducting the survey, the Trump administration announced it was going to stop extending protections under TPS to Haitians and Nicaraguans, causing them to lose their immigration status in 2019. That news didn’t directly affect the (mostly Salvadoran) parents in the study with TPS, but “the parents were aware that these changes were coming or expecting the possibility,” Roche said. They were right: In January, the administration announced it would end TPS for Salvadoran immigrants as well. (The Trump administration’s move will strip protections from immigrants who’d held them since 2001, when the George W. Bush administration extended TPS to Salvadorans after an earthquake.) The overwhelming majority of parents with TPS said they worried about family separation (84 percent), or worried it would be hard for their child to finish school (76 percent). Seventy-eight percent had often warned their children to stay away from authorities; 65 percent had often talked to their children about changing their behavior, “such as where he/she hangs out”; 62 percent said they’d often avoided medical care, police, or other services. Unauthorized parents were primarily worried about their family’s all-around well-being. Eighty-eight percent often worried about family separation. Seventy percent said it was often hard to imagine being in a better job or making more money, while 60 percent often worried it would be hard for their child to get a job. And 58 percent worried it would be hard for their child to finish school. But they were less likely than parents with TPS to have frequently shared those concerns with their children in recent months. While 78 percent of parents with TPS often warned their children to stay away from authorities, 55 percent of undocumented parents did. While 65 percent of parents with TPS talked to children about changing other behaviors like where they hung out, 53 percent of undocumented parents did. Immigrants were asked a 14-question battery to measure their current “psychological distress,” including symptoms of depression and anxiety; the study authors labeled the top quarter of scores “highly” distressed. Only 23 percent of the unauthorized immigrant parents hit that threshold, making their scores pretty proportional of respondents as a whole; in fact, slightly more green card-holding parents scored high levels of distress (only 8 percent of US citizen parents did). But nearly half of all parents who had TPS scored as highly distressed. The high rates of distress make sense, given the administration’s recent moves to stop extending TPS to certain groups. It would be hard to scramble to adapt to a life, and a set of concerns, that you’ve never had to worry about before. And it makes sense that you’d have these concerns in mind even if you aren’t yet 100 percent sure that they’ll become a problem for you. The GW study puts that difficulty in real, human terms — and makes it incredibly clear that the Trump administration’s actions are expanding the pool of vulnerability and changing how affected immigrants live their lives. What didn’t matter for parents’ response to immigration news in the GW survey was the immigration status of their teenage kids. Parents of US citizens — 70 percent of respondents — were just as likely to tell their children to stay away from authorities and change their routines as parents of noncitizens, even though citizen teenagers wouldn’t be at risk of getting turned over to ICE. (It’s not likely that this was a reflection of fears about racial profiling more generally, because Latino parents who were US citizens themselves were much less concerned.) Parents of US citizens were also just as likely to report that they often worried their children would struggle to finish school or that they often felt their children had already been adversely affected by living under the current immigration regime. Worries for children were most closely connected to psychological distress. Controlling for other variables, parents who often or almost always worried their child had been negatively affected by immigration actions were more than 10 times as likely to test for high psychological distress as parents who weren’t as worried. Parents who often worried their children would have a hard time finishing school were almost 10 times as likely to be highly distressed as parents who weren’t as concerned about school performance. Parents who had often told their children to change their behavior were almost nine times as likely to be highly distressed. All of these worries about their children were more closely linked to psychological distress than parents’ worries about their own well-being. Being a noncitizen in the US — especially one whose status is subject to the whims of the Trump administration — is a stress factor. And it’s not one that parents can protect their children from, either. “We do know from extensive research,” says Roche of GW, “that when parents suffer from anxiety and depression, those teenagers are at much elevated risk of failing in school, engaging in substance use, having their own mental health problems.” Parents may not be able to cite all the research, but they’re often wary of passing their anxieties onto their children. Immigrant parents of young children often find themselves trying to shield their kids from their own distress. Even the parents Roche studied, whose adolescent kids are much more likely to be aware of what’s going on, were torn between the desire to “communicate openly and honestly” and protecting their child from feeling the need to take care of their distressed parents — a teenager taking on a “parent-like, adult role” in the household she didn’t ask for and can’t necessarily handle yet. That spillover is documented in some detail by a report by Patricia Gándara and Jongyeon (Joy) Ee of the UCLA Civil Rights Project, which surveyed teachers and other school officials from 730 schools (in 24 school districts) across 12 states about the impact they perceived of immigration enforcement in their classrooms. Surveying educators’ perceptions of their classrooms isn’t a perfect way to measure what’s actually going on — for one thing, teachers might be more sensitive to the well-being of their Latino students under Trump than they were under President Barack Obama, or more likely to draw a connection between emotional difficulties to immigration policy. But the quotes from teachers and other officials offered in the UCLA report are strikingly consistent. Over and over again, teachers report that children have expressed variations on the same fear in the classroom — a fear the UCLA study’s authors paraphrase as “going home and finding that their parents, siblings, or grandparents are no longer there.” “Fear” was the most common word used by school employees in the survey responses. “Separation” was the second most common. (This is consistent with the GW study of parents, in which majorities of unauthorized immigrants, TPS holders, and even green card holders expressed fears of family separation.) That isn’t an irrational fear. One teacher reported, “I had one student who came back the day after prom and would not eat or talk to anyone. I finally found out from one of her friends that she came home from prom to find her mom deported and never had the chance to say good-bye or anything.” But the fear is still much broader than the direct impact of deportation. One art teacher “saw many students drew and colored images of their parents or themselves being separated, or about people stalking/hunting their family.” The impact, again, isn’t limited to children who are immigrants themselves. It’s not even necessarily limited to children whose parents are immigrants. Two-thirds of school employees said that concerns about immigration enforcement were affecting their students indirectly. One California teacher said “students are very concerned for their classmates’ future and circumstances. ‘What’s going to happen with so-n-so?’” The sociologist Joanna Dreby identified this phenomenon in a 2012 study; borrowing a concept from public health of the “injury pyramid,” Dreby called it the deportation “pyramid.” It might be more helpful still to think of it, in the Trump era, as the pyramid of vulnerability. At the top of the pyramid are those who are directly targeted by detention and deportation; “that group absolutely is going to be the ones who experience the most severe and acute impacts of our policies,” Roche explains. But the indirect effects of that injury trickle downward — to immigrants who may have some legal status but have reason to worry they’ll lose it; to the US-born children of vulnerable immigrant parents; to the classmates (and teachers) of those US-born children; to green card holders who can’t feel entirely safe; and to US citizens worried about their neighbors. Ultimately, Roche warns, “very large numbers of US Latino families are being impacted — not at such a severe level, but still at a level that is felt in terms of fear and anxiety.” One year in, it’s becoming increasingly impossible to deny that that’s what’s happening — that the Trump administration’s immigration policy is changing the way large numbers of families, including many US citizen children, understand and live their lives. But the broader public can’t fix the problem, and it’s unclear that the people who have — the government officials who set immigration policy — are paying attention to the effects of the fear factor, or care enough about it to step back from the policies they’re pursuing. The cause is obvious. And with the slow dissolution of DACA and TPS over the next two years, it’s only likely to get worse.

2019-06-21 00:00:00

THESSALONIKI, Greece (Reuters) - Greek authorities are felling large parts of a forest because of a seemingly unstoppable beetle munching its way through trees. Experts say the shiny black beetle, the Tomicus Piniperda, is having a devastating effect on trees in the Seih Sou forest in the hills overlooking Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. “The problem is unfortunately very big at the moment because the insect is moving in almost uncontrollably,” said Professor Theocharis Zagas of the School of Forestry and Environment at Aristotle University. “We have to take the appropriate measures, with precision logging, to stop its momentum,” he told Reuters. The beetle, which was first documented in Greece in the 1970s, has a preference for members of the conifer family, particularly pine, the European spruce and the European larch, Zagas said. The impact of the beetle is evident. Large swathes of the pine forest have turned brown, with experts assessing that up to one tenth, or 100,000 trees, have been affected. The beetle, which can grow up to 4.8 mm - about the size of a baby’s fingernail - is known to exist in Greece but some synchronicity is needed to launch a devastating assault. That included the health of the trees themselves, with a tree weakened by climatic conditions like drought making it more vulnerable to the bug attack. “The forest of Seih Sou wasn’t systematically cultivated, and particularly (not) in recent years,” said Zagas. “That had as a consequence a large number of trees having low vitality, possibly because of protracted periods of drought,” he said. Authorities are planning to re-forest areas affected, with diversity in the species of tree key to keep the marauding bug away and introducing broad-leaved trees like oaks, which is not its snack of choice. “We have to design the forest of tomorrow,” said Zagas. “We will make this a mixed (species) forest and that is another way of dealing with the problem.” Writing by Michele Kambas; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

2019-01-20

(CNN)In a video that went viral on social media, a barefoot toddler gets out of a vehicle and walks toward police officers with her hands up. It looks as though she's standing in the street without anyone trying to help her. But more video, this time from a Florida police officer's body camera, tells a very different story. Tallahassee officers responding to a reported theft by an armed man on Thursday pulled over a suspect's truck, police said. Among those inside were two small children, a 2-year-old girl and 1-year-old boy. As officers arrest a suspect, who can be heard on the video saying he is the children's father, the girl gets out of the truck and walks toward police, with her hands up. In the video of the traffic stop recorded by a passerby, someone can be heard saying "She's trying to get out. Oh, my God! She's trying to get out, but she can't because she's little," and "Ooh, she's holding her hands up." Police are seen aiming their guns at the vehicle as the little girl stops near an officer. 'A different perspective' After the video went viral, police released the body camera footage. "The officers stopped the vehicle and were following their training as they had the suspected armed adults step out of the truck," said Tallahassee Police Chief Michael DeLeo in a video posted on Facebook. "When, unexpectedly, a 2-year-old girl climbed out of the truck and imitated her parents by walking towards the officers with her hands raised." In the body camera footage, an officer can be heard comforting the child saying "you're OK, come over here sweetie, you're OK," and "sweetie, put your hands down, you're fine." Inside the truck, the 1-year-old was found still strapped into his car seat. "A weapon is found in the backseat, although the gun looks real, it's actually a pellet gun," DeLeo said. Two men were arrested and later charged with theft, according to police. The officers allowed their mother to take care of the children. "This incident demonstrates the value of body worn cameras providing a different perspective of the same incident," DeLeo said.

2019-12-02 00:00:00

(CNN)It's tradition in college football for seniors to emerge from the tunnel for the final game of their collegiate career and run onto the field to one last ovation, an event players usually celebrate with family. Michigan State University cornerback Josh Butler lost both of his parents before they could meet him on the field one last time on Senior Day. But he didn't walk out alone on Saturday. The 23-year-old fifth-year made his final roaring entrance into Spartan Stadium accompanied by two dogs, Roxy and Remi. Michigan State beat writer David Harns captured the moment Butler and the clearly excited pups debuted. Butler's father, Steven, died in November 2017, hours before Butler was set to play in a game against Penn State. His mother, Ladrida Bagley, died in April 2019 after being diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, the Lansing State Journal reported. In between their deaths, he adopted Roxy and Remi, sister boxer-pit bull mixes and Butler's best canine friends. The dogs have become stars in their own right. On an Instagram account, Butler documents the daily lives of 2-year-old Roxy and his little sister Remi, still a puppy at 7 months old, often decked out in Spartan gear. Roxy even posed patiently with Butler in his graduation photos, wearing her own cap. Butler received his undergraduate degree in December 2018 and is set to receive his master's degree in media and information this month. He said his dogs and his teammates have helped him work through his grief and focus on the good in his life, too. "We talk about the sadness and the negativity about a lot of things because that's what they remember the most, but there's also positivity behind any story," he told the Lansing State Journal. "There's always a rise after the fall."

2016-05-16 15:00:00

A newly discovered stem cell signaling pathway could boost yields from corn and other staple crops by up to 50 percent in the very near term, according to a paper published Monday in Nature Genetics. In essence, it's an intraplant communications channel that acts as a "braking" mechanism to be triggered by the relatively old cellular members of a plant existing in its leaves and far-flung extremities telling the plant to stop producing totipotent stem cells. In other words, it's a way for the well-established parts of a plant to order the plant to stop growing, most likely in response to environmental cues relating to available light, nutrients, and moisture. The signaling medium itself is a protein fragment known as FCP1. It's a significant find, and not only for its practical potential in transgenic crops: "a regulatory system that transmits signals from differentiating cells in organ primordia back to the stem cell niche and that appears to function broadly in the plant kingdom." This is new general knowledge. As the paper explains, the presence of general feedback systems between a plant's stem cell core and certain neighboring cells is well-known. This core, a pocket of stem cells known as the stem cell niche, is regulated by an underlying brain of central control cells via expression of a gene known as WUSCHEL. WUSCHEL tells stem cells to stop differentiating into other types of cells, which is akin to tell them to divide and proliferate (because differentiated cells can no longer divide). The question posed here is whether or not those feedback systems extend beyond plant cores of undifferentiated stem cells—a region more properly known as the meristem—and out into their differentiated progeny cells, e.g. far-flung specialized cells, such as those making up a plant's leaves. Indeed, the researchers were able to identify a new receptor within the meristems of maize (corn) plants corresponding to the FCP1 protein. It appears to represent a very similar feedback pathway/mechanism to that involving the WUSCHEL gene, but at relatively long-range. To extend their work, the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory-based team examined maize plants that were deficient in receptors (FEA3 receptors) for the FCP1 protein. In these plants, it's as if the stem cell niche were blind to the FCP1 signals, with the result being out of control growth. The plant makes far too many stem cells, which results in the product of far too many seeds. The plant is then unable to supply enough nutrients to these seeds, which results in something called fasciation—the plant kicks out loads of baby kernels and the result is gnarly ears of corn that aren't of very much use from a food perspective (or from the corn's perspective). The Cold Spring researchers then added a twist. They were able to produce transgenic plants that had FEA3 receptors that were only mildly impaired. So, just a bit of the "don't grow" signal was received by the meristem, but still enough to prevent the plants from turning into crappy mutants. This is where we get the 50 percent increase in corn yield per plant. And because these meristem-leaf feedback loops exist widely in the plant kingdom, this trick should be possible in a wide variety of crops useful to humans. Extending this beyond corn is next on the agenda. Needless to say, the prospect of vastly increased food production via a fairly simple genetic trick is potentially huge. How bringing this to market will get sorted out among a wide pool of funding parties including DuPont, the US National Science Foundation, the Swedish government, and the Republic of Korea is a whole other question.

2019-12-30 00:00:00

NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Facebook said on Monday it had removed some ads that contained misleading information about HIV prevention drugs following an outcry from activists, health experts and U.S. lawmakers. The ads linked the drugs, which are known as PrEP and designed to prevent HIV, to severe bone and kidney damage and were placed by personal-injury attorneys. LGBT+ advocacy groups have for months been pressuring the U.S. company to remove the ads, pointing to a multitude of research showing that the medication is safe. Facebook initially declined, before doing so this weekend. “After a review, our independent fact-checking partners have determined some of these ads in question mislead people about the effects of Truvada,” spokeswoman Devon Kearns told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, referring to one of the drug brands. “As a result, we have rejected the ads and they can no longer run on Facebook,” she said. HIV prevention medication has been deemed “highly effective” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the leading national public health institute in the United States. Activists and public health experts argued that the ads, which have been viewed millions of times, were deterring LGBT+ people from taking the drugs. Earlier this month, over 50 LGBT+, HIV/AIDS and public health organizations wrote a public letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calling on Facebook to remove the ads. U.S. lawmakers, including presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren, also backed the campaign to take down the ads. Monday’s announcement, however, did little to quell frustration with the company. “The question remains – why is Facebook taking money from these ambulance-chasing law firms for ads that are helping the spread of HIV?” said Peter Staley, a cofounder of the PrEP4All Collaboration, an HIV prevention group. The head of the gay and transgender media advocacy group GLAAD meanwhile called on Facebook to remove other ads from its platforms. “Removing select ads is a strong first step, but the time is now for Facebook to take action on other very similar ads which target at-risk community members with misleading and inaccurate claims about PrEP and HIV prevention,” said Sarah Kate Ellis. Reporting by Matthew Lavietes, Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org

2019-09-09 14:15:33

Last week, a leaked email showed that the US government offered millions of dollars to the captain of an Iranian oil tanker in exchange for letting the ship be captured.It opened a window onto a species of US covert operation which has run for years but rarely been known to the public.In defense and security circles, many were incredulous that the offer would be committed to email."How f---ing stupid are they?" asked one source, suggesting that the leak will do damage beyond one embarrassing news cycle.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.Last week the ongoing saga of US attempts to hinder the passage of an Iranian-flagged oil tanker traversing the Mediterranean took a bizarre turn, when it became public knowledge that the ship's captain was offered a large payment by the US government to defect.Although unusual in many respects, the offer brought to light a practise that many consider an open secret: that the US will pay key individuals millions of dollars to betray its enemies.The offer came to the captain of Adrian Darya-1, a tanker which was detained by UK forces in the Mediterranean, but later let go.After its release, an email from State Department official Brian Hook, leaked to the Financial Times, exposed an offer from the US government. The captain was told he would secure millions of dollars, and a new life in the US, if he would sail the ship to a port where it could be recaptured. 'How f---ing stupid are they?'The initial response to the leak in defense and security circles was disbelief, and even laughter — not at the offer itself, but the fact that a US official had ever expressed it in writing.One source, the owner of a London-based business intelligence firm who has worked with the US on similar operations in the past, was among those who were incredulous."I mean to send an email, ffs," he said, using the abbreviation for a common vulgar expression of annoyance.The executive asked not to be identified because of ongoing client operations and fears of being identified."How f---ing stupid are they? They should have sent a covert team on to disable the tanker or found enough dirt on the captain to f--- him over," said the source.He argued that making the policy overt in an email risked compromising the entire program. Which it did. The ship itself was blacklisted under a package of sanctions the US has been using to pressure Iran into renegotiating the so-called nuclear deal struck by the Obama administration.The designation came after the tanker was seized by UK forces off the coast of Gibraltar in July. It was released after six weeks following a court ruling, and after Iran promised not to send the ship to Syria.The US response focused on ensuring the tanker didn't make it to its apparent initial destination off the coast of Syria, an Iranian ally, to which it was expected to deliver 2.3 million barrels of oil.The ship is currently moored off the Syrian port of Tartus. Iran claims the cargo had been sold and unloaded to  Syria — but monitoring groups have produced satellite images that suggest the oil is still on board.Read more: The State Department tried to bribe the captain of an Iranian tanker with several million dollars, but he headed toward Syria instead Informing for the US government is lucrative but risky workIn most cases, US intelligence and law enforcement have used paid confidential informants (often referred to by the abbreviation CI) to help identify money laundering operations employed by drug cartels or designated terror groups like Iran's Revolutionary Guard or Hezbollah.The business intelligence firm owner described a murky world where helping the US government as an informant can be lucrative, but also filled with physical and financial risk."Well... they are willing to pay, getting it is another matter," he said.This, the source said, can depend on the competing interests of different US agencies.For example, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) might have run a successful operation with an informant.But, once the operation becomes public, the source said there can be internal interference from other agencies competing to make busts, or who worry about their own assets."There are a number of examples where it appears an intelligence agency has interfered or deliberately caused problems for law enforcement in this area," he said."Getting it requires being lawyered up well in the USA… and not being shafted." Despite the risks, multiple confidential informants have made millions, according to the source, and confirmed by multiple other former DEA officials.But the most successful areas for informants seeking payouts has been the battle throughout Central and South America against large drug cartels and rebel groups in league with drug traffickers."It works very well with their deep undercover guys and some have made millions," he said."Especially the fake FARC ones," he said referring to the Colombian rebel group closely tied to drug trafficking.In at least three major public cases, the DEA has paid out huge sums to informants after sting operations:One against the Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout in 2008.Another against a Syrian arms trafficker based in Spain named Monzer al Kassar, who was detained in 2007.Another linked to the 2017 arrest of Hezbollah financier Qassam Tajjadine in Morocco.All three were eventually extradited to the US and convicted.

2016-01-26

Early last year, Mark Yusko, founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital Management, predicted crude oil would approach $30 a barrel and deflation would become the main economic headwind for the developed world, rather than the inflation with which the market had been obsessing. Yusko, whose dour market views were prescient, doesn't have any brighter view of economic or market conditions now. The easing of sanctions on Iran and Saudi Arabia's reluctance to cut production are among the factors that will continue to crush energy prices. "There's no chance we're going to get any spike, upward movement in oil. It's not going to happen," Yusko said during his annual "Bold Predictions" talk on Monday afternoon at the Inside ETFs conference in Hollywood, Florida. Yusko also projects a "messy bankruptcy" for at least one commodity company. He pointed specifically to mining and commodities trading firm Glencore, which has seen its London-traded shares fall nearly 70 percent in the last year amid sliding commodities prices and debt concerns. Glencore declined to comment. Earlier this year, CEO Ivan Glasenberg said in a statement, "Glencore is well placed to to continue to be cash generative in the current environment — and at even lower prices. We retain a high degree of flexibility and will continue to review the need to act further as required." Yusko said a recession is coming "as sure as the sun rises." He just can't decide in which of the world's major economies a recession surprise will first arrive. Either the United States or Europe may fall into recession in 2016, he said, with his pessimism about the U.S. economic outlook predicated on declining corporate profits and a manufacturing sector contraction, which indicate a wider slowdown. Yusko also echoed comments made at the Inside ETFs conference by influential bond investor Jeffrey Gundlach of DoubleLine Capital, who criticized the Federal Reserve — not for the first time — for raising interest rates in December. "Maybe the Fed has actually lost control," Yusko said. The European Central Bank's negative interest-rate policy elicited this comment from the manager: "I'm not sure what that's a sign of, but it's not good." Goldman Sachs analysts, though, recently argued that recession fears are overblown. Of the major, developed economies, Yusko saw some opportunity for investors in the Japanese market. The Bank of Japan could continue to ease policy, pushing the yen "dramatically" lower, he said, and Japanese stocks higher. He argued that the dollar may rise to 135 yen, from 118 on Monday, boosting businesses and sending the Nikkei 225 to 21,000, up from just under 17,000 now. A market that Yusko showed some faith in is India, which he expects to stay ahead of the battered emerging market pack. The World Bank earlier this month projected 7.8 percent gross domestic product growth for India in 2016, ahead of China's 6.7 percent rate. Yusko contended that Indian stocks will rise in 2016 after being dragged down in 2015 with all the emerging markets. But the Indian stock market has a long way to go if it's going to break free from the emerging markets contagion: The iShares MSCI India ETF (INDA), which tracks large and mid-sized Indian companies, has plunged 9 percent this year and 24 percent in the past 12 months, through Monday. That performance is slightly better than the broader emerging markets indices, such as iShares MSCI Emerging Markets (EEM).

2017-05-01 00:00:00

A class action lawsuit seeking $100 million in damages was filed against Ja Rule and Billy McFarland, the organizers of Fyre Festival, which was billed and hyped on social media as a luxury concert in the Bahamas that descended last week into complete chaos and was promptly canceled. The lawsuit was filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Daniel Jung, "on behalf of all ticket buyers and festival attendees defrauded and wronged" by the festival's figureheads. Jung and his attorney Mark Geragos anticipate more than 150 other plaintiffs to join the suit in the coming weeks. Ja Rule (aka Jeffrey Atkins) and McFarland are accused of fraud, negligent representation, breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. "[The] outrageous failure to prepare, coupled with Defendants’ deliberate falsehoods in promoting the island 'experience,' demonstrates that the Fyre Festival was nothing more than a get-rich-quick scam from the very beginning," the lawsuit alleges. Jung is seeking damages for the initial cost of his Fyre Festival tickets and airfare, the emergency travel booked after the event was cancelled, and "the significant emotional pain and suffering from being stranded in a foreign country." The lawsuit claims that the defendants "had been aware for months that their festival was dangerously under-equipped and posed a serious danger to anyone in attendance," but continued to promote it, using celebrities including Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid in their advertisements and creating elaborate websites and festival accommodation mock-ups. The lawsuit claims "the festival’s lack of adequate food, water, shelter, and medical care created a dangerous and panicked situation among attendees—suddenly finding themselves stranded on a remote island without basic provisions—that was closer to 'The Hunger Games' or 'Lord of the Flies' than Coachella." "I did not authorize that photo of me and the pig to be used in the lawsuit," Ashleigh Schap, the woman pictured in the Instagram, said via email. "It is of the swimming pig beach, not of festival grounds." The swimming pigs are a famous Bahamas tourist attraction. They live on Big Major Cay, an uninhabited island; the Fyre Festival was held on Great Exuma, a fair distance south of the pig island. Schap told BuzzFeed News that she has not been approached by the law firm and is "not involved in the suit as a plantiff [sic] currently."

2019-05-15 13:37:00

A 21-year-old college student from Illinois has been charged with murder after allegedly beating his mother with a bat because he mistakenly thought she was an intruder, say prosecutors. On Monday, Thomas Summerwill of the Chicago suburb of Campton Hills surrendered to police after prosecutors filed criminal charges against him in the death of his mother, Mary B. Summerwill, the Office of the Kane County State’s Attorney says in a statement. Thomas Summerwill, who just finished his junior year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, appeared in court Tuesday, where he was charged with two felony counts of second-degree murder. Campton Hills man charged in March beating death of his mother. https://t.co/lg4onxa8Nm pic.twitter.com/Ml5icK6dt2 — Kane County SAO (@KaneSAO) May 14, 2019 He posted $30,000 bond and was released from custody. The alleged crime took place on March 24, 2019, when Thomas Summerwill “awoke to what he believed was an intruder in his bedroom,” prosecutors say in the statement. “Acting in what he believed was the defense of himself or his property, Summerwill grabbed a baseball bat and struck the person multiple times in the head with the bat, not realizing the person was his mother, Mary Summerwill,” the statement says. His mother, 53, was taken to a local hospital where she died a short time later of blunt force trauma, prosecutors say. They allege that Thomas Summerwill’s belief that she was an intruder “was not reasonable because of his alcohol impairment,” the statement says. His attorney says otherwise. “The allegations are that he was essentially startled awake, believing there was an intruder in his room,” Thomas Summerwill’s attorney, Liam Dixon said, the Chicago-Tribune reports. “If they allege alcohol played a role, I don’t know that that changes his reasoning.” He allegedly struck his mother multiple times with a souvenir bat that was hanging on the wall of his bedroom, the Associated Press and Washington Post report. He and his father, who was home at the time of the alleged beating, called 911 that morning, the Tribune reports. • Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter. Thomas Summerwill had recently returned from a spring break trip to Ireland and parts of Europe and may have had jet lag, Dixon said, the Tribune reports. Describing Mary Summerwill’s death as a “horrible accident,” Dixon said his client is “devastated,” the AP reports.

2017-05-18 00:00:00

PARIS (Reuters) - A parliamentary majority looks to be within reach for centrist French President Emmanuel Macron in next month’s parliamentary election, opinion polls indicated on Thursday, as his cross-partisan government held its first meeting. Macron’s election as president on May 7 smashed a decades-old left-right grip on politics and has left the conservative Republicans (LR) and the Socialists in disarray. But he needs a win for his fledgling party in legislative elections to implement his policies. An OpinionWay/ORPI poll found Macron’s Republic on the Move (REM) set to win 27 percent of votes in the first round of the National Assembly election on June 11, ahead of all other parties. It projected that, after the second round on June 18, Macron’s party would have secured 280-300 of the 535 mainland seats in the lower house. When overseas territories are included, 289 seats are needed for an absolute majority. Two other polls published on Thursday by Harris Interactive had Macron’s party leading with 32 percent, up three points since May 11 and six points since May 7. But another survey sounded a cautionary note, finding that only 45 percent of voters had confidence in Macron and even fewer in Prime Minister Edouard Philippe - the lowest ratings for French leaders starting their terms in over 20 years. Those present at the cabinet meeting, the first since ministers were appointed on Wednesday, included economy and budget ministers from the right, a TV environmentalist put in charge of ecology and energy, and a veteran Socialist who was defense minister in the last government and is now in charge of Europe and foreign policy. “Having different political backgrounds will not stop us working intelligently for France, this was the first message the president wanted to convey,” government spokesman Christophe Castaner told a news conference. He said labor reform, highly controversial in France, “must be launched very quickly”. Macron’s plans, which he wants to carry out using executive decrees, include tackling unemployment of 9.6 percent by making hiring and firing easier. Philippe, a conservative who was de facto excluded from the Republicans for joining the government, told France Inter radio he would campaign to help secure an REM majority. Republicans campaign leader Francois Baroin voiced his anger at the defections of Philippe, Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin, saying: “This is not the spoils of war, it’s a hostage-taking.” Philippe said that, despite its diversity, the cabinet was built to last, but his assertion is likely to be tested over the coming weeks and months. Several ministers, including Le Maire, have said they will stand in the parliamentary election, and Philippe confirmed that they would have to quit the government if they lost. In addition, the four ministers who have held cabinet positions in the past will have to learn to work closely with colleagues who have come from civil society. One controversial appointment was that of Nicolas Hulot, a well-known TV environmentalist who has no background as a politician despite having advised several previous governments. News of his appointment on Wednesday sent shares in the dominant state power utility EDF sharply down amid concerns that he might want to force the pace of change in France’s nuclear-dominated energy mix. But Castaner said Hulot would have to stick to Macron’s program, adding: “A minister doesn’t set conditions for a president or a prime minister.” Macron spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone on Thursday, and will on Friday travel to visit French troops stationed in Mali. Additional reporting by Adrian Croft, Laurence Frost, Jean-Baptiste Vey; Writing by Ingrid Melander and Brian Love; Editing by Andrew Callus and Kevin Liffey

2016-09-02 18:05:00

A lot can change in 10 years, and that's especially true for Aerie. Since launching in 2006, the brand has not only become known for delivering pretty and comfortable intimates, but it has also made its way to the forefront of the body positive movement. Now, with a decade of knowledge in tow and an understanding of what the real Aerie girl wants, it's ready to expand its offerings with a trend that fashion girls can't get enough of: athleisure. Specifically, the brand's Chill. Play. Move. line drops today, and it's good. "We know our girl lives in these clothes, and we’re giving her options for every part of her day," Aerie global brand president Jennifer Foyle tells us. As the name suggests, the collection targets every off-duty sartorial need in a woman's life, from cozy, draped pants ideal for quality lazy time, to technical fabrics for a regular yoga fix, to pieces with compression and support for more physically demanding activities, explains Foyle. While brands dabbling in athleisure is hardly a new concept, Aerie's venture is unique in that it's setting itself apart as a brand that already knows its customer in and out. "We listen to what our girls want and what they expect from us," Foyle says. "Our product offerings really fit into different personalities and different lifestyles." Hit the slideshow to check out all the printed leggings and minimal layering pieces — and find out why Aerie's new threads are sure to snag the spotlight in your next #OOTD post.

2019-03-29 00:00:00

Going into Thursday night’s Grey’s Anatomy, fans knew to expect an emotional hour of television from “Silent All These Years.” Not only would beloved Grey Sloan doctor Jo Wilson (Camilla Luddington) finally meet her mother, but their long-awaited reunion would have a dark undertone of the #MeToo movement’s many stories of survival. However, no matter how much a viewer prepared themselves, it’s unlikely they could keep their composure during season 15’s latest episode. Jo’s mother, Vicki Ann Rudin (Michelle Forbes), reveals Dr. Wilson-Karev was conceived during a rape. Jo informs her mom she was in an abusive marriage, which viewers are already painfully aware of. Then, Jo drops what may be the final major secret of her past: She had an abortion. It’s a clear-eyed revelation that clarifies Jo’s past, present, and future. “I was seven weeks pregnant when my ex-husband cracked my ribs and threw me across the living room floor,” Jo tells her mother. In that moment, the doctor, who grew up in violent foster care homes until deciding to live in her car, decided she couldn’t bring a baby into her current dangerous situation. She also couldn’t leave, since Paul Stadler (Matthew Morrison) would probably kill her if she tried. “You had an abortion,” Vicki surmises. She is correct. While Jo has spoken about her history as a domestic abuse survivor repeatedly, this is the first time Grey’s fans have ever heard about the abortion. Even Jo isn’t sure why she kept that part of her past secret. Because, like the Shrill and Sex Education women who came before her in this TV year, Jo isn’t “ashamed” of her procedure, as she says. “I’ve never told anyone that. I don’t know why,” Jo tells her mom. “I did what I had to do.” While Jo doesn't feel guilt over her abortion, it may explain a piece of her apprehension about expanding her family with new husband Alex Karev (Justin Chambers). Over the last few episodes, Jo has cited her fears about her genetics and mysterious family history as the reason she isn’t ready to jump into motherhood just yet. As we’ve seen with her interest in DNA testing, that is certainly true. But, it’s possible Jo also isn’t ready to bring a new life into this world with someone she hasn’t spoken to about her last pregnancy. Jo doesn’t have to tell Alex anything about her abortion, yet this last secret may be be the final unseen wall in their relationship. It's a wall Jo may not even realize she has standing. Unfortunately, the Karevs, formerly blissful newlyweds, are speaking even less than they were before Jo met her mother. While his wife refuses to tell a concerned Alex what is wrong, it’s evident she isn’t ready to speak about her delicate origins. As Vicki tells Jo, she kept the baby following her assault, but hid the pregnancy from loved ones and friends. Vicki spent those nine months terrified her child would be a boy and resemble her attacker. However, once Jo was born, Vicki fell in love with her daughter. Still, she couldn’t shake her resentment for Jo and, not in her “right mind,” abandoned the infant at a fire station. Between her newly revealed secret and all of this traumatizing news, Jo is understandably bottling up too much to handle. She simply wants to go home alone and sleep, as she tells Alex in the last scene of “Silent.” For fans hoping this emotional weight disappears quickly, you are not in luck. “It became clear from Camilla's performance that Jo was going to have to process this in really profound ways,” showrunner Krista Vernoff told The Hollywood Reporter of the episode’s lasting aftermath. “We're telling a story about trauma and a story about depression. Things tend to get worse before they get better.” But, it’s likely things will in some way eventually get better. As Jo’s portrayer Camilla Luddington told Entertainment Tonight, “She has to, at some point, tell everybody. But it's so painful that there is going to be a time where you see that she is trying to process the information by herself before she tells other people.” It appears some of that growth will start with next week’s “The Whole Package.” The trailer for the episode shows Jo sharing some difficult family details with Atticus “Link” Lincon (Chris Carmack), an old friend from med school who knew Jo during her first marriage. The short clip previews Jo breathing, “My father.” It's all but assured the end of that sentence will be about the dead man's rapist past. Grey's Anatomy's “rom-com” season may not be over, but it’s certainly on pause. If you have experienced sexual violence and are in need of crisis support, please call the RAINN Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).

2017-12-14 00:00:00

* Pipeline shut on Dec. 11 * Repair work could last several weeks * ‘Complete mess’ says North Sea oil trader (Adds quote paragraph 6, comments on loading delays) By Alex Lawler and Amanda Cooper LONDON, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Deliveries of crude oil through the Forties pipeline in the North Sea are under force majeure for the first time in decades and operator INEOS said on Thursday there was no timeline yet for repair work that could last several weeks. The 169-km pipeline, which carries around a quarter of all North Sea crude output and around a third of Britain’s total offshore gas production, has been closed since Monday, following the discovery of a small crack in part of the system onshore in Scotland. Force majeure, which suspends a company’s contractual obligations in the wake of situations that lie beyond its control, is common in oil-producing nations like Nigeria where unrest often disrupts output, but very rare in the North Sea. Oil traders with long experience of dealing in North Sea crude said they hadn’t seen a similar situation in years. “I’m going to go with decades for any notable force majeure events,” said a North Sea trading source. “We had one minor case where force majeure was declared, but on a tiny field which would have been totally under the radar.” The last major incident that led to a declaration of force majeure took place after the 1988 Piper Alpha disaster, in which 167 men died after a gas explosion on an oil platform. Privately-owned INEOS, which runs the 200,000-barrel per day Grangemouth refinery in Scotland, said it continued to assess the situation. “The pipeline has been in place since 1975 and has been operating since then,” INEOS spokesman Richard Longden said. “It is a unique instance. It just happens to have been on INEOS’ watch, shortly after we acquired it.” INEOS bought the system from BP in late October for $250 million. Forties crude is the biggest of the streams of oil supply that come from the North Sea, one of the world’s oldest crude basins, and underpins the international dated Brent benchmark price. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises Western governments on energy policy, said on Tuesday was monitoring the situation, but saw no need to release strategic stocks of crude as the market remained well supplied. “For the time being, in response to the Forties pipeline incident, we have reduced our estimate for UK production in December by 300,000 bpd (barrels per day), and we will revisit this as the situation becomes clearer,” the IEA said in its monthly oil market report on Thursday. Forties was set to export 21 crude oil cargoes of 600,000 barrels each, amounting to 406,000 bpd, in December and 20 cargoes in January, according to loading schedules. BP still coordinates the Forties cargo loading programme, despite no longer owning the pipeline. Cargoes that had been scheduled to load from this week will be delayed, trade sources said. “It looks like a complete mess,” said a senior trader with a major trading desk. “INEOS has declared force majeure on the pipeline but BP is still coordinating the loading programme and has not declared anything yet. So people are struggling to understand what’s going on.” BP declined immediate comment. Another trade source said the loading dates could become something of a moving target, a headache for those buying or selling the oil. “All the cargoes will get shifted back later,” this source said. “They will push all the dates back to where they think they might be and the revise them again as we go along.” (Additioning reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Jane Merriman and Mark Potter)

2020-02-05 00:00:00

Few things in the pokémon world are as hotly debated as which creature is, in fact, the best. Pikachu is the series mascot, but Slowpoke has a real banger of a theme song. Eevee got a starring role in Pokémon: Let’s Go. Pokémon Sword exclusively introduced leek-wielding, sparkling-eyed Sirfetch’d. As Pokémon’s world of monsters has ballooned to nearly 1,000, it’s never been harder to pick your favorite. But right now, via Google, it’s at least easy to vote. The Pokémon Company International partnered with Google to hold a Pokémon of the Year poll. You can pick your favorite, by region, by searching for “Pokemon vote” on Google. The poll runs until 8:59AM ET on February 14th. You only get one vote per category, but you can weigh in once a day. Look, it’s a tough call, but there’s an obvious choice over here in the Kanto region. Listen to your heart. You know what to do.

2018-08-06

Washington (CNN)Rosie O'Donnell, a longtime foe of President Donald Trump, said on Monday that "most of America" agreed with her that Trump should be out of office, and she predicted success for her side in November. "I think that on Election Day, we are going to show up in a huge way, in a way that we haven't ever seen before in the United States, and people have just really had enough," O'Donnell said on CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time." She added, "I believe that Trump is loathed in America, that people are embarrassed and ashamed of who he is." Earlier on Monday, O'Donnell had gone to a protest in front of the White House to voice her opposition. "All we have to do is encourage people to show up, to protest, to use their voice, to save democracy," O'Donnell told Chris Cuomo. "We've got just a couple months till November, and till then we have to fight with everything we got." In the interview, O'Donnell also claimed the 2016 election had been "rigged" by Russia at Trump's request, although there is no public evidence to substantiate that, and the US intelligence community did not conclude that the Russian efforts in 2016 included changing any vote counts. O'Donnell's and Trump's disdain for each other predates his presidential run, and it has continued since he took office. O'Donnell protested Trump outside the White House just weeks into his tenure, and after he fired FBI Director James Comey last year Trump quoted a tweet from O'Donnell calling for Comey's firing in December 2016, adding, "We finally agree on something Rosie."

2018-06-22 13:00:06

Vocations Samit Chevli, 43, is a principal investigator at DuPont, a division of DowDuPont in Wilmington, Del. DowDuPont makes a lot of things: food ingredients, personal care items, and polymers and fibers, to name a few products. What do you work on? I’m in the industrial biosciences division, where we explore ways to bring eco-efficient products, partially derived from renewable resources like corn or sugar, to market. I work mostly on textile fibers used in carpeting and apparel, and as principal investigator I have overall responsibility for the project. I also give technical marketing presentations to companies in the United States and Europe, explaining to designers and manufacturers how the fibers will perform in carpeting or clothing. I travel quite a lot. Do you do lab work yourself? When I’m here, I’m in the lab at least once a week, helping to develop and test the fibers. To make them, we use glucose derived from corn, mix it with other ingredients and let it ferment, similar to how beer and bread are made. One of our tests involves using washing fabric samples in laundry machines that simulate washing them multiple times at home. We also use light fastness testers that replicate sunlight to see how fabrics behave when exposed to sun. What drew you to this kind of work? Growing up in Surat, India, less than 200 miles north of Mumbai, I was surrounded by people with science backgrounds. My mother’s side of the family has several doctors, and there are textile entrepreneurs on my father’s side. My parents were always talking about something related to science at the dinner table. Visiting a textile coloration mill also had a big influence on me. It’s not always a pleasant environment — it’s often hot and humid, and there’s frequently an odor and water on the floor from the process, but I liked it. I attended the University of Mumbai for a bachelor’s in textile technology. Did DuPont recruit you? Yes. After I got a master’s in color chemistry from the University of Leeds in England, the company sponsored me for a Ph.D. there, and as I was finishing, they offered me a job that was a good fit. It wasn’t a given that I would get a job with them; if they hadn’t had an opening, I would have been out of luck. I never planned to pursue a Ph.D. — I thought I’d return to Surat in India to work at my father’s textile mill after finishing my master’s — but a door opened and I walked through. Was this your first job there? For the first 15 years here, I worked with inks used in printing on textiles on quite a few applications, from T-shirts to curtains. Picture a printer 15 times bigger than a home printer. That’s what we use to print ink on large swaths of fabric. I still work with inks occasionally. What do you especially like about your work? I get to work on new products, but I still like being in the mill, the customers’ plant, and piloting one of our products for them on their big dyeing machines. Recently I was in England, trying our fabric in a customer’s blended fiber carpet application. I was making sure the color was uniform throughout, which is not easy to achieve on an industrial scale. They really needed a bigger machine that would operate at a higher temperature, but I had to make it work on the one they had. Is the work challenging? My friends and family think I have this great job and get to travel to cool places, but it can be very stressful. There’s constant anxiety about how the product is going to turn out. Unless you produce it on a large scale, you can never be sure, and I’ve been at customer sites where it has not gone well. Then we’re back to square one.

2017-03-28 00:02:03

Picture Prompts How many steps do you think you take in a day? How did you come up with that number? Could you build in even more? How? Tell us in the comments, then read a related article to learn about what a new study suggests about how much you might need to move to protect your health. Find many more ways to use our new Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan.

2016-11-29 00:00:00

Uber is making it easier for more people in India to book cabs on its network.  The Silicon Valley company announced today that its "Dial an Uber" feature, which lets people book a cab without downloading the app, is now available across all 29 cities in India where it operates. The company had begun testing this feature in India in August. With this feature, a user can book a cab by visiting dial.uber.com website on their phone. They do not have to create an Uber account to book a cab, as the feature only requires them to provide their phone number for authentication. They can settle the payment in cash at the end of the trip. (However, that might be a little difficult for many right now). Though it might not appear as remarkable to many, in India, where feature phones are still more than twice as popular than smartphones, this feature allows Uber to instantly become relevant to hundreds of millions of users.  “Dial an Uber offers a convenient choice to customers looking to book a ride and is testament to our focus on using our technological edge to make mobility reliable and accessible for everyone,” said Apurva Dalal, Head of Engineering, Uber India in a press release.  Uber’s India rival app, Ola has also introduced changes to its platform to increase its appeal among Indians. In October, the country’s largest ride-hailing service with presence in over 100 cities, said that people could book a cab on Ola via text messages.

2017-01-30 00:00:00

Jan 30 (Reuters) - Precise Biometrics * Resumed trading in Precise Biometrics * Opening auction starts at 1510 GMT/1610 local CET followed by continuous trading from 1520 GMT/1620 CET Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Reporting by Stockholm Newsroom)

2016-01-15 00:00:00

Watch the full length As the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon reaches its sixth day, Harney County Sheriff Dave Ward and Ammon Bundy, leader of the armed protestors, hold a surprise meeting in a remote wilderness area. Members of an anti-government militia have occupied the headquarters of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in a remote region of eastern Oregon for over a week, protesting what they claim is an overreaching federal government. The occupation is being led by Ammon Bundy and his brother Ryan, two sons of Cliven Bundy, a Nevada rancher best known for an armed standoff with the federal government in 2014 over a cattle grazing dispute. In Photos: The Faces and Frozen Landscapes of the 'Oregon Standoff' Read "Militia Leader Ammon Bundy Met With a Local Sheriff to Discuss Ending the Oregon Standoff"

2018-12-19

Photo: Getty ImagesSometimes it’s just easier to hand over your data instead of taking the ten seconds to Do the Right Thing. Logging into an app through Facebook, linking an app so it posts on Twitter, allowing a service to access your location at all times... In 2018, these are all privacy no-no’s and we all know better.And yet, I’ll be the first to admit guilt. A new app comes out, I download it, and it’s just really easy to say, “Sure, I’ll grant you access to my Twitter, Facebook, Google, and Instagram in exchange for some dubious convenience or meme.” It’s so commonplace and I definitely don’t always do the extra step of reading an app’s privacy policy to see what sort of permissions I’ve granted this new app. And then, when I inevitably delete it from my phone, I forget to revoke access on the relevant websites. (PSA: Just deleting an app does not magically cut off its access to your data!)Case in point: I deleted dating apps from my phone months ago. Still, a quick look into my Facebook permissions page showed me that Tinder, OKCupid, and Bumble all still had access to my info—along with those crappy memes from 2010 like “What Font Are You?” (Don’t judge college me. She was going through a thing.) Do I know what data those apps had access to in the half-year since I used them? Nope. Was it worth the convenience while I was using them? Noooope.But this habit is especially bad in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. While that debacle is a many-headed hydra with far-reaching impact, it boils down to the fact that up to 87 million users had their data exposed by some 270,000 users who took a dumb Facebook quiz. Most of us don’t review app permissions regularly, and at the same time, continue to partake in quizzes, memes, and apps that ask us to link up our Facebook and Google accounts. It’s not like we’re all ignorant that companies do shady things with our data, so why do people, including me, make it easier by essentially giving access away for who knows what purpose?I’m pretty sure most of us are guilty of a half-hearted mix of being tech savvy and tech dumb. Maybe you’re savvy enough to enable two-factor authentication on all your emails, but you just grant apps location permission willy-nilly even though they’re tracking your every move. Maybe you haven’t cleaned out your Twitter and Facebook app permissions in a few years, but you use a password manager like a pro. But it’s worth reconsidering: Do you still just hand over your data? And if so, why?

2019-01-21 00:00:00

Update, January 21, 2019: There is one bright spot in the Fyre Fest saga: the GoFundMe campaign for the Rolles, the festival's unpaid caterers, has now raised more than $130,000 of its $123,000 goal. TajLana Stephen, who identified Elvis and Maryann Rolles as their in-laws, wrote on the campaign's page that the couple is "overjoyed and so utterly grateful and very excited to do good things in Exuma." This post was originally published on January 20, 2019. The saga of Fyre Fest is full of villains, scams, and more villains. We all know about the hapless festivalgoers who arrived onto an island full of FEMA tents and cheese sandwiches. But there are more unseen victims, and Netflix’s new documentary about the doomed luxury festival shines a light on one: the Rolles. And now, the internet is coming together to recoup the money they lost, thanks to a verified GoFundMe campaign. Bahamian restaurant owners Elvis and Maryann Rolle were featured in Netflix’s Fyre, which premiered last week. The Rolles catered food for the festival management team, who also stayed at their resort in Exuma Beach. On their fundraiser page, the couple writes that they pushed themselves “to the limits catering no less than a 1,000 meals per day” for the organizers (though, as we come to find out, not much “organizing” actually took place). Once it became clear that the fest was totally phony, the Rolles continued to provide food, because they are heroes. “I was able to get the breakfast out to them...[The guests] were quite happy...and when the sun set and they had to get into that bus and leave to go to the festival site, that’s when it becomes sour,” she said. For their hard work, the Rolles were stiffed on their bill. In the documentary, Maryann Rolles estimates that they lost at least $50,000 to the Fyre Fest team, which she said came out of their own savings account. She started the GoFundMe in an attempt to recoup back some of that money, now that the documentary is proving them with publicity. “As I make this plea it’s hard to believe and embarrassing to admit that I was not paid…I was left in a big hole! My life was changed forever, and my credit was ruined by Fyre Fest,” Rolles wrote on their fundraising page. Their GoFundMe asks for $123,000, to cover the additional expenses incurred for services provided after it was clear that Fyre Fest was not happening. As of publication, more than $83,000 has been raised. If Billy McFarland won’t pay his vendors, at least the internet can donate funds for this cause.

2019-02-18

Several states will reportedly be joining a lawsuit California is preparing to file against the Trump administration over the president's move to declare a national emergency to get funding for his proposed border wall.  The states include New Mexico, Oregon, Minnesota, New Jersey, Hawaii and Connecticut, according to CBS News. A spokesperson for Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D) told KDVR, a local news affiliate, that Colorado would also be joining the suit.  California Attorney General Xavier BecerraXavier BecerraCalifornia leads states in lawsuit over Trump public charge rule Overnight Energy: Trump sparks new fight over endangered species protections | States sue over repeal of Obama power plant rules | Interior changes rules for ethics watchdogs California counties file first lawsuit over Trump 'public charge' rule MORE (D) and Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) have already announced plans to sue President TrumpDonald John TrumpTrump pushes back on recent polling data, says internal numbers are 'strongest we've had so far' Illinois state lawmaker apologizes for photos depicting mock assassination of Trump Scaramucci assembling team of former Cabinet members to speak out against Trump MORE over the emergency declaration.  Becerra said Sunday that a lawsuit from the state was imminent.  "We are prepared," Becerra said on ABC's "This Week." "We knew something like this might happen. ... We are ready to go." Trump on Friday declared a national emergency to allocate nearly $8 billion for construction of his long-sought border wall. The president made the announcement from the Rose Garden as he agreed to sign a spending bill that did not include his request for $5.7 billion in funds to construct a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.  Becerra said that the state is confident it has the legal grounds to challenge Trump's executive action.  "We're confident there are at least 8 billion ways that we can prove harm," he said. "It's become clear that this is not an emergency, not only because no one believes it is, but because Donald Trump himself has said it's not." Newsom said in a statement last week that Trump was "manufacturing a crisis and declaring a made-up ‘national emergency’ in order to seize power and subvert the constitution." “Our message back to the White House is simple and clear: California will see you in court,” he said.  View the discussion thread. The Hill 1625 K Street, NW Suite 900 Washington DC 20006 | 202-628-8500 tel | 202-628-8503 fax The contents of this site are ©2019 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.

2017-11-19 23:00:00

Model Keri Claussen Khalighi has accused Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons of sexual assault. The allegation was reported this morning by the Los Angeles Times. Khalighi claims that she was coerced into performing oral sex on Simmons in 1991, while the director Brett Ratner watched on. Khalighi alleges that Simmons then penetrated her without consent. According to the LA Times, Simmons and Ratner took Khalighi to a restaurant in New York for dinner before inviting her back to Simmons’s apartment “to show her a music video they’d been working on.” Simmons, however, began to make sexual advances towards Khalighi, “yanking off her clothes.” From The Times: In a statement, Simmons denied the allegation. “Everything that occurred between Keri and me occurred with her full consent and participation,” he said. The LA Times piece details a number of other allegations of sexual assault by Ratner, who directed Red Dragon and the Rush Hour series. Shortly after the Times piece broke, Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor Terry Crews, who recently came forward with his own story of sexual assault by an agent, tweeted an apparent screenshot of an email he’d received from Simmons on November 3. “Did he ever apologize? Give the agent a pass,” Simmons wrote in the email. “Ask that he be reinstated. With great love, all things are possible.” Crews added his response to the email above the screenshot: "NO ONE GETS A PASS." Do you have a story about sexual misconduct in the music industry? We want to hear from you. Contact Andrea Domanick confidentially at andrea (dot) domanick (at) vice (dot) com. PGP: bit.ly/2tZT0WT . Follow Alex Robert Ross on Twitter.

2016-04-16 00:00:00

ALONE and in silence, Sören Schindler sits in a white-walled conference room in Munich for six hours a day. He is writing a program that will run an online service for HypoVereinsbank, one of Germany’s largest financial institutions. His workspace suits him better than his previous one: an open-plan office where he felt constantly assaulted by the din of phones, clacking keyboards and chatty colleagues. “Working in such a loud environment exhausted me,” he says. Mr Schindler has Asperger syndrome, a form of autism. Mr Schindler’s condition appears to have become more common over the past half-century. Autism was first identified in 1949 but not studied systematically for decades. An early study in 1970 found that one in 14,000 children in America was autistic. In 2000 America’s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention began collecting data regularly. Since then the share of eight-year-olds diagnosed with some form of autism has more than doubled to one in 68 or 15 in every 1,000 (see chart). A recent study in South Korea is the world’s first to be based on an entire population of school-age children rather than a sample. Alarmingly, it finds that one child in 38 between the ages of seven and 12 has some degree of autism. Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Autism is a complex brain condition, encompassing a broad range of symptoms. These can include discomfort around other people, hypersensitivity to sounds, touch, tastes, smells and light, and obsessive interests. At least a quarter of children with autism do not speak, though some studies put the figure higher. At the other end of the scale are people of average or high intelligence who can live relatively normal lives. Dan Aykroyd, a Canadian comedian, is a notable example. Autism affects different people in different ways. Some autistics score above average on intelligence tests but struggle to communicate verbally and make compulsively repetitive movements, such as rocking back and forth or flapping their arms. Others have a healthy vocabulary but a low IQ and poor motor control, which can make writing by hand or using a fork difficult. The autism of a particularly high-functioning person might be almost imperceptible, manifesting itself only subtly in an obsessive interest with maps, say, or the merits of different aeroplanes. The causes of autism are not well understood. Research on identical twins suggests that genes play a big, probably dominant, role. But some environmental factors appear to matter, too, such as complications at birth or prenatal exposure to viruses or air pollution. Researchers believe that autism begins developing early in life, perhaps in the womb. Although parents sometimes notice their babies behaving oddly before the age of one, symptoms do not always appear until later. Males appear to be more susceptible. In America, for example, autism is diagnosed almost five times as often in boys as in girls. There is no cure, although sometimes autistic children become adults for whom the label seems inappropriate because they grow out of it or improve with treatment. One reason for the apparent rise in autism across the rich world is growing awareness, says Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University. Some cases that used to be diagnosed as an “intellectual disability” or (in the bad old days) as “mental retardation” are now being recognised as autism, says Jennifer Stapel-Wax of Emory University’s Marcus Autism Centre. The proportion of people affected by autism appears much lower in poor countries. That is not necessarily because it is less common, but because of shortcomings in diagnosis and data collection, says Andy Shih of Autism Speaks, a charity. Another reason is that doctors have changed the way they diagnose autism. The “spectrum” of autistic conditions has expanded to include Asperger syndrome, a milder social disorder, and some other similar conditions. As with autism, those with Asperger’s often struggle to connect with others, but are usually of average or above average intelligence and tend not to have difficulty talking. There is no objective test for autism; a diagnosis is made by observing behaviour. Does a baby fail to make eye contact or respond when called by name? Does he play with toys in an oddly repetitive way—running the same car back and forth on the carpet thousands of times or lining up plastic dinosaurs in perfect rows? Has he begun speaking at the appropriate age? By asking such questions, doctors can spot autism with some reliability by the age of two. Even so, the average age of diagnosis in many rich countries is three-and-a-half. Screening is seldom universal. Long waits between a parent first expressing worry and final diagnosis are common. Fewer than a fifth of the children in America who are eventually diagnosed with autism are diagnosed before they turn two. The consequence, says Dr Stapel-Wax, is that autism has too much time to advance. The human brain is at its most malleable in the first two years of life. Infants typically learn voraciously during this time. They watch and listen as people around them talk, laugh and eat. They play with others. By contrast autistic babies tend to fixate on inanimate objects, limiting how much they can learn from their environments. Autism is a “social disability that develops so quickly it can become an intellectual disability”, says Dr Stapel-Wax. Autism can be treated, particularly if it is caught early. Intensive coaching from a young age can help alleviate the symptoms. Using applied behaviour analysis (ABA), therapists work with children one-on-one, sometimes for 40 hours a week. They evaluate a child’s life skills and reward signs of progress. A child who stops spinning or rocking may earn praise. One who learns how to greet people may be rewarded with a smile. A study in Washington state in 2015 was encouraging. It found that children treated for two years, starting between the ages of 18 and 30 months, using the “early-start Denver model”, which combines building relationships through play and ABA, had less intense symptoms by the age of six. What works for one person, alas, may not for another. Nonetheless, early intervention is clearly cost-effective. A Swedish study found that the cost of lifelong care for someone with autism could be cut by two-thirds with early diagnosis and treatment. Even if they are spotted and treated early, autistic children often have a wretched time at school. Mr Schindler says that as a schoolboy he avoided his fellow students and never engaged in classroom discussion unless explicitly required to do so. A survey by the Interactive Autism Network, an American research group, found that autistic children are three times as likely to be bullied as their non-autistic siblings. Many drop out. In France, for example, 87% attend primary school, but only 11% progress on to lower secondary school and just 1% to upper secondary school. In several countries, including America and Britain, autistic pupils are mostly educated in mainstream schools but offered extra help from therapists and teachers trained to deal with them. Education authorities like this approach because it is cheaper than setting up specialist schools. Parents often prefer their children to be taught alongside non-autistic children. But integrating the two groups can be hard. In a survey of the NASUWT, a British teachers’ union, 60% of members said they were not adequately prepared to teach children with autism. This creates frustration and sorrow. Three-quarters of parents of autistic kids in Britain complained that it was not easy to get the support their child needed. A similar number said their child’s social skills, self-esteem and mental health had suffered as a result. Teaching autistic children well can be expensive. Netley primary school in London has an autism programme for children aged 3-11 who can weave in and out of mainstream classes. It receives a grant of £22,500 ($31,800) per pupil per year from the government, far more than is allotted to most other schools in England. There are 16 staff for 24 pupils, compared with a national average of one for every 17. Teachers often work with the children individually. In the room for kids between eight and 11 years old, a pupil and teacher do sums on a whiteboard. Next door, younger ones sing a song about the alphabet. “For two individualised 15-minute sessions a day students direct activities and a teacher will join in,” says Gianna Colizza, who runs the programme. “If a child wants to flip a toy car over on its back and spin its wheels, instead of saying ‘That’s not how you play with a car’, we’ll play along. It can be exhausting for them to operate in our world all day, so twice a day we go into theirs.” In the “sensory room”, an oasis of beanbags and lava lamps where anxious students can recharge, a boy gets a foot massage from a teacher while calming music wafts from surround-sound speakers. School can be tough for autistic people, but many have a worse time once they leave it. A study by the A.J. Drexel Autism Institute in Philadelphia found that only 19% of American autistic people in their early 20s lived independently, away from their parents. Wherever they live many are isolated: one in four said that they had not seen friends or received invitations to social events in the past year. Some autistic people prefer their own company, but many are unhappy. Adults with Asperger’s are ten times more likely to mull suicide than the general population, a British study found. To live independently, autistic people need jobs but the prospects for finding work are bleak. Academic studies on global employment rates for adults with autism do not exist, but the UN estimates that 80% do not work. A survey by Britain’s National Autistic Society, a charity, suggests that only 12% of higher-functioning autistic adults work full time. For those with more challenging forms of autism, only 2% have jobs. Job training, life-skills coaching and psychotherapy could help. An American study found that 87% of autistic youngsters who were given assistance to find a job, got one. Only 6% who did not receive support were successful. But in most countries, services disappear the moment autistic people finish full-time education. Robert Schmus, a 27-year-old American social worker with Asperger’s, describes leaving school as “going off the cliff”. He no longer received the social coaching that he used to have along with maths and English classes. Help that should be available often is not. America’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is supposed to guarantee services such as vocational training. Gary Mayerson, a lawyer specialising in issues relating to autism, is suing the New York city Department of Education for $500m on behalf of thousands of special-needs students who claim they did not receive assistance they were entitled to. Judging what proportion of autistic people is actually capable of working is tricky. About half are of average or above average intelligence, but that does not necessarily mean they will all be employable. An autistic person might score well on an IQ test but suffer from such debilitating anxiety that he cannot stray far from home. Most autistic people want to work. In a survey by the National Autistic Society, 79% of autistic adults on out-of-work benefits said they would like to find a job. Higher-functioning autistic adults have an easier time getting and keeping a job than those more severely affected, but both groups find job-seeking tricky. The first big hurdle is the interview. Many autistic people struggle with social conventions, such as making eye contact when speaking. Laura Williams, a British cat-rescue worker with Asperger’s, recalls that in past interviews she found it hard to know when to shake hands and what to say when greeting the interviewer. When meeting new people she sometimes creates scripts to ease her nerves, working out in advance when to say things like “hello” and “thank you”. Autistic people often speak bluntly. Asked what he thought of team meetings, Mr Schindler replied: “They don’t work. Before digging into the problem at hand people waste time talking about their weekends. Great, but I don’t care.” Many non-autistic people would wholeheartedly agree, but few would say so openly in a job interview. Non-autistic people routinely exaggerate their abilities during interviews. Many autistic people find this hard. Kurt Schöffer of Auticon, a German IT consultancy that hires people on the autism spectrum (including Mr Schindler), recently spoke with a candidate whom he knew to be a brilliant Java coder. When asked if he was an expert programmer, the candidate said no. Only when pressed did he explain that he did not consider himself an expert because he had not fully mastered all the other computer languages. An autistic person who makes it through the interview faces other difficulties once in work. Autistic people are frequently hypersensitive to the everyday annoyances of office life: ringing phones and bright fluorescent lights may distress or drain them. They might get tripped up by less-than-specific instructions. Socialising can be thorny, too. Some find their own ways of coping. Ms Williams recalls the problems of dealing with customers at a grocery where she used to work. “I was very neat and precise—I was good at stocking shelves and things. But I had a hard time when it came to talking to people, so I would just watch my colleague and try to copy her.” After her diagnosis, she also read books about Asperger’s and began asking for more social advice. “I learned that if you smile and say hello, that’s an outward sign that you want to be friends.” Before, she would avert her gaze, stay silent and agonise over why people did not like her. Despite these drawbacks, employers who hire autistic staff are usually glad they did. Many have strengths that make them well suited to some jobs. They are unusually good at focusing, for example. When asked what he most enjoys about his job, Mr Schindler says: “Solving software-engineering problems.” His favourite hobby? “Solving software-engineering problems.” Autistic people often enjoy repetitive tasks that others might find boring, such as updating databases, organising filing systems and fixing computers. Employers also report that autistic workers are reliable and loyal. Their desire for routine means, once they find a job that suits them well, they rarely miss work or quit. Autistic people’s brutal honesty can be socially awkward, but it can also work to an employer’s advantage. One of Auticon’s consultants noticed that a process he was working on could be automated and immediately told the client. (Instead of staying mum, as an ordinary person might to preserve his job.) The project finished ahead of time and under budget. Finding employment is starting to get easier for some people with the condition. A growing number of charities and businesses find work for autistic people of high intelligence. Specialisterne, a Danish firm operating in several European countries, offers training and help with job searches. Kaien in Japan, AQA in Israel and Passwerk in Belgium all offer autistic consultants to clients in need of software testing. Their employees are provided with job coaches, who help negotiate pay and brief potential clients on what to expect. Siemens, which hired two people from Auticon to develop and implement software-testing systems, said that they processed on average 50% more tests than other consultants. The benefits to firms of hiring autistic people with rare technical skills are obvious. For autistic adults without such abilities it is harder to find work, but given a chance they usually do well. Steve Pemberton of Walgreen’s, an American pharmacy group which makes a point of hiring people with disabilities, says autistic employees at the group’s distribution centres perform at least as well as other workers. At Rising Tide Carwash in Parkland, Florida, autistic employees have helped build a bustling business. To work there, candidates—many of whom have never had a job before—must pass tests of their practical skills such as wiping windows and vacuuming interiors. Thomas D’Eri, who founded the business with his father after noticing the dearth of opportunities for his autistic brother, says his workers provide top-notch customer service, work hard and smile even in the oppressive Florida heat. They are grateful for their jobs. Mr D’Eri reckons they stay with him three times longer than non-autistic workers, saving him time and money on recruitment and training. There are other unexpected benefits for the businesses that take on autistic employees, says James Emmett, a consultant who advises firms about hiring disabled workers. Because autistic people often think very literally, managers have to give much clearer instructions; and that helps non-autistic staff, too. Fruits of Employment, a programme run by TIAA Global Asset Management, an investment group, recruits autistic employees to tend six farms in California and Washington state. It uses detailed checklists to train workers to tend apple trees and harvest grapes. Heather Davis, the CIO of TIAA, who was inspired by the talents of her autistic son to start the programme, found such prompts helped her non-autistic employees learn quicker, too. Firms that hire autistic staff may also reap a reputational benefit. Other people may conclude that they are caring and generous, and be more inclined to work for them or buy their products. Mr D’Eri thinks his firm’s social mission brings publicity and thus business: “You don’t usually talk about car washes at the dinner table unless they return you a dirty car. With Rising Tide, people do.” Autistic workers are proving themselves in many fields. Israel’s army uses autistic volunteers to interpret complicated satellite images. L’Oréal, a cosmetics firm, hires autistic adults to pack products and update databases. Harry Specters, a chocolate shop in Cambridge, England, employs autistic adults to cook truffles. The number of schemes to help autistic people find work is growing. Autism Speaks, a charity, recently introduced a jobs database, Spectrum Careers, that allows autistic jobseekers to browse thousands of opportunities across America. A recent study in JAMAPaediatrics, a science journal, calculated that the lifetime cost of supporting an American with autism was $1.4m-2.4m. Paul Leigh of the University of California at Davis and Juan Du of Old Dominion University have added up not only the cost of care but also the opportunity costs of autism in America. They include an estimate of the output lost when autistic people are jobless or underemployed, and when their relatives cut back on working hours to look after them. They put the total at $162 billion-367 billion in 2015, the equivalent of 0.9-2% of GDP, on a par with both diabetes and strokes. By 2025 the figure could exceed $1 trillion, they predict. Confronting autism is costly, but failing to do so may cost even more.

2017-12-12 00:00:00

Carrie Fisher's French bulldog, Gary, is more than a famous pooch looking to make a buck -- he's downright therapeutic for Carrie's throngs of fans ... and his new owner's seen it happen, firsthand. We got Carrie's former assistant, Corby McCoin, leaving Basix Cafe in West Hollywood ... with Gary, of course. We asked her about the standoff with Disney and Carrie's family -- primarily her daughter Billie Lourd and ex-husband Bryan Lourd. We broke the story ... Billie and Bryan think Gary's public appearances cheapen Carrie's legacy, and want Corby to keep Gary out of the spotlight. Corby says she isn't in it for the money, but adds it's clear to her now ... Gary provides emotional support to fans who are missing Carrie.

2017-07-05 00:00:00

PARIS (Reuters) - France will begin selling stakes it holds in companies over the coming months to finance projects geared toward innovation, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday. While campaigning for the presidency, Emmanuel Macron said he would set up a 10 billion euro ($10.5 billion) fund to promote industrial and research projects, to be financed by selling down shares in companies in which the state owns a minority stake and by dividends from state-owned shares. Reaffirming that pledge, Le Maire said in a speech in Paris promoting business opportunities: “We will make 10 billion euros available to finance innovation. “...I will announce in the coming months significant stake sales in public companies that would enable the taxpayer to see its money is being spent on the future and not the past.” Le Maire did not identify the firms. Analysts say the state could reduce its 5.7 percent stake in construction company Eiffage (FOUG.PA), its 28.65 percent in gas utility Engie (ENGIE.PA), its 50.63 percent in airport operator ADP (ADP.PA) or its 23.05 percent in telecom operator Orange (ORAN.PA). ($1 = 0.8822 euros) Reporting by Myriam Rivet; Writing by John Irish; editing by John Stonestreet