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2018-01-24

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Though he's taken a few jabs at President Donald Trump, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said Wednesday he's otherwise "really liked what he's done for the economy." "I'd say I like a lot more stuff than I don't like, and some of the stuff I don't like I really don't like," Blankfein told CNBC's "Squawk Box " during an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos. "But I don't want to be hypocritical, either. I've really liked what he's done for the economy." In fact, he conceded that conditions probably would be weaker had Democrat Hillary Clinton defeated Trump in the 2016 election. Blankfein supported Clinton during the contentious campaign, and occasionally has taken shots at Trump on Twitter and elsewhere. Since Trump's win, the Dow has surged more than 40 percent and the economy is on its way to its third-straight quarter of growth topping 3 percent. Trump also has been aggressive in rolling back the thousands of regulations added during his predecessor Barack Obama's term. "I think the market would be lower [under Clinton], I'd be dealing with more regulation," Blankfein said. "I'd say the animal spirits are out there and [more] vital than they would be otherwise." "The country would be a bit less polarized, but I'm not even sure about that," he added. He did express some caution about market values, which he said have been elevated due to a low interest rate environment. "I'd feel a lot better about where asset prices are, including equities, if interest rates were normalized," he said. Though the Fed has raised its benchmark rate five times since December 2015, real interest rates compared with inflation are still around zero. Blankfein said "normalization" of rates is needed before it can be determined if the current prices can be sustained. The remarks came during a wide-ranging interview with the head of the investment banking giant. Despite a weak trading environment that has held back revenue, Blankfein said the bank is otherwise in a solid position, thanks to global growth. "We're kind of in a sweet spot, and I like it this way," he said. "Let me tell you, trading is soft. All our other businesses which correlate to global growth are kind of doing very, very well and I think he's gone out of his way to be very, very supportive of the system." The firm recently reported earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street expectations. However, the stock remains a laggard, up just over 2 percent in 2018 while the SPDR S&P Bank ETF, a proxy for the sector, has surged more than 8 percent.

2019-03-24 19:00:05

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We need to pay more attention to the way our culture abuses and isolates new mothers. Ms. Albert is a novelist and a doula. Ms. Block writes frequently about women’s health. The Food and Drug Administration last week approved the first-ever drug specifically for postpartum depression. The drug, Zulresso, a synthetic form of a hormone produced in the brain, acts quickly, and its effects can last for a month, but there’s a catch. Until a pill version is approved, the patient has to be hospitalized for 60 hours and receive the drug by IV. She can’t be home with her new baby because the drug may cause dizziness and unconsciousness. The price is also dizzying: $34,000 per treatment. Zulresso showed enough promise in clinical trials to warrant speedy review and approval, but there was also a powerful placebo effect: While the depression scores of severely depressed women who received the drug dropped by two-thirds on average in one of the trials, the scores of those who got a sham treatment were cut in half. A big placebo effect is common in antidepressant studies, but it should not be overlooked, because it may be emblematic of one of the root causes of our postpartum despair epidemic. What new mother wouldn’t have an improved outlook after three days of TLC? Postpartum depression is a serious problem, affecting, by some estimates, one in nine American mothers. It can be incredibly painful and is believed to be a growing cause of maternal deaths in the year following a birth. Insurers are expected to cover the exorbitant cost of Zulresso, which suggests that there’s finally a will to address our country’s dismal record on maternal health. Hurray! But if we really want to tackle postpartum depression, we need more than a drug. Research has shown that postpartum depression is more common in countries with high income inequality, high rates of maternal and infant mortality, and a work-life balance skewed toward work. (Hello, America.) The clinical definition of postpartum depression is a “medical complication of childbirth,” but this doesn’t take into account women’s emotional lives, and the fact that the way our culture treats some new mothers amounts to abuse. [The topics new parents are talking about. Evidence-based guidance. Personal stories that matter. Sign up now to get NYT Parenting in your inbox every week.] Pregnant women are often pickled in horror stories about birth, then subjected to unnecessarily intrusive care. Many suffer pelvic trauma; one in three wind up with major abdominal surgery. Then they are sent home with a newborn, typically without support. According to 2015 data, a quarter of women return to work in two weeks. Everyone says that “breast is best,” but new mothers get a decent place to pump at work only if they’re lucky. Most won’t see their doctor again for six weeks. No wonder depression is so common. As one mother we know who plans to quit her job (because she can afford to) said about the lack of parental support in this country: “It’s just so mean.” A new expensive drug is not enough; we need humane, evidence-based maternity care, respect for the “fourth trimester,” months if not years of paid parental leave, and affordable child care. It’s worth pointing out that the Zulresso study was small, involving 247 women, and that the drug maker was involved in its design and interpretation. Some of the participants were also on other antidepressants, which take much longer to kick in. And according to the lead physician on the study, Zulresso may work by “dampening neural activity,” which has startling echoes. More research is needed before we can be sure that this is not just the latest in a long line of drugs offered to women as a quick fix of middling efficacy, with the potential for unexpected side effects. We’d be foolish to believe that any drug is the magic fix that will once and for all end the metaphysical conundrum of experiencing fear, sadness, anger and despair during the most vulnerable time of our lives. Furthermore, let’s be real about who will have access to Zulresso: women with very good insurance, the ability to advocate for themselves, and the flexibility to leave home for three days for treatment. As Jennie Joseph, a Florida-based midwife and founder of the nonprofit organization Commonsense Childbirth, pointed out, “If you’re actually needy, in deep postpartum depression,” you’re “not going to be able to get yourself to the hospital. Where are you a few days after having a baby? You’re in your house being ignored.” In an article for the National Women’s Health Network, one of the few watchdog groups that shun industry funding, two researchers wrote that if Zulresso becomes the go-to fix for postpartum depression, “the onus of treatment will remain where it’s always been, on individual mothers — hardly a revolution in postpartum care.” If insurers are willing to throw down tens of thousands of dollars for a mother’s mental health, we can think of some alternatives that might have a better cost-benefit ratio: Six months paid leave. A live-in doula and a private sleep-training coach. Weekly massages and pelvic-floor rehab sessions. Relocation to a commune in the Bahamas. In the meantime, we fear that Zulresso is just a stopgap, and yet another instance of pathologizing a very sane reaction to our very insane culture. We’d love to be wrong. We’d love a quick, effective, accessible treatment for all who suffer the emotional pain that falls under the rubric of postpartum depression. But wouldn’t it be better if fewer women were left to spiral into despair in the first place? Elisa Albert is a doula and the author of the novel “After Birth.” Jennifer Block is the author of the forthcoming “Everything Below the Waist: Why Health Care Needs a Feminist Revolution.” The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

2019-06-24 15:24:00

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Zero proved to be the lucky number for a group of North Carolina lottery winners who together pulled in the biggest bucks ever won in a single Carolina Pick 4 drawing. In total, 2,014 people played the numbers 0-0-0-0, and when those numbers, known as a “quad,” were drawn Saturday, the winners raked in a combined $7.78 million, the North Carolina Education Lottery said in a statement. Nearly half (1,002 people) purchased $1 tickets, which won them $5,000 apiece. Meanwhile, the 1,012 people who bought 50 cent tickets were awarded $2,500 each. The total winnings just edge out the previous Pick 4 record of $7.5 million, which happened in August 2012 when the numbers 1-1-1-1 were drawn. The odds of matching all four numbers in a Pick 4 drawing are just 1 in 10,000, the statement read. The North Carolina Lottery advised winners to be aware of extended waiting times when they come to claim their prizes due to the large number of winners. The state recently doled out an even bigger prize earlier this month when a 66-year-old retiree won $344.6 million in the Powerball lottery. The winner, Charles W. Jackson Jr., said he chose his numbers based on those printed in a fortune cookie his granddaughter brought him from a Vietnamese restaurant. “You play to win — but you don’t ever expect to win,” Jackson, who opted for the lump sum of $223 million, told WRAL.

2019-10-10 00:00:00

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(Reuters) - European shares rose on Thursday as signs of progress in U.S.-China trade talks and hopes of a Brexit deal helped investors look past weak economic data and negative corporate updates. Trade-sensitive commodity-linked stocks .SXPP and autos .SXAP led the charge, surging more than 2% each, while upscale retailers also rallied and banks .SX7P posted their best day in a month. Investors took heart after U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted he would meet Chinese Vice Premier Liu He on Friday for further trade talks, confirming the Chinese delegation would not be cutting the two-day negotiations short. “The gulf between the two sides is wide, but a willingness to sit down and negotiate has injected some hope into the markets,” said David Madden, a market analyst at CMC Markets UK. The pan-regional STOXX 600 index closed up 0.7%. Louis Vuitton owner LVMH’s (LVMH.PA) 5.6% jump on strong sales was the biggest boost to the index and lifted stocks across the luxury goods sector. Gucci-owner Kering (PRTP.PA), Burberry (BRBY.L), Christian Dior (DIOR.PA) and Moncler (MONC.MI) climbed between 0.7% and 4.2%, with the Paris listed names pushing the French index .FCHI to its best day in six-weeks. The latest trade comments fueled optimism that had been dulled after China urged the United States to stop unreasonable pressure on Chinese companies. The South China Morning Post also reported that the two sides made no progress in deputy-level trade talks earlier in the week. Without significant progress, the next round of U.S. tariff hikes on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods will take effect on Oct. 15. Frankfurt's export reliant DAX .GDAXI rose 0.6%, reversing losses posted after data showed a steeper-than-expected fall in Germany's August exports. London's FTSE 100 .FTSE climbed 0.3%, despite a rallying pound GBP=, after the UK and Irish Prime Minsters said they saw a pathway to a possible Brexit deal after a last-ditch meeting aimed at finding a way for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union in an orderly way. [GBP/] There was a clear move out of defensives with utilities .SX6P and food and beverages .SX3P both losing around 0.4%, while a batch of bad news for healthcare companies hurt the healthcare index .SXDP. Danish biosciences company Chr. Hansen (CHRH.CO) hit its lowest level in a year and a half, sliding to the bottom of the STOXX 600 index after saying next year’s organic sales growth would fall short of long-term guidance. Health technology company Philips (PHG.AS) lost 8.8% after the firm said it would miss its 2019 target for profit margin improvement. Reporting by Medha Singh and Susan Mathew in Bengaluru; Editing by Patrick Graham and Kirsten Donovan

2020-01-28 00:00:00

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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura warned on Tuesday that corporate profits and factory production might take a hit from the coronavirus outbreak in China that has rattled global markets and chilled confidence. Asian stocks extended a global selloff as the outbreak in China, which has killed 106 people and spread to several countries, fueled concern over the damage to the world’s second largest economy - an engine of global growth. “There are concerns over the impact to the global economy from the spread of infection in China, transportation disruptions, cancellation of group tours from China and an extension in the Lunar Holiday,” Nishimura told a news conference after a regular cabinet meeting. “If the situation takes longer to subside, we’re concerned it could hurt Japanese exports, output and corporate profits via the impact on Chinese consumption and production,” he said. Automaker Honda Motor (7267.T), which has three plants in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and the epicenter of the outbreak, plans to evacuate some staff. China is Japan’s second largest export destination. In addition to carmakers, retailers have also become heavily dependent on the country amid Japan’s slow economic growth and shrinking demographics. Fast Retailing (9983.T), which operates the popular casual clothing chain Uniqlo, said it had temporarily closed about 100 stores in and around Hubei. Retail giant Aeon (8267.T) said it was keeping its five supermarkets in Wuhan open after local authorities requested they continue their operation, although some of its mall shops were shut. The outbreak could hit Japanese department stores, retailers and hotels, which count on a boost to sales from an inflow of Chinese tourists visiting during the Lunar Holiday. The Chinese make up 30% of all tourists visiting Japan and nearly 40% of the total sum foreign tourists spent last year, an industry survey showed. “We’re worried that sales and the number of shoppers could fall if the outbreak persists,” said a public relations official at Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings (3099.T), a major Japanese department store operator. “It’s not just about Chinese tourists. We’re also worried that concern over the outbreak may keep Japanese shoppers home.” Economists at SMBC Nikko Securities estimate that if a ban China has imposed on overseas group tours lasts another six months, it could hurt Japan’s economic growth by 0.05%. Some expect the potential damage could be much worse. Hideo Kumano, chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, said the decline in tourists from China could hurt Japan’s GDP growth by up to 0.2%. “The biggest worry is the risk the negative impact from the outbreak persists and hits (the economy) during the Tokyo Olympic Games,” when a huge number of Chinese tourists are expected to visit Japan, he said. “If the number of visitors decrease rather than increase, the hit to Japan’s consumer industry will be quite large.” Japan will host the 2020 Olympics in July and August. Reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto, Kaori Kaneko and Ritsuko Ando; Additional reporting by Hiroko Hamada; Writing by Leika Kihara; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman & Shri Navaratnam

2019-08-16 18:23:56

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to block Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from visiting came off as a sign of political desperation. President Donald Trump on Thursday urged Israel to block the first two Muslim women to ever serve in Congress from entering the country over their support of the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement. But in doing so, Israel has made US support for Israel a partisan issue, and unwittingly signal-boosted the boycott movement that seeks to isolate Israel over its occupation of the West Bank. "What a bulldozer to drive through the bipartisan consensus on Israel," former US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said in an op-ed responding to the move. "What a self-own."Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.Israel's decision to block two US lawmakers from visiting reveals how fragile its government is and how desperate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become.Netanyahu might have scored some political points with his right-wing base and President Donald Trump in the short-term with this move, but in the long-run the decision is likely to backfire and erode the historic relationship between the US and Israel. President Donald Trump on Thursday urged Israel to block Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib  — the first two Muslim women to ever serve in Congress — from entering the country over their support of the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement. But in doing so, Israel has made US support for Israel a partisan issue, and unwittingly signal-boosted the boycott movement that seeks to isolate Israel over its occupation of the West Bank. Shortly thereafter, the Israeli government announced the lawmakers would not be allowed to visit, prompting an avalanche of criticism — including from the powerful pro-Israel lobby in the US, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). —AIPAC (@AIPAC) August 15, 2019 Amid the ongoing uproar, the Israeli government reversed somewhat on Friday and said it would allow Tlaib — a Palestinian-American — to enter the country on humanitarian grounds to visit her 90-year-old grandmother but only if she agreed in writing to not But the damage was already done, and Tlaib has rejected the opening. "At the center of this drama is the BDS campaign, which calls for the international community to place economic and political pressure on Israel with the goal of ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. BDS is a nonviolent movement, but is not without controversy or critics — and some have argued it's anti-Semitic. Israel also has a law on the books that blocks supporters of the campaign from visiting, but initially seemed to be willing to make exceptions for Omar and Tlaib, who both publicly back BDS.The lawmakers had no plans to spend time in Israel proper, and instead would visit cities in the West Bank Palestinian territory like In announcing its decision to block the lawmakers from entering, Israel cited Omar and Tlaib's support for BDS as part of its justification.Read more: The powerful pro-Israel lobby and leading Democrats tear into Trump for pressuring Israel to bar Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from visiting"TBut in barring these Muslim lawmakers from coming on these grounds, critics have said Netanyahu made himself and Israel look weak, intolerant, and fearful of criticism. Many also seem to feel he's kowtowed to Trump and come off as subservient to the president, and given momentum to BDS by making it appear a legitimate threat to Israel.31 Republican and 41 Democratic lawmakersNetanyahu and Trump both want make this an election issueNetanyahu is having a rough year politically and is up for re-election next month. The Israeli leader is looking to shore up as much support as possible to avoid another embarrassment after Iawmakers voted to dissolve parliament in May when he failed to form a coalition government following April's national elections."What a bulldozer to drive through the bipartisan consensus on Israel," Shapiro added. "What a gift to the BDS movement, which until now, most Americans had never heard of. What a self-own."

2017-10-17

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Oct 17 (Reuters) - Chinese Strategic Holdings Ltd * ‍Co to place up to 34.5 million placing shares at placing price of HK$0.8 per placing share through placing agent ​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2017-07-06

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July 6 (Reuters) - Boeing Co * Boeing, Fedex Express to collaborate on ecoDemonstrator testing * Flight testing is scheduled to last approximately three months before airplane returns to Fedex fleet * Starting in 2018, new Boeing 777 freighter made for Fedex express will test emerging technologies, such as propulsion advancements, flight deck innovations * Rround of ecoDemonstrator testing includes installing a compact thrust reverser developed by Boeing​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2016-06-09

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June 9 (Reuters) - PZ Cussons Plc : * Performance of group for year ended 31 May 2016 has been in line with expectations * Financial position of group remains strong with cash generation also in line with expectations Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Bengaluru Newsroom: +91 80 6749 1136)

2019-02-16 00:00:00

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BERLIN, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Nadav Lapid’s film “Synonyms”, a French-Israeli-German co-production about an Israeli man who tries to suppress his origins after moving to Paris, won the Berlin Film Festival’s coveted Golden Bear award on Saturday. French director Francois Ozon’s “By the Grace of God”, a drama about victims of child abuse in the Catholic Church and their fight for justice, won the runner-up Silver Bear Grand Jury prize. (Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

2017-11-20 00:00:00

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ON NOVEMBER 20th Queen Elizabeth II, the British monarch, celebrates her 70th wedding anniversary to Prince Philip. The queen is no stranger to milestones of longevity. In 2015 she became the longest-serving English monarch, surpassing Queen Victoria; the following year, with the death of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej, she took over the crown as the world’s longest-living ruler. When she celebrated her 90th birthday in 2016, just a fifth of the women born in Britain in the same year as her were alive to witness the festivities. Yet whereas Elizabeth’s long run of good health is reflective of the overall trend during her reign of increasing life expectancy, the durability of her marriage makes her an outlier. Like most people of her generation, she and Prince Philip have stuck by each other: among Britons married in 1963, the earliest year for which comparable figures are available, only a quarter had ended in divorce by 2015. In contrast, 40% of couples who headed down the aisle in the early 1980s have parted ways. By the mid-1990s over a tenth of marriages failed within just five years. Upgrade your inbox and get our Daily Dispatch and Editor's Picks. Just as the queen reflects the marital patterns of her generation, her children are representative of their cohort. Three of them have been divorced, following very public marriages in the 1970s and 1980s. Her only child who is still married to a first spouse, Edward, rarely attracts attention from the media. Perhaps one cause of the success of Elizabeth’s marriage is her reserved nature and caution with the press. Read more in our special report on marriage

2018-08-22 15:36:00

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Jenelle Evans is getting emotional while addressing her road rage incident. Weeks after Teen Mom 2 audiences watched Evans pull out her gun after another driver allegedly tailgated her and cut her off on the highway — with her 8-year-old son Jace in the passenger seat — the MTV star is opening up about the terrifying moment. “Ever since then I’ve been having PTSD, I’ve been having nightmares,” Evans, 26, tells Dr. Drew in a sneak peek of an upcoming interview. “When the incident happened, I didn’t even leave my house for the first, like, two weeks,” she shares. After watching the footage back, Drew questions whether the mother of three — she is also mom to son Kaiser, 3, and daughter Ensley, 19 months — worried that she was “going to traumatize Jace more by following” the other driver off the road. “I didn’t think about it at the time. All I thought about was that he almost hurt my son. He almost knocked my son out,” she alleges. “And that’s what pissed me off.” In a Teen Mom 2 episode last month, Evans grew furious as the driver of a white pickup truck slammed his brakes after he allegedly cut her off, causing her and son Jace to dive forward as she slammed on her brakes to avoid a collision. “Are you f—— kidding me, dude? Oh my God. Give me your phone,” Evans told Jace. She dialed 911 and told police that she “almost veered out of the road” after the other driver abruptly slowed. In a black screen, MTV explained the driver turned off the highway, with Evans choosing to follow him. As she followed the white truck driver to his home, she unbuckled her seat belt, leaned forward and pulled out a small handgun as Jace watched. “If he tries to get out and hurt you, I can get out this nerf gun and whip him,” Jace told his mother. When she called her husband David Eason to explain the situation, he asked where she was, to which she replied, “Now I’m in front of his house,” as she appeared to take photos of the man’s home and vehicle. “I got three cameras in my car, they got the whole thing,” she yelled at the driver. “I just called the law on you, you were tailgating me, you dumba—.” As she backed her car, she unintentionally backed into the man’s mailbox, causing him to yell at her, although what he specifically said was not audible. The incident escalated as the driver got back into his car and began to block Evans’ car from leaving. “Dude, he just hit my car! Babe, he just hit my f—— car!” she yelled at Eason, who was still on speakerphone as she attempted to drive off. “Dude, leave me alone!” she said as she pulled out her firearm. (While MTV cameras did not show Evans brandishing the handgun, they did show a black screen reading, “At this point, Jenelle pulled out her firearm.”) Evans did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment. WATCH: ‘Teen Mom’ Star Jenelle Evans Pulls Out a Gun with Son Jace in the Car During Road Rage Incident She escaped as she raced back to the main road, telling Eason that the other driver was following her. Also in the sneak peek, viewers watch Evans deny to her mother, Barbara Evans, that she pulled a gun after Jace told his grandmother what he saw. “No, I didn’t, Jace. Why are you telling [her] I pulled a gun out on him? I did not do that,” she says. The incident took place in April, with Evans telling police the other driver had raced “in front of me and purposely slammed on the brakes at 70-something miles an hour. This guy is trying his hardest for me not to be behind him anymore. He is literally going crazy, swerving in and out of lanes.” Evans claimed that the man’s erratic behavior made her “slam on the brakes so hard that my phone went flying” that her son “almost got whiplash and almost hit the dash.” The man involved in the incident, however, alleged that Evans left out some information. In the notes from the 911 call listed in a report obtained by PEOPLE via the Brunswick County Sheriff’s Office, the male driver alleged the reality star “followed him to his house,” “hit his [truck], ran over his mailbox, and pulled a gun on him.” He told authorities that he “wants her stopped and charged.” Neither driver was charged in connection with the incident.

2016-11-09

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Nov 9 (Reuters) - Japan Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs Masatsugu Asakawa: * no comment when asked about possibility of forex intervention

2019-03-15

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(For a live blog on the U.S. stock market, click or type LIVE/ in a news window) * Xinhua says trade talks making progress * Boeing shares gain * Chip stocks rally on trade optimism, Broadcom results * Indexes up: Dow 0.6 pct, S&P 500 0.6 pct, Nasdaq 0.9 pct (Updates to late afternoon) By Caroline Valetkevitch NEW YORK, March 15 (Reuters) - U.S. stocks rose on Friday, led by technology companies, as sentiment was lifted by an upbeat note in trade talks between the United States and China. China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said Washington and Beijing were making further substantive progress on trade talks. The report came as a relief after news that a summit to seal a deal between the two sides will not happen at March-end. Chipmakers, which get a large portion of their revenue from China, rose, with the Philadelphia SE chip index up 3 percent, while the broader technology sector rose 1.6 percent. “I think investors are expecting we’re going to get a deal with China,” said Paul Nolte, portfolio manager at Kingsview Asset Management in Chicago. “That’s still kind of rumbling around in the background, and also investors are warming up to the idea that central banks have taken a huge step backward in terms of tightening.” U.S. data showed manufacturing output fell for a second straight month in February and factory activity in New York state was weaker than expected this month. That followed a batch of weak data this week that underscored the Federal Reserve’s dovish stance on future interest rate hikes. Broadcom Inc jumped nearly 8.2 percent and was among the biggest boosts to the S&P and Nasdaq, after the company’s quarterly profit beat analysts’ estimates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 128.52 points, or 0.5 percent, to 25,838.46, the S&P 500 gained 14 points, or 0.50 percent, to 2,822.48 and the Nasdaq Composite added 68.89 points, or 0.9 percent, to 7,699.80. Photoshop maker Adobe Inc, which also reported late Thursday, fell 4.5 percent after its current-quarter revenue forecast fell below analysts’ estimates. Boeing Co rose 1.9 percent after the company said a software upgrade for the 737 MAX aircraft will be rolled out in the coming weeks. Shares of the world’s largest planemaker have tumbled about 11 percent since its 737 MAX jets were grounded globally following a fatal crash involving one of its planes in Ethiopia on Sunday. Facebook Inc shares were down 2.5 percent after the social media giant said late Thursday that Chief Product Officer Chris Cox would be leaving the company. The stock briefly added to losses and Google-parent Alphabet lost ground after the Washington Post reported that U.S. state attorneys general are signaling they are willing to take action against those and other companies. Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 2.10-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 1.83-to-1 ratio favored advancers. The S&P 500 posted 60 new 52-week highs and no new lows; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 82 new highs and 35 new lows. (Additional reporting by Amy Caren Daniel and Medha Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Dan Grebler)

2017-10-02

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Oct 2 (Reuters) - Tesla Inc * Tesla Q3 2017 vehicle deliveries and production * Tesla Inc - ‍in Q3, Tesla delivered 26,150 vehicles, of which 14,065 were Model S, 11,865 were Model X, and 220 were Model 3​ * Tesla Inc - ‍Q3 production totaled 25,336 vehicles, with 260 of them being Model 3​ * Tesla Inc - ‍in addition to Q3 deliveries, about 4,820 Model S and X vehicles were in transit to customers at end of quarter​ * Tesla Inc - “‍model 3 production was less than anticipated due to production bottlenecks​” in Q3 * Tesla Inc - “it ‍is important to emphasize that there are no fundamental issues with Model 3 production or supply chain​” * Tesla - ‍previously indicated that H2 model S & X deliveries would likely exceed H1 , but now expect to exceed that by several thousand vehicles​ * Tesla-Majority of manufacturing subsystems at California car plant, Nevada gigafactory operate at high rate, some have taken longer to activate than expected​ * Tesla Inc - ‍in total, expect to deliver about 100,000 model S and X vehicles in 2017​ Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2017-03-11 19:37:00

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Season five of Buffy the Vampire Slayer begins not unlike former seasons. In episode one, Buffy vs Dracula, we see Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies wrapping up their summer after the previous season's conclusions. Following the Monster of the Week format, that episode's vampire (Dracula himself) disappears and in very last minute of the episode, we are introduced to Buffy's never-before-seen sister, Dawn. For anyone who watched Buffy during its original airdate back in 2000 or for any first-time watchers, the moment was elicited an IRL Mr. Krabs meme reaction. With her out-of-nowhere introduction, immediately following a lacklustre season 4, Dawn is thrust upon us with no context. In Dawn's first scene, Buffy's mother suggests she take her to movies only for them to both whine, "Mom!" in a way anyone with a sister recognizes instantly. Without knowing what is going on at all, we're aware of one thing only: Buffy and Dawn do not like each other. Ask any Buffy fan who the least liked character in the series is, and they will likely tell you it was Dawn (followed by Xander who is more or less useless most of the time). Frequently topping lists like, "most annoying television characters ever" the most shared opinion within the Buffy fandom is, "Dawn is the worst." Asking several die-hard Buffy fans I know, one explained it's pretty much canon to hate Dawn or at the very least find her extremely annoying. But when you ask why, most people stop at "she's just so annoying!" In the following episodes, while we're still unsure as to exactly where the hell Dawn came from and why everyone is acting like she's always existed and the audience is expected to go along with the ride. The second episode of the season features Dawn's own perspective via diary entries and we're introduced to how she fits into Buffy's life as a slayer. She tags along reluctantly to the magic shop with an annoyed Buffy and Giles. She hates Buffy, she isn't impressed with anything to do with being a slayer. She somehow messes everything up throughout the episode by inviting a vampire inside their home and after hearing Buffy complain about her, she runs away and gets kidnapped by a vampire. (This becomes a pretty common theme for Dawn. In Season 6 her first kiss is with a vampire named Justin, but at least she stakes him herself.) Yes, Dawn is annoying as hell, but how could she not be? Let's contextualize this—she is a pre-pubescent tween and her sister is a vampire slayer. Have you ever been a little sister? As a professional little sister, I can tell you it sucks a lot of the time, especially you're that age and my sisters weren't even slayers. You're trying to form an identity while constantly being reminded of what a grown woman should be. You're stuck in a place between feeling resentful and feeling admiration and all your feelings are amplified by a lot of hormones. She makes the same mistakes any young person would, only they're seen as bigger mistakes because they lead to putting her life and the life of others in danger. But despite all this, Dawn's defining trait is that SHE'S NOT EVEN SUPPOSED TO EXIST. As we soon find out in episode five of the season, Dawn is actually an object called the Key that was transformed into a human being. A bunch of monks decided to transform the Key to several hellish dimensions into a person Buffy would protect from the demon (and the season's Big Bad) Glory. All of Dawn's memories, her existence—every single thing about her was fabricated by these monks. Not only does she find out she's not a real person (in the most traditional sense), she also has to deal with her mom's death shortly after. This is why season five is arguably one of the best of the series—it's complex and full of twists. We see a new side of Buffy and see her grow up in a way she hadn't in previous seasons. Buffy is at times childish throughout the series, because she is a literal teenager, but she's still the hero. She saves the world (a lot), she's mature as hell—but when it comes to Dawn, she turns into a straight-up mean older sister. Their dynamic creates a perfect foil in Buffy, who up until then was more or less perfect and uncomplicated. After finding out Dawn's purpose and facing Joyce's death, Buffy has no choice but to take on the role of a mother. Her reluctant acceptance of Dawn transforms and her role as a protector completely. In the season five finale, Dawn realizes in order to save the world she must die. That's right, annoying ass Dawn opts to sacrifice her life to save the world. Of course, Buffy sacrifices her own life instead—but that is her literal job. Despite all of Dawn's shortcomings of being A PRE-TEEN GIRL, she is willing to die so others don't have to. Also, without Dawn we wouldn't have the single greatest moment in Buffy history. The first time I watched the series all the way through, I was in my early twenties and just beginning to get out of my role of the whiny younger sister. Around the same time my oldest sister said to me after a late night discussion, "When did we start talking to each other like real adults?" As a character, Dawn's only real crime is acting her age while being thrust into a world full of demons, witches and vampires. Maybe I have a soft-spot for Dawn because her own progression to becoming an actual person mirrored mine (minus the vampires), but it's time fans lay off the collective Dawn hate. Follow Sarah Hagi on Twitter.

2016-06-23 00:00:00

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SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - An Idaho prosecutor said on Wednesday that internet outlets devoted to carrying anti-Muslim sentiments were to blame for fomenting widely spread, false rumors that three Syrian refugee boys had gang-raped a young girl at knife-point. “There was no gang rape, there were no Syrians involved and there was no knife. None of it is true,” Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs said of the reports, which originated on blogs and social media postings and have since gone viral. He told Reuters those reports stemmed from an incident on June 2 in which three boys - aged 7, 10 and 14 - were accused of assaulting a 5-year-old girl in an apartment house laundry room in the southern Idaho city of Twin Falls. An investigation by Twin Falls police found one of the boys sexually assaulted the girl and the two others were involved in the crime but did not touch the child, Loebs said. Two boys were charged in the case, which an Idaho court has been sealed because they are minors, and were being held in a juvenile detention facility, the prosecutor said. Twin Falls Police Chief Craig Kingsbury, accused by anti-Muslim groups of a cover-up, said publicly that one of the boys was from Sudan, the other from Iraq. He added they had been in the United States for less than two years, but their immigration status was not immediately known. Anti-Muslim agitators and those opposed to resettlement of refugees from the Syrian civil war nevertheless seized on the incident to buttress their arguments for shutting down a refugee center in Twin Falls to prevent entry by displaced Syrians. “They are not compatible with our culture. They hate us. They don’t want to be Americans,” Vicky Davis, a local citizen opposed to the refugee center, said during a City Council meeting on Monday night. The controversy flared as Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, escalated his anti-Muslim rhetoric after last week’s deadly mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Florida by a gunman pledging his allegiance to Islamic State militants. Trump has called for a blanket ban on Muslim immigrants and heavier government scrutiny of mosques. Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the Idaho sexual assault should be fully investigated but added the case had become a lightning rod for anti-Muslim, and anti-refugee sentiments. “These two forms of hostility seem to be overlapping and reinforcing each other,” he said. Editing by Steve Gorman

2017-04-01 12:10:00

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When names painted on trash bags begin to flash across the screen in Taja Lindley's recent video work This Ain't A Eulogy, the subject matter is immediately clear. Tamir Rice. Rekia Boyd. Michael Brown. They read, tumbling across the screen. "The NAACP—around the time that there was consistent and spontaneous protests in the fall of 2014—they had developed a list of names of unarmed black people killed by the police from 1999 (Amadou Diallo) until the list was formed in 2014," Lindley tells Creators. That full list spans 76 names. "That was my source material." Done in collaboration with choreographer Ellen Maynard, Lindley's film is the digital version of a work she's been performing for the past two years. Debuted in 2015 during the SQUIRTS: New Voices In Queer Performance Art festival, the project comes as the latest in a series of projects working with trash bags, positioning the common household item as a metaphor for black bodies. "As I was in the midst of processing the non-indictments of the police officers responsible for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, I started thinking of how black lives are disposable," Lindley explains. "Not just in the case of those two men; it's just the history of what it means to be black in the United States." As such, the careless way those bags—those bodies—are cast about and forgotten, snagging on various elements in the opening scene, is significant. The performance that follows is one of desperation, anger, protest, and organizing. Lindley appears, performing amongst piles of bags, dressed in a look made of the same. Blown up balloons appear amongst the bags, serving a dual purpose. "The balloons give some depth and texture and space for the trash bags, but they also represent the breath," Lindley explains. During the first half of the film, she spins time after time, rattling off names from the fated list of 76, interspersing those names with words like, "Don't shoot," and "Again," symbolizing the repetition of violence. "I was thinking about the choreography of protests. 'Hands up, don't shoot,' is how people perform protests, but also people were yelling, 'I can't breathe.'" But as in the history of the black community, oppression and the circumstances surrounding it weren't the end of this portrayal. There is a turning point in the film when "The Bag Lady" appears—a character that Lindley has been working with over the course of a few works. She will be the subject of Lindley's one woman show, The Bag Lady Manifesta, debuting in it's final version this September at Dixon Place. Though the character was inspired by Erykah Badu's "Bag Lady," a woman weighed down with the weight of the world, not able to decide what to hold on to and what let go of, Lindley calls This Ain't A Eulogy her origin story. Birthed from the trash bags, those discarded souls, The Bag Lady is like a phoenix rising from the ashes, or more appropriately, like soul food crafted from the scraps slaves were tossed. She appears regal, commanding, and all powerful; her headdress, too, is crafted from trash bags. "All of that life force [from those slain black people] coalesces and comes together to produce a being that is saying, 'I'm the elephant in the room.' The past will haunt you if you choose not to remember it. You cannot forget me, I'm standing right here, so what you gon' do about it?'" Lindley explains. For her, The Bag Lady is a deity birthed from the accumulation of this mess and is able to create something beautiful from it. "She is teaching me, in the last half of the film, about that work that she's asking me to do." On screen, Lindley and The Bag Lady manipulate the bags, gathering them, causing them to fly, shifting them. At its simplest, this work, this transformation, is realized as community organizing. It is both powerful and moving, and Lindley has done the piece on screen and in person at performances not only at SQUIRTS but at conferences, on street corners, in festivals, in theater spaces, and in living rooms. And through it all, Lindley hopes for one thing. "What I'm trying to ask people to do is remember," she says. In a world of 140 characters and viewable-for-24-hour messages, that's quite an ask. To learn more about Taja Lindley, visit her website. Related: Need More Activism In Your Art? Look No Further Than This Center "Black Lives Matter" Makes It to the Venice Biennale Airbrushed T-Shirts Mourn Black Women Killed by Police

2018-04-20

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is advising consumers to throw out their romaine lettuce. Public health officials made the announcement Friday after receiving reports of new cases from the E. coli outbreak that's been linked to romaine from the Yuma, Ariz., growing region.  The CDC said the outbreak has spread to 16 states and sickened more than 53 people. Because of the new cases in Alaska, which The Washington Post reported include eight inmates in the state, CDC said it's expanding its warning to cover whole heads and hearts of romaine lettuce, in addition to chopped romaine and salads and salad mixes containing romaine.  If you do not know if the lettuce is romaine or not, the CDC said, you should throw it away.   So far, the CDC said no common grower, supplier, distributor or brand has been identified in the outbreak at this time.  And though the outbreak it linked to romaine grown in the Yuma, Ariz., region, CDC said consumers should throw out any romaine in their home since it's hard to tell from packaging where the vegetable is grown. Illnesses have been reported in Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington.  So far, no deaths have been reported.  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.

2016-03-09 17:20:00

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CrossFit South Brooklyn held its fifth annual Iron Maidens Raw Open this past Saturday, which, as the hardcore name suggests, is a powerlifting competition just for women. The video above, from Salon, takes you behind the scenes to hear a few competitors talk about why they lift, and why it's important for a space like the one created by this competition to exist.Iron Maidens was started to celebrate women who lift at any level, whether they do it for their health or to test their limits. For most of them, it's truly a lifestyle. As Bethany Erskine puts it in the short above, "feeling strong is part of who I am now." The 65 competitors, ranging from 25 to 70 years old, completed three different types of powerlifting (deadlifting, bench-pressing, and squatting) in order to place in their weight groups. The woman who came in first place lifted a total of 845 pounds. Linda Lempert, the oldest competitor, says that women who powerlift are fighting "the stereotype that women can't" lift weights at all. She admits that her main goals were to avoid getting hurt, and not to "make a fool" of herself — but by the end of the open, the 70-year-old lifted a total of 227 pounds, which, to my younger self, sounds like the least foolish thing imaginable.

2020-02-16 00:00:00

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Whether we can use the results as legitimate or not, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries showed one thing — progressive policies articulated by former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete ButtigiegPeter (Pete) Paul ButtigiegBiden leads Sanders by single digits in South Carolina: poll 2020 Democratic candidates support Las Vegas casino workers on debate day What to watch in the debate tonight MORE are currently resonating with Democratic voters. But while he has surged in popularity over longtime Democrat party players, how would his policies play out nationally? Buttigieg has roughly outlined numerous platform policies, but the roughest right now is his health care plan: “Medicare for All Who Want It.” This idea is to offer a public option that will compete in the health care insurance market against employee sponsored plans, private plans, and plans introduced through the Obamacare Exchange. A public option would crowd out those in our health care system who need its services the most. It could increase costs to those who do not want to be insured but are forced to via a government mandate. We are a country that values choices, and this would ultimately remove those from our health care system. Buttigieg’s plan would automatically enroll anyone in the public option who is uninsured, starting first with those who reside in non-expansion states, including Texas. There are people who chose to be uninsured in these states — because they have the freedom to (many of these folks sought out affordable coverage elsewhere). They would not have that option under Buttigieg’s plan. While the details of automatic enrollment are being worked out, physicians who see an uninsured patient would be reimbursed by the government. But if you know that the government will cover your bill if you are uninsured, why would you pay the premiums for your employee or private insurance plan? Or, due to the notorious inefficiencies of the government, would physicians take the risk of accepting uninsured patients without a timely reimbursement plan in place? As Buttigieg’s plan states, this is a “natural glide-path to Medicare for All.” When we look at our current examples of single-payer systems in the United States — Medicare and the Veterans Administration (VA) — patients’ needs are often unmet, and costs continue to rise. It has been found that the VA is inefficient, filled with unnecessary costs, and patient wait times lead to increased complications and sometimes death. Medicare has been overspending for decades with Medicare for All predicted to increase the deficit by $14 trillion over 10 years. With an increase in people on the same health care system — remember, the goal of Buttigieg’s plan is Medicare for All — there will be less access to services for everyone. Currently, Medicare and Medicaid pay less than the private market in reimbursement rates and there are fewer and fewer providers even accepting Medicare and Medicaid patients. There is the potential for a major physician shortage in the next two decades, and Medicare for All Who Want It, or any variation thereof, will not be the carrot to bring more suppliers in. Buttigieg’s plan cites as an example a 60-year-old in Iowa making $50,000 a year who currently pays $12,000 in premiums. His plan states that the Iowan will pay no more than 8.5 percent of his or her annual income, or $4,250 annually. For many that close to retirement age, that can still be too much. Without government intervention into the market, this individual can enroll in a direct primary care plan which is $77 a month on average, or $924 annually, a much more affordable choice that lets Americans save more of their hard earned money. We as a country do not have to go down this path. The Personalized Care Act companion bills introduced during this Congress by Sen. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzTed Cruz takes aim at Alabama vasectomy bill: 'Yikes' 'Medicare for All' will turn into health care for none Cruz 'impresses' his daughter with Chris Evans meeting MORE (R-Texas) and Rep. Chip RoyCharles (Chip) Eugene RoyGun control group plans to spend million in Texas in 2020 'Medicare for All' will turn into health care for none The advantage of paying for medical care directly MORE (R-Texas) would allow more Americans to use health savings accounts and health care sharing ministries to help fund their care. Increasing access to these funding choices can increase access to services for average Americans. Buttigieg’s plan is a step in the direction of Medicare-for-All-Because-the-Government-Says-So. Automatic enrollment would crowd out the system to those who need access to services. We have seen the negative effects of the single payer system through the VA and Medicare. What Americans need is more choices, not to be forced into something. Elizabeth O’Connor is a legislative fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She has a masters in Public Service and Administration from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University and has studied at Manhattan College and Trinity University, Dublin. 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.

2018-08-08

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BURLINGTON, Vt. – Vermont&aposs largest city is home to what&aposs believed to be the nation&aposs first permanent drone racing obstacle course. On the first Tuesday of every month a room at Generator, a business incubator and collection of artist studios in Burlington, is outfitted with a glowing obstacle course so pilots can hone their skills. Vermont Drone founder Steve Mermelstein, who helped create the course, says it&aposs like none other in the country. WCAX-TV reports the goal is for the drone operators to weave in and through gates, as fast as they can. Competitors wear goggles that allow them to see the course from the drone. Drone pilot Jordan Potvin has been flying drones for two years. He says the course puts his skills to the test.

2019-04-13

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WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday a U.S.-China trade agreement would go "way beyond" previous efforts to open China's markets to U.S. companies and hoped that the two sides were "close to the final round" of negotiations. Mnuchin, speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings, said that he and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would hold two calls next week with Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. The officials also were discussing whether more in-person meetings were necessary to conclude an agreement. "I think were hopeful that were getting close to the final round of concluding issues," Mnuchin said. Beijing and Washington are seeking a deal to end a bitter trade war marked by tit-for-tat tariffs that have cost the world's two largest economies billions of dollars, disrupted supply chains and rattled financial markets. Among the issues under discussion are U.S. demands that China open more sectors of its economy to foreign and U.S. firms. Asked whether such an opening would go beyond what was contemplated in the 2016 Bilateral Investment Treaty negotiations, he replied: "We are making progress, I want to be careful. This is not a public negotiation ... this is a very, very detailed agreement covering issues that have never been dealt with before," Mnuchin said. "This is way beyond anything that looked like a bilateral investment treaty. The BIT talks, pursued by former President Barack Obama's administration, stalled as China refused to satisfy U.S. demands to open significant sectors of its economy to foreign investment. The talks were not taken up by the Trump administration, which pursued tariffs on Chinese goods instead, leading to the current talks. Mnuchin called the agreement under negotiation "the most significant change in the trading relationship in 40 years," adding that it would have "real enforcement on both sides." (Reporting by David Lawder and Pete Schroeder Editing by Paul Simao)

2017-12-06

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s biggest retailer, Wal-Mart de Mexico, said on Wednesday that sales at its Mexican stores that have been open at least a year rose by 7.6 percent in November compared with the same month a year earlier. Total sales in Mexico increased by 9 percent on the year. Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon

2017-07-20 00:00:00

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July 20 (Reuters) - Haoyun Technologies Co Ltd * Says its major shareholder plans to unload up to 3.248 percent stake in next six months Source text in Chinese: bit.ly/2vFaJUC Further company coverage: (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom)

2018-05-18 16:19:47

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Things Editors Like A by-no-means exhaustive list of the things our editors (and a few contributors) find interesting on a given week. Molly Goddard’s dresses are like confections — bright, sculptural, even a little delicious. This makes them the perfect subject matter for a new book, “Patty,” which launches at Dover Street Market in London this week. Shot by the veteran photographer Tim Walker and styled by Goddard’s sister, Alice, its glossy pages are filled with the designer’s bright pieces, all worn by friends, family members — and even some passers-by, like a builder’s merchant named Nick, and Tommy Taylor, a hairstylist. “The casting was simply colleagues and friends who would have their picture taken,” says Goddard, who won the British Fashion Council/ Vogue Fashion Fund Award earlier this month. “Anyone who Alice, Tim or I thought of, we called. The day was very spontaneous, nothing was planned.” The images include pieces from Goddard’s archive, from her 2012 BA collection at Central Saint Martin’s to more recent items from her spring/summer 2018 show. “We wanted to make images which were not about the clothes as much as the people and how they interacted with the clothes as objects, rather than thinking about outfits and seasonal collections,” Goddard says. “It was fun to pile everything together and mix old and new.” “Patty” is available for $60, mollygoddard.com — ISABEL WILKINSON “New York is the place that made me a designer,” says the Moroccan-born, France-based designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac, whose collections were stocked by Saks Fifth Avenue and Henri Bendel in the early 1970s. By the end of the ’80s, artists had become integral to Castelbajac’s fashion M.O.: In 1982, he asked the French painters Robert Combas, Jean-Charles Blais and Loulou Picasso to use his dresses as a canvas; soon after, he made a line of silk garments that incorporated drawings by Jean-Michel Basquiat; he partnered multiple times with Keith Haring, who ultimately did one of his last prints for the invitation to Castelbajac’s autumn/winter 1990-1 fashion show. But it wasn’t until 20 years ago that Castelbajac picked up a paintbrush with the intention of creating his own body of work. And, it will not be until this weekend that he’ll officially become an artist who shows his work in New York, when a series of his paintings will go on display for the first time in the United States at Ralph Pucci’s Flatiron gallery. His artworks deal with the idea of collaboration, which he’s always embraced, and which, in 2018, typically have a consumerist-minded goal. In “Hierograff 2,” for example, “I’m using the brands that are in my subconscious — and some of the most recognized in the world — to create a new language,” Castelbajac says. (Asked if there’s something Warholian about the tableau — Andy Warhol being another Castelbajac conspirator — he responds, “Bien sûr, bien sûr.”) “Now, fashion and art are my two sides,” Castelbajac remarks, “and I think the difference between them is a fashion designer is there to answer questions — about elegance, function, protection. An artist is there to ask the questions.” Opening May 21, 44 West 18th Street, New York, ralphpucci.net — HILARY MOSS In time for long summer days in Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., comes Lennox & Harvey, a contemporary general store located one block from the harbor in Vineyard Haven. The brainchild of two former New Yorkers and design veterans, Eric Coles and Mark Chung — who have worked at Ralph Lauren and Alessi respectively — the store is, in Coles’s words, for “the global, mindful and design conscious.” Partners in work and life, the duo have long been inspired by their travels — they list Japan, Spain, Germany and Italy among their favorite destinations — and with the shop, source everyday items (T-shirts, candles and blankets) they have found along the way. During a buying trip to Japan last November, the pair discovered brands and products like Hibi’s smoldering 10-minute incense sticks and airy tunics by Fog Linen Work. But one of their favorite items is a citronella coil from Fredericks and Mae, a home goods company based in their former hometown, Brooklyn. “It’s reminiscent of a hornet’s nest,” says Chung of the striking design. (Instead of being burned on a flat surface, it’s hung like a mobile.) While functionality and aesthetics are important in the store, ultimately, the duo says, everything they stock has to spark joy. (Coles recites one of his mantras: “If you don’t love it, don’t bother.”) 53B Main Street, Vineyard Haven, MA, lennoxandharvey.com — KATIE CHANG Next week, the estate of Teddy and Arthur Edelman, founders of Edelman Leather and prescient collectors of design objects and painting, will be auctioned by Sotheby’s. On paper, the collection is impressive, but also motley: There are Tiffany lamps, stuffed elephants’ feet, early Warhols, silver Hugo Leven candlesticks embellished with bats and several gruesome hunting scenes by Paul de Vos. “My parents defined ‘eclectic,’” says John Edelman, CEO of Design Within Reach and the youngest of the couple’s six children. “If you’d hired an interior designer to put it all together, it would never have worked.” Of course, at the Edelmans’ Ridgefield, Conn., home — called Alligator Farm in a nod to their early days in the reptile skin business — where the collection was installed until Arthur’s death earlier this year (Teddy passed away in 2016), it did work. At turns gothic, minimalist, baroque and pop, the family residence was avant-garde, exuberant and, somehow, homey. Teddy and Arthur met at Sarah Lawrence College (he was the school’s first male student) and married three days after graduation. At the time, “neither of them knew much about design,” says Edelman. “Their aesthetic was formed as a couple.” They worked at Teddy’s family tannery, Fleming-Joffe — where they hired a young Andy Warhol to do graphic design — until 1971, when they launched Edelman Leather. All along, they were collecting. They bought ceramics in Mexico, lugged Flos lighting back from Italy in their suitcases and, once, nearly missed a client meeting in St. Louis when Arthur insisted on stopping at an antique store. “They were two hours late,” says Edelman, “but he got his Wisteria lamp.” Though many of the Edelmans’ pieces will fetch staggering prices when they hit the block (the Tiffany Wisteria lamp alone is estimated at $400,000), John insists value was never important to his parents. “They liked what they liked,” he says. And, even with six children and 11 dogs, they lived intimately with their objects — nothing was under glass or in a box. “These pieces were woven into our lives,” says Edelman. “I’ll miss every one.” He pauses, adding, “We’re so blessed we never broke anything.” Property from the Collection of Teddy and Arthur Edelman will be included in the “Important Design, Master Painting and Important Watches” auctions at Sotheby’s on May 22 and May 24. sothebys.com — MERRELL HAMBLETON Tomorrow night at the Metropolitan Opera House, Roberto Bolle will dance the role of Albrecht — the double-dealing nobleman, eventually redeemed — in the American Ballet Theatre’s production of “Giselle.” “Of the classics, it’s one of my favorites because it allows for a real range of emotion,” he says. “I love when he appears in the second act with a long black cape and white flowers and goes to Giselle’s grave full of guilt.” This season marks the 43-year-old dancer’s 10th as a principal with the company, though he’s based in Milan and spends most of his time at La Scala. Another role Bolle is currently juggling: that of the new face of Tod’s. “I see the brand as an ambassador of Italian excellence and culture, and, when I am abroad, I think of myself the same way,” he says. He also just likes the shoes — high praise from a dancer — and is looking forward to breaking in a pair of denim Gommino loafers this summer, when he will tour with his own troupe, Roberto Bolle and Friends, and put on a dance festival in his hometown. “It’s always been important to me to be well-rounded and go beyond normal limits,” Bolle says. “All the different things that I do, I think they give me more when I’m onstage.” Tod’s Double T Gommino Moccasins in denim, $645.00, www.tods.com. “Giselle” will close May 19th. — KATE GUADAGNINO Two and a half years ago Robert Wright and Tiberio Lobo-Navia went on a trip to Marrakesh, Morocco, and returned home to Brooklyn with six beautiful rugs. Soon after putting them in their home and office spaces, friends started to ask them where they could find similar ones. So began the idea for Beni Rugs, an online retail platform they launched this week, that will allow people to buy custom-made Moroccan rugs online. Shoppers are able to select a design, and then choose their desired colors and size. For the indecisive, the company will also feature a unique collection every season, beginning with an all-navy offering. (The rugs are available in 12 sizes, retailing from $310 to $5,580 and are available to ship in eight to 10 weeks.) Wright and Lobo-Navia not only wanted to make access to these rugs easy for consumers — they also wanted to connect shoppers with the artisans who make them. These artisans, many of whom dwell in a remote Berber village of 75 people, refer to their trade as “the charm of the hand.” There are no machines used; the wool is hand-washed in the Oum Er-Rbia River and beat against rocks. The rugs are then woven and dyed, then draped on wooden racks and dried in the mountain air before they’re flung across a motorbike and delivered to Marrakesh. And now, thanks to Beni, soon after, they’ll be delivered to your doorstep. benirugs.com — CATHLEEN O’NEIL

2016-11-23

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DENVER (Reuters) - A federal judge in Denver ordered the U.S. Department of State to reconsider its denial of a passport to a Navy veteran from Colorado who identifies as neither male or female, court documents showed on Tuesday. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Dana Zzyym, who was born with ambiguous sex characteristics, and had been attempting to travel to Mexico City for a meeting of intersex people - those born with reproductive or sexual anatomy that does not fit the typical definitions of male or female. “I shouldn’t have to suffer at the hands of my government,” said Zzyym, who was born in 1958 and raised as a boy. Zzyym welcomed the ruling but said it was the first step in a long battle for rights of intersex people. Zzyym’s lawsuit, filed last year by the LGBT rights legal firm Lambda Legal Defense Fund in federal court in Denver, argued that the policy of requiring either a male or female designation on passport applications violated due process and equal protection rights for intersex people. U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson concluded in a 12-page ruling that the State Department’s “binary-only gender passport policy” did not follow a rational decision-making process and ordered officials to reconsider it. Jackson did not consider the constitutionality of the policy but kept the door open for doing so. “The Court will not address the constitutional issues unless and until it needs to,” Jackson wrote. A spokesman for the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs said the agency is “not able to comment on current litigation.” When Zzyym was born, the gender box on the birth certificate was initially left blank, according to the lawsuit. Zzyym’s parents later decided to raise the child as a boy named Brian Orin Whitney and “male” was added to the birth certificate. Enlisting in the U.S. Navy in 1978, Whitney served for six years as a machinist mate, with three tours of duty in Beirut.  After being discharged, Whitney determined the male gender identification was “arbitrary” and explored living as a woman but found that did not fit either, the lawsuit said. Whitney ultimately adopted the name Dana Zzyym and was denied a passport while trying to travel to Mexico City for the International Intersex Forum in 2014. “It’s a painful hypocrisy that, simply because I refused to lie about my gender on a government document, the government would ignore who I am,” Zzyym said. Editing by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

2018-08-06 07:04:25

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An unescapable fact of Facebook’s ubiquity is that as more Pages and people compete for limited News Feed attention, the percentage of a business’ followers who see their posts declines. Reach dropped 52 percent in just the first half of 2016, for example. Some admins consider it a conspiracy to get Pages to pay for ads boosting their posts, exacerbated by poor communication from Facebook and it telling businesses to work or advertise to get more followers that they now can’t reliably access via feed. But in reality, it’s a natural side effect of increased supply paired with plateauing demand. Why Is Facebook Page Reach Decreasing? More Competition And Limited Attention That’s why Facebook is trying to redefine business Pages not as just a mouthpiece for marketing through News Feed, but a destination for customers. Today, Facebook is redesigning the Pages of the 80 million small businesses on its platform and the 1.6 billion people connected to them. First, Pages will emphasize utility related to the business, like a “make appointment” or call option for salons, and reservations and menus for restaurants. The recommendations users can give friends through Facebook’s special News Feed post format triggered when people ask for suggestions will now appear on a business’ Page too. To improve the quality of reviews left on Pages, there’s now a 25 character minimum. One potentially controversial change is that Facebook will start showing a “Related Pages” on other Pages. “Inside the Facebook app there’s no easy way to discover new businesses” Facebook’s VP of Local Alex Himel tells me. He says, “The focus here is to make it easy to discover new businesses which we think any business will be excited about.” But if Related Pages promotes competing businesses, say a restaurant or barber next door, Page admins could feel like people specifically looking at their company could be directed elsewhere in a way that would never happen on their own website. To provide promotional options beyond the feed, all small business Pages can now post ephemeral Stories. Facebook is all rolling out its job applications tab worldwide so small businesses can easily find staffing. Both of these could blossom into advertising opportunities at a time when Facebook’s revenue is declining and it needs more income streams. Himel notes that 2/3s of businesses say Facebook has helped them increase sales. Finally, Facebook is adding a Local bookmark to the desktop site that opens the same nearby businesses and events guide it offers through its standalone Facebook Local app on mobile it launched in 2016. 700 million people now connect with Facebook Events each month, so that medium has become an important bridge between businesses and customers. Himel promises that Facebook will be talking more soon about how local businesses can stay relevant and visible in the News Feed. “We know that the core value that we bring to businesses on the platform is reach  Instead of time spent, we’re focusing on having meaningful interactions in your feed We know w alto of meaningful interactions are about local businesses or with local businesses. We’re planning to talk about this later this half (year) to help businesses make sure their meaningful interactions add value and are ranked well in the feed.” But for now, at least Facebook is making Pages more valuable at a time when merchants might wonder why they’re on the platform if it’s so hard to get News Feed distribution. How Facebook News Feed Works

2018-10-11 11:25:00

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Courteney Cox is a self-described design obsessive, but it took a partnership with Hollywood decorator Trip Haenisch to bring her “dream house” to life. “I have been interested/obsessed with architecture and design ever since i was a little kid and shared a room with my sister,” she writes in her introduction to Haenisch’s new design book, Personal Space. “I was constantly rearranging our twin beds and pillows — always looking for a fresh take!” These days, her projects are a little grander in scale. She reveals she has lived in homes designed by “such amazing California architects as John Lautner and A. Quincy Jones.” Though her current place, perched high above the beach in Malibu, may be her masterpiece. For her mountain compound, which started out as “four disjointed buildings scattered across a fantastic plot of land,” according to Haenisch, the pair worked together to create a cohesive and welcoming home the actress describes as, “a place where I could have family and friends stay over, creating a community-like feeling that is hard to find in Los Angeles.”   “Working with Courteney is all about collaboration which is my favorite thing,” Haenisch tells PEOPLE. “She’s smart, passionate and visual.  She also has very good taste. All those things make her the perfect client.” Cox characterizes herself as a little tougher. “I’m very particular and I have strong opinions,” she admits in the book. “I’m not the type of person who would be content to just look on while the designer did all the work. Trip gave me that space. He is a great collaborator.” Though she notes, he did occasionally push her “beyond my comfort zone” in a good way. Together, they crafted a collection of dwellings including the main house, a guest house, and a structure he calls “the screening house.” All are clad in charcoal painted horizontal wood paneling and feature random stone accents that tie them together and fit the natural landscape. WATCH THIS: Today Anchor Craig Melvin and Lindsay Czarniak Show Off Their Favorite Room in the House “Trip found the rare balance between comfort and beauty,” she writes. “Not only did I end up with my dream house, I had the best time in the process.” Personal Space by Trip Haenisch is available now.

2016-01-05

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iHeartRadio announced at CES on Tuesday that it will be coming to new platforms, including the Apple TV and Samsung's Gear S2 smartwatch. iHeartRadio's Apple TV app brings the core iHeartRadio iOS experience to the TV screen, including access to live stations, custom stations and podcasts. Registered and unregistered users will be able to listen live or listen to custom radio. iHeartRadio has arrived on other set-top boxes in the past, including Android TV, but this is its first foray into Apple's TV ecosystem. iHeartRadio is also amping up its integrations with Samsung. The company announced Tuesday that it will work with Multi-Screen, a new service that will let iHeartRadio cast to various Samsung devices. It will also work on the Gear S2 smartwatch. iHeartRadio is already available on the Apple Watch and on Android Wear. Gear S2 users will be able to access iHeartRadio Live and Custom radio stations simply by rotating the watch bezel.

2017-12-02 00:00:00

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Apparently, there’s no room for hard feelings in Bachelor Nation. On Thursday, The Bachelorette's Rachel Lindsay and Bryan Abasolo had a dazzling engagement party in Malibu. Despite the couple extending an invite to Dean Unglert and Danielle Lombard, there was absolutely no drama. As a quick refresher, Unglert and Lombard’s romance on Bachelor In Paradise effervesced, but ended up being part of a never-ending love triangle with Kristina Schulman. The juggling act got the best of him and ultimately all of the relationships imploded (this is reality TV after all). Unglert also made it to Lindsay's final four during her season of The Bachelorette, before he was out of the running to become America's next top husband. Inviting two exes to your engagement party can be a gamble, particularly when things ended with so publicly. However, Lindsay and Abasolo’s shindig remained pretty calm according to Bachelor alum, Iggy Rodriguez. "They're both grownups," Rodriguez said to E News about Unglert and Lombard being under the same roof. "Paradise is really intense, and the show in general is very intense. It intensifies emotions because you're trapped in this bubble, and it makes you feel stuff you may not have felt otherwise. They were obviously caught in the heat and passion of that moment, but I think they can joke about it now. It was cool, there was no drama or anything." Fair and from the looks of it, Unglert has been forced to do a lot of soul searching since his time on BiP. He’s gone on friend dates with fellow Bachelor bad boy, Nick Viall (if only we could’ve been flies on the wall for that) and he’s been ill-advised by a fellow Bachelor reject, Peter Kraus. Actually, on second thought, perhaps Unglert is still in need of some new influences? Then again, he still apparently talks to Schulman — the woman who he said was out of his league — nearly every day. Maybe he really has matured? Read These Stories Next:Exactly What Women Spend To Compete On The BachelorWhere Are Your Favorite Stars From The Bachelorette Now?12 Things I Learned From Bachelorette Chad's Mind-Blowing Match.com Profile

2017-04-25 15:47:40

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NEWPORT, R.I. — After a makeover that made it into a luxury destination at the easternmost tip of the Hamptons on Long Island, N.Y., Gurney’s Montauk Resort and Seawater Spa is bringing its name to another seaside hot spot: Newport, R.I. The owners of Gurney’s resort are transforming a former Hyatt Regency on Goat Island, between Newport Harbor and Narragansett Bay, into a second Gurney’s. Behind the project is George Filopoulos, the founding principal of Metrovest Equities, and Lloyd Goldman, founder of the BLDG Management Company. Along with backing from Square Mile Capital Management, they are putting about $18 million into improving the 257-room resort, which, while open in the meantime, is scheduled for a grand opening in May. The new owners are positioning Gurney’s Newport Resort and Marina to capture more of the conference market, with a focus on wellness events, and destination weddings. With a wide array of unusual venues for ceremonies, support services at the ready and a host of sightseeing activities to keep guests busy, Newport’s wedding business is thriving, said Evan Smith, president and chief executive of Discover Newport, a tourism bureau. Like Gurney’s Montauk, which Mr. Filopoulos and Mr. Goldman purchased in 2013, Gurney’s Newport will be open year-round. The name recalls Maude Gurney, who founded the Montauk location in 1926. The city of Newport, at the southern end of Aquidneck Island, is known as much for its rich history as for its beaches and boisterous waterfront bar scene. Settled in the 1600s, the city has a population of about 24,000 and retains many Colonial-era buildings. A dozen or so opulent mansions preserved from the Gilded Age invite tourists in for gawking tours. Downtown, along the harbor, historic Thames Street is densely lined with shops, restaurants and bars that thrum with tourists throughout the summer. Gurney’s Newport occupies about 10 acres on a slight remove from downtown, across a short bridge to the island. The sprawling resort, built in 1969, already includes a spa, 27,000 square feet of event space, a seaside pavilion and an outdoor restaurant and bar called the Pineapple Club. With help from the hospitality design firm Petermax, the new owners are changing the interiors and the outdoor spaces. They are also bringing in Scarpetta, the LDV Hospitality restaurant brand that started in New York’s meatpacking district before adding several other locations, including Gurney’s Montauk. And a new marina nearing completion will accommodate 22 boats ranging in size from 40 to 240 feet. At $350 to $1,100 a night between Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends, Gurney’s will compete with other Newport luxury locations, a segment of the tourism market that is flourishing, Mr. Smith said. Brian Young, the managing director of the Castle Hill Inn, a Relais & Châteaux property with 40 acres along the coastline, said Gurney’s was a welcome addition that would strengthen Newport’s reputation as a getaway destination. “Will we compete head-to-head for a particular bride and groom? Maybe,” said Mr. Young, noting that Castle Hill does about 100 weddings a year. “But it could also be that we have the ceremony and reception here, and a lot of the guests stay at Gurney’s.” Newport’s upscale appeal stands in contrast to the much more challenging reality for many of its residents. Newport has the fifth-highest poverty rate in the state, “which is pretty surprising for most people because they don’t think of Newport as having any poverty,” said Marilyn Warren, the executive director of the city’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center. Nearly 60 percent of households are renters, according to HousingWorks RI, a research and advocacy organization. Ms. Warren said that, because of the city’s high cost of living relative to wages, her agency’s food pantry served many working people “living on the edge,” including bank tellers, certified nursing assistants and, very commonly, hotel workers. The destination-wedding trend seemed to be driving development applications, as “everybody’s trying to cash in,” said Johanna Vietry, the president of Friends of the Waterfront, a local group that advocates public access to the water. This month, her group opposed a plan for a boutique hotel next to a restaurant on a downtown wharf that she said “would have blocked everybody’s view.” The planning board rejected the plan. Ms. Vietry said that the Hyatt owners allowed the public access to their Goat Island waterfront most of the time. If that changes under the new ownership, “that will be a sad day,” she said. “We’ll keep our fingers crossed.” Mr. Filopoulos, 47, knows Newport well, having sailed there regularly from his summer home in Montauk. When Amstar Group, a real estate investment company based in Denver, put the Hyatt up for sale in 2015, he and Mr. Goldman jumped in as bidders, as the market characteristics were similar to those in Montauk. Newport’s supply of hotel rooms is limited — about 2,400, including bed-and-breakfasts and time-shares — for a destination that receives some three million visitors annually. (Additional, and often cheaper, accommodations are in neighboring Middletown.) Also, regulations and other factors make it “virtually impossible” to build competing hotels like Gurney’s in Montauk and Newport, Mr. Filopoulos said. What’s more, the Hyatt was already a profitable operation with competent employees — most of whom he has kept on. Amstar chose not to go through with a sale at the time, but last year, Mr. Filopoulos and Mr. Goldman negotiated a $92 million purchase directly. Hotel occupancy in Newport exceeded 80 percent last summer, and averaged 65 percent year-round, according to data from STR, a hotel market data firm. Room rates averaged $250 to $313 a night during the height of summer, and around $210 year-round. Many wedding venues book at least a year in advance, said Kim Bakarian-Gaynor, a professional wedding planner in Newport. “It is very pricey for many couples, but it depends on where you go,” she said, estimating the starting range at $40,000. Mr. Filopoulos said that further expansion of the Gurney’s brand will depend in large part on whether they can find sites with similar characteristics. That means a prime oceanfront location and enough land to roam around on in an area that isn’t already saturated with accommodations.

2016-12-06 22:45:00

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Covering a Justin Bieber song turned out to be a savvy business decision for young Cruz Beckham. The son of some British people just signed with Scooter Braun, the uber-manager that shepherded Bieber and Ariana Grande to mega-stardom.We know this because Beckham announced that he'd be dropping a single tomorrow and changed his Instagram bio to note that his account was now being run by Braun's management company.Beckham has been launching his singing career in a way that's reminiscent of Bieber. That is to say, he's done so with social media that has found an organic audience. Organic to the extent that anyone related to Victoria and David Beckham can be organic, that is. We've noted their similarities in the past, especially when Beckham dropped covers of Faith Evans' "Hope" and "When I'm Gone." Who knows, maybe he'll launch the Spice Boys. Are we rebooting teen pop groups? It feels like that should be a thing."If Every Day Was Christmas" will debut December 7 at 7:30 a.m. on the UK's Capital FM.

2019-10-30 00:00:00

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SEOUL (Reuters) - The latest policy decision and comments by the U.S. Federal Reserve means there is room for the South Korean central bank to cut its policy interest rate if needed, its senior deputy governor said on Thursday. The U.S. central bank’s rate cut on Wednesday and its largely accommodative policy stance will help the global economy’s growth, and the economy here as well, the Bank of Korea’s Senior Deputy Governor Yoon Myun-shik told reporters. He said the U.S. Fed’s decision would not influence the Bank of Korea’s existing stance that it will cut the local policy rate if needed to support the local economy. Reporting by Joori Roh; Writing by Choonsik Yoo; Editing by Sandra Maler

2019-04-28

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DUBAI, April 28 (Reuters) - Stocks in Saudi Arabia gained on Sunday after lenders such as Riyad Bank rose due to strong earnings, while markets across the rest of the Gulf region traded lower. Saudi stocks were up 0.23 percent, boosted by Riyad Bank, which added 2 percent, while Al Rajhi Bank gained 0.1 percent. Both banks posted a jump in first-quarter net profits last week. However, Samba Financial Group was down 1.42 percent after last week it said its profits fell 7.4 percent year-on-year, missing analyst estimates. Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC) was up 0.7 percent despite reporting a 38 percent drop in first-quarter net profits, below analyst expectations. Sabic has seen some selling this month after Saudi oil giant Aramco agreed to buy a 70 percent stake in it from the Public Investment Fund at a slight discount to the market rate in March. Dubai’s stock index was flat with Dubai Islamic Bank up 0.4 percent and Air Arabia down 1.94 percent. Abu Dhabi stocks were 0.23 percent lower, weighed down by First Abu Dhabi Bank, which fell 0.4 percent. Qatar’s stock exchange was down 0.49 percent. Qatar National Bank lost 0.44 percent, and Mesaieed Petrochemical Holding dropped 2.3 percent on falling first-quarter profits. Kuwaiti stocks dipped 1.2 percent. National Bank of Kuwait was down 0.97 percent, while other banks also traded lower. (Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir; Editing by Dale Hudson)

2019-03-08 00:00:00

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BUENOS AIRES, March 8 (Reuters) - Argentina’s peso opened 0.47 percent stronger on Friday at 42.3 pesos per dollar, traders told Reuters, after the embattled currency had posted a record low on Thursday. The peso has weakened sharply this week, with the Thursday fall taking it down over 11 percent for 2019 and renewing fears after a sell-off in 2018 saw the Argentine currency lose around half its value against the greenback. (Reporting by Jorge Otaola Adam Jourdan)

2018-04-24

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TOKYO (Reuters) - The head of Japan’s steel industry federation said on Tuesday that new import tariffs on steel imposed by the United States have not yet hit the Asian steel market, but said the industry is monitoring the situation closely for any future impact. Japanese steelmakers are trying to seek item exemptions from the U.S. tariffs, Japan Iron and Steel Federation Chairman Kosei Shindo said at a news conference. “We want the U.S. government to speed up its process as this will have an impact on the U.S. customers,” said Shindo, also the president of Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp (5401.T). Shindo said only about 165 applications to seek item exemption out of nearly 4,000 applications have been approved so far. Last month, the U.S. administration set duties of 25 percent on steel on grounds of national security, but provided a temporary exemption until May 1 for the European Union and some other countries. Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell

2019-03-31 00:00:00

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SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Polish miner KGHM and a union representing workers at its Sierra Gorda copper mine in Chile have come to an agreement over contract talks, the head of the union told Reuters, heading off the threat of a strike. Maykel Ocayo, president of Sierra Gorda’s 520-member Union 1, told Reuters in a message that workers had voted on Saturday in favor of accepting an offer from the company with a roughly two-thirds majority. He did not give details about the deal. The union threatened strike action in mid-March after rejecting an earlier offer from the miner. The two sides agreed to extend contract talks last week. Sierra Gorda produced 101,900 tonnes of Chile’s 5.8 million-tonne total copper output last year. Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Writing by Adam Jourdan; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky

2020-01-03 00:00:00

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When James Carville, Bill ClintonWilliam (Bill) Jefferson ClintonThe Bill Clinton trial cannot serve as the model for the Donald Trump trial Justice Ginsburg confirms she's 'cancer free' On The Trail: History is not on Biden's side MORE’s brilliant political strategist, pronounced “It’s the economy, stupid” as the key to winning the 1992 election, he was correct not only about that election, but about all presidential elections that were to follow — and most of those in the past as well. Voters care about their pocketbooks, and tend to pay far less attention to foreign policy. It is true that the Iran hostage crisis dominated headlines throughout 1980 and contributed greatly to Ronald Reagan’s defeat of Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterChange with minimal risk: Trump's Jimmy Carter problem On The Trail: History is not on Biden's side Kellyanne Conway defends Trump threat to target Iranian cultural sites MORE, whom Americans saw as too weak to respond to Tehran’s criminal behavior. That election was the exception that proves Carville’s rule, however.  There can be little doubt that President TrumpDonald John TrumpPence: Intelligence shows Iran directing militias not to attack U.S. targets Mnuchin aims to wait until end of 2020 to disclose Secret Service costs for Trump's travel: report Pressure building on Pelosi over articles of impeachment MORE hopes the U.S. economy once again will dominate the presidential election. It would enable him to reach beyond his base, which prioritizes “values,” opposes Hispanic and Muslim immigration, and objects to making concessions to minorities of any stripe. To that end, he hopes that the stock market will continue its dizzying climb. Its record levels have benefitted not only the billionaires who are the betes noires of the likes of Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth Ann WarrenTrump trade deal faces uncertain Senate timeline Trump, Democrats set for brawl on Iran war powers Senators introduce resolution warning that Congress has not authorized Iran war MORE (D-Mass.), Sen. Bernie SandersBernie SandersSenators introduce resolution warning that Congress has not authorized Iran war Ex-Trump campaign adviser: Biden would be able to 'sit down and get some things done' with Republicans Cardi B says she's filing for 'Nigerian citizenship' because Trump is putting lives 'in danger' MORE (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-CortezAlexandria Ocasio-CortezIvanka Trump's talk at tech conference ignites backlash Hill.TV's Krystal Ball says Ocasio-Cortez has become a force in Democratic Party Local tax breaks to lure firms don't boost economies: Study MORE (D-N.Y.), but also small investors and contributors to IRAs and 401(k)s, that Trump hopes to attract.  Trump also can point to low unemployment and inflation rates, the very opposite of the stagflation that was another factor in Jimmy Carter’s inability to get re-elected.  Foreign crises still could prove to be Trump’s undoing, however. Iran poses his most immediate challenge. Trump has retaliated against the Iran-backed Shia militia known as Kataib Hezbollah for its rocket attacks on American facilities in Iraq, and promised an even more powerful response if the crisis at America’s Baghdad embassy was not contained.For its part, Tehran will hold Washington responsible for the killing of Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani, the mastermind behind Iran’s efforts to dominate the Middle East. It will surely retaliate against American targets, in Iraq, Syria or elsewhere. Trump will be pressed to respond in force. Nevertheless, he is somewhat hamstrung by his promise to an exhausted American public that America no longer will become enmeshed in endless wars.  Yet if, as is likely, he does not respond to new Iranian provocations, and withdraws American forces from Iraq, he will be subject to Democratic assertions that he “lost Iraq.” The fact that it was Barack ObamaBarack Hussein Obama Former Bush official blasts Buttigieg: 'He is not ready' The Bill Clinton trial cannot serve as the model for the Donald Trump trial Trump says Iran 'appears to be standing down' in address to nation MORE who first withdrew those forces in December 2010, thereby creating an opening for Iranian domination of Iraq that Tehran has not relinquished, will be of little consequence in the heat of the 2020 election campaign. Iran is not the only potential overseas headache for Trump this year. A Baltic defense minister recently told me that Russia’s Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinPutin, Xi more trusted than Trump worldwide: poll Brent Budowsky: Bloomberg should give billion to Democrats Pavlich: Soleimani's death should be an American celebration MORE could attempt to take over Belarus in the not-too-distant future. Even more than Russia, Belarus is Europe’s last remaining noxious dictatorship. It is neither a member of NATO nor one of its partners. Yet if Russia were to seize Belarus, Russia would be in a much stronger position to pressure neighboring Lithuania and Poland, both NATO allies. Would Trump react, and thereby alienate Putin? Or, would he stand aside and be subject to attacks from not only Democrats but also many Republicans for allowing Putin once again to expand Russia’s sphere of influence and to render the Baltic states, in particular, even more vulnerable than they already are?  On the other side of the world, China may choose to send troops into Hong Kong to quell, once and for all, the demonstrations in the territory that never seem to end. Trump is unlikely to intervene; in this case, as well, Democrats will accuse him of kowtowing to China’s Xi Jinping and fostering the perception that China could do the same to Taiwan with no American response.  “Who lost Hong Kong?” could become a Democratic battle cry that might energize moderates, independents and many Republicans who resent Beijing’s efforts to reduce East Asia to a Chinese backwater.  Worst of all, a crisis in one part of the world — whether in Europe, the Middle East or East Asia — could prompt aggressors in another region to capitalize on America’s unwillingness, indeed its inability, to respond to two crises simultaneously. If Washington has proved unable to defeat Afghan insurgents and Iraqi sectarians at the same time, how could it simultaneously confront Russia and China, or even Iran and one of the others?  Trump then would be seen as someone whose coddling of dictators led them to believe that they could undermine, or even attack, other states with impunity. And that not only would cost him the election, but would completely subvert the rule-based international system that America  worked so hard to create and sustain for well over seven decades. Dov S. Zakheim is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and vice chairman of the board for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He was under secretary of Defense (comptroller) and chief financial officer for the Department of Defense from 2001 to 2004 and a deputy under secretary of Defense from 1985 to 1987. 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.

2016-11-11 16:20:00

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"This life may be too good to survive," Cary Ann Hearst, one half of Americana duo Shovels and Rope, sings out. She is sitting on a stool on stage at Bowery Ballroom, where she and her husband Michael are playing the third and final show of a three-night run in New York City. Outside of the ballroom, in bars and homes across the city, the third presidential election is on TV screens, and just being somewhere else feels like an act of resistance. The phrase (which appears as the refrain to the song "St. Anne's Parade") is a stand-out moment on on Little Seeds (New West Records). Its October 7 release marked the punk-slash-Americana duo's third album since forming in 2008 (more on that later). In the coming days, as America believed it was inching closer to potentially electing the first woman president of the United States, the phrase felt extra true.   The "America" tag might sound quaint at first blush, but over the past few months (or years, depending on how you like to define Americana music), the alternative country scene has been growing rapidly among rural and rural-adjacent, educated white people. You can call it alternative, alt-country, Southern-fried soft rock, or the music a mason jar would make if it could make music, but the bottom line is that this is country music for people who like the White Stripes. Americana festivals have established themselves in cities like Nashville and even Brooklyn—the latter's popularity coming as a shock but not as a surprise—so really, it's a perfect time for Shovels and Rope to shine. Cary Ann Hearst and Michael Trent first met in 2002, but both busied themselves pursuing solo careers until they came together to release their debut album, Shovels and Rope, in 2008. At that time, they maintained their solo identities, and didn't adopt Shovels and Rope as a moniker until 2013's O' Be Joyful. On stage and in person, Trent and Hearst are two of a kind, a beautifully compatible couple who feed off each other's energy while simultaneously bolstering the mood of anyone in the immediate vicinity. That charisma is part of what makes Little Seeds such a dynamic record—that, and the canny way it presents a shot of political commentary with a long chaser of Southern hospitality. "I Know," the first song on the album, is a playful call out to the friends biting Shovels and Rope's sound, while "Mourning Song," a gorgeous story of a woman learning to live alone after her husband passes away, speaks to the longevity and power of a certain kind of love. "Buffalo Nickel," "Invisible Man," and "Missionary Ridge" all feature the gritty storytelling that helped define the genres of country music and Americana. "The material on this record is mundane stuff. It happens to every single person," Hearst told me. Maybe the songs and experiences on the album are mundane—there is no unique trauma that happened while they wrote this album—but it is, of course, that oh-so-relatable mundanity that makes this record so special. Love, loss, ghosts, and gratitude all dance together on Little Seeds. It's a powerful response to our culture of violence, and a healing reminder that happiness can be found in the hardest of places. Noisey: Hi guys! So, tell me a little bit about this new record.Michael Trent: It's pretty personal as far as the way that we write. We write a lot of character-based songs, and this one touches on a few things that are more personal. We had a lot going on in our lives for the past couple of years and throughout this writing process. We recorded it at home, like we always do, but this time we had a baby downstairs. A new baby. That was a juggle. Cary Ann Hearst: A new baby and a new album! Where did your decision to become a little more personal on this record come from?Hearst: Since Michael and I arrived at our most caveman-like state as writers, we write whatever is going on. It helps us deal with our feelings. We wrote songs for ourselves. When it was time to put the record together, we shaped the songs up. We decided that we should put personal things on the record. We used the songs that we wrote while processing our human existence. Michael's good at telling stories, he can tell them in two and a half or three minutes. There's a lot of that going on in the record too. That dynamic in that sort of way. What made you feel like now was the time to get this stuff out?Hearst: There's two songs on the record that directed that. One is a song that Michael brought to the pile of material called "Mourning Song." It's considering what it would be like for his mom during his father's passing. The songs that I reacted with, and brought to the pile were the beginnings of "Invisible Man," which is an outward rock and roll song. Even though the material is dark, there's some optimism in it. They were living with us for a couple of years, and during the last part of that I found we were going to have a baby. I didn't want to tell anybody. We were processing it. The material on this record is mundane stuff. It happens to every single person. Most folks start a family, or they'll face the difficulties of watching their parents age…they'll have anxieties that everybody else has. No matter what walk of life they come from. Even though that stuff is the most intense and scary stuff going, the ultimate price you pay for being born is your ultimate demise. When you start thinking about babies coming into the world…it's like hitting the emotional wall in that human cyclone. It's the most common thing in the world though. It's shaping our whole existence, not just this record or this song. It's the way that we cook dinner at five o'clock right now. Everything is different. Can you tell me about your song "BWYR?" I know it was about racial unity, and it was inspired after the Charleston shootings. Where were you coming from when you were writing that song?Trent: We were in Denver when we heard about it. I have family in Denver. We were playing a show and having a baby shower, and we heard about the shootings. It's terrible and tragic. But the thing that's even worse is that every single weekend something like that was going on. Not to that degree, but there were people being shot all the time. It's constantly on the TV. Hearst: Everyone is rioting in Charlotte, in the streets, right now. Trent: That also started out as a form of therapy writing, like an emotional purge on paper. It wasn't meant to be a song. We were really sad to be away from our community and our friends. We wanted to be there to help, to support…to just put our arms around somebody. We were far away. We were in Denver and Chicago. When we got home, and we started putting the album together, it was just words on a page. We tracked a little music over it, and we put it over a drone. Then, we had it stored in a pile on my computer with all the other songs we were compiling for this record. Our manager was going through the songs, and he stumbled across it. He talked to us about it, was moved by it, and encouraged us to put it out there. It just seems like it was the right thing to do, and that it might be important to release something like that. What do you think, Cary Ann? Hearst: It's just so sorrowful that some mother's son is gunned down in the street. Or that some officer gets gunned down in the street. It's like a violence that permeates. So much of this violence is directed at people of color. On the other side, people who put their lives in harm's way are afraid. We have this lifestyle and we can't seem to stop violence. As a new parent, you see the world differently. Everybody wants the world to be safe for their kids, for them to have opportunities to thrive. They shouldn't worry that their child isn't going to make it to 18. A lot of people in this country, this great nation of ours, that is just one of the things that they worry about. Do you hope by writing and releasing songs it inspires people to take action? Whether it's about mental health or gun control?Hearst: It's not really a didactic song that would rally people to action. I hope it rallies people to feel, to find compassion and empathy with each other. I feel like that's the building block of understanding. Wouldn't it be great that an officer would result to murderous violence? Then the person on the other side would have to feel fear or disrespect by the authority. In that instance, that perfect little bubble, there's opportunity and hope for reconciliation, in building a community. I hope that it inspires somebody to feel first. To first think compassion and mutual grief. Do you feel like the world doesn't have enough compassion? And that's why you write songs like this?Trent: I think…I don't know. I know compassion is there. Hearst We have faith in compassion. Trent: You can definitely see it. We see a lot of compassion on the airplanes these days, with new parents that understand we have a small child. Hearst: I think that most people show compassion to their fellow man. I really hope that when you see somebody coming you're not like "this asshole!" That's the big difference, trying to believe in the collective consciousness where there's a critical mass of people who refuse to abandon all hope and who will act with love as their first reaction to an encounter. If there's a critical mass of people who do that, the collective consciousness will change. That will be the reality for mankind. Trent: Instead of a fear-based reaction. How do you manage to keep believing in hope?Trent: Every human being, unless you're on some really good prescription drugs, deals with ups and downs throughout their lives and weeks and existences. I think that keeping that as the goal…to be kind to other people and be hopeful for things. If you didn't have anything to hope for, that would kind of be unimaginable. It's kind of a human thing. It's a thing to look forward to. That's the thing we try to keep in mind, in our music world and in our everyday world. We want to be hopeful and inspire that in people. Hearst: Don't let the bastards get you down. What's something that you notice about your crowds now?Hearst: It's definitely bigger. The crowd itself is diverse. It's young and older people, hip and square. Trent: Rock 'n' roll people, country music people. When we first started going on tour, we did a tour where we opened for Hayes Carll. It's very much an Americana and country type of music. Hearst: Post-modern folk… Trent: It's a different audience completely. Maybe some crossover. We went out with Butch Walker. Those people are rock and roll people. We did all these back-to-back tours, and then we would go out on our own. There'd be the guy in the cowboy hat standing next to the guy in a sleeveless shirt. Hearst: And the jacket girl and her girlfriend. Trent: The Mohawk guy standing next to the hippie. It was awesome actually. That felt really cool. We were able to navigate through these certain genres, and not be put in a box. Hearst: Keep in mind we had no idea what the hell we were doing. Do you still feel like that?Trent: We have definitely navigated through the murkiest of waters for that part. But we're always changing. This record is a lot different than the last record we put out, which was a lot different than the record we put out before that. I think that not knowing is kind of a good thing. You do what your instincts tell you to do, and not worry about it that much. That's the best way to make music. You guys are constantly put in the genre of alt-country or Americana. Is that how you see yourselves?Hearst: It doesn't hurt our feelings in the least. From song to song, it's kind of different. It seems nice that, in the few record stores that are left, we can see our records in the store. The more different kind of things they call you, the more of a chance you'll get to be on the formatted radio stations for the thing that they called you. I'm just glad they're calling us. Annalise Domenighini is far from mundane on Twitter.

2016-05-26

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May 27 (Reuters) - IXYS Corp * Expect revenues in june 2016 quarter to increase slightly from march 2016 results * Q1 earnings per share view $0.19, revenue view $77.0 million — Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S * Q2 revenue view $80.9 million — Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S * IXYS corporation reports results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, 2016 * Q4 non-gaap earnings per share $0.26 excluding items * Q4 earnings per share $0.19 * Q4 revenue $79.8 million versus $82.9 million Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2016-09-21 00:00:00

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MANILA, Sept 21 (Reuters) - The Philippines will suspend more than 10 additional mines in an ongoing environmental crackdown on the sector but the announcement of who will be shut has been moved to Sept. 26, the minister in charge of mining said on Wednesday. Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Regina Lopez said more than 10 mines will “definitely” be suspended “because of the many violations.” Other details, including the identities of those to be suspended, will be announced on Sept. 26, she said. (Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales and Enrico dela Cruz; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)

2018-07-30 00:00:00

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ULAANBAATAR, July 30 (Reuters) - Revenue from Mongolia’s giant Tavan Tolgoi coal mine surged in the first half of the year due to higher commodity prices and a big jump in coal exports, the project’s owner said on Monday, raising prospects for a planned overseas listing. Tavan Tolgoi, located in the Gobi desert about 250 kilometres (155 miles) from the Chinese border, is one of the world’s largest coking coal mines, but it has not yet fulfilled its massive potential. Development has been held back by financing and infrastructure challenges, as well as political disputes over the role played by foreign investors in Mongolia’s economy. Gankhuyag Battulga, chief executive of the state-owned Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JSC in charge of the project, told a press briefing that rising revenues and production could finally kickstart the mine’s expansion. The project exported 6.9 million tonnes of coal in the first six months of the year, up 28 percent compared to the same period in 2017, while net profits increased 31 percent from the same period a year ago to reach 373.3 billion tugrik ($151.75 million). “The increase in revenues allow us to finance some parts of the project,” said Gankhuyag, adding that the company has also restarted exploration after a long suspension, a move that could raise estimated reserves and overall market value. The improvement in Tavan Tolgoi’s fortunes follows a resolution that Mongolia’s parliament passed to raise funds for the further development of the project on overseas stock exchanges. Analysts said Tavan Tolgoi still needs to overcome the severe infrastructure problems in the remote south Gobi region, including the construction of a rail link to China, Mongolia’s main export market. “Being profitable is only the first step. The railway issue is obviously the main hurdle to a successful IPO,” said Munkhdul Badral Bontoi, chief executive of Mongolia-based market intelligence group Cover Mongolia. ($1 = 2,460 tugrik) (Reporting by Munkhchimeg Davaasharav; Editing by David Stanway and Christian Schmollinger)

2020-03-25 03:28:31

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France’s Ministry of State for Digital Affairs Cédric O and public investment bank Bpifrance announced a comprehensive support plan for startups this morning. Some French startups are going to face revenue issues as well as funding issues in the coming months. The French government wants to temporarily bridge that gap with refinancing and liquidity measures — overall it represents $4.3 billion (€4 billion). “Startups represent a growing part the economy — especially when it comes to jobs,” Cédric O said in a statement. “They are also working on innovative products and services that have been particularly useful during the lockdown, such as telemedicine appointments, remote work solutions or deliveries.” France has already announced a widespread economic support plan. French companies that are facing revenue issues can skip tax payments as well as rent and utility bills. The French government is mobilizing $320 billion (€300 billion) in liquidity support, which should make it much easier to get a loan as the government is backing loans. More importantly, if your company has to stop its operations, France has a short-time working scheme to avoid layoffs. Employees receive 84% to 100% of their salary — the government will reimburse companies. And yet, startups are always on the verge of bankruptcy. That’s why the French government is going one step further with a startup-focused support plan with additional measures. First, startups that were in the process of raising a new funding round will be able to raise a bridge round through Bpifrance’s PIA (Programme d’Investissements d’Avenir). Some VC firms might retract term sheets, others might slow down their investment pace. Bpifrance is putting $86.7 million (€80 million) on the table. Private investors will co-invest as much as $86.7 million (€80 million) as well. Second, the government is detailing liquidity support measures for startups. Just like other companies, they can borrow money as part of the $320 billion (€300 billion) liquidity scheme. For startups, they can borrow as much as two years of payroll for employees based in France or 25% of annual revenue — whichever is higher. This should represent $2.2 billion (€2 billion). Third, startups can get tax returns more quickly, and in particular VAT returns and tax returns on research and development investments (crédit d’impôt recherche). This represents a liquidity injection of $1.6 billion (€1.5 billion). Fourth, Bpifrance is speeding up public support payments. It is going to transfer $270 million (€250 million) ahead of schedule.

2018-04-30

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(Reuters) - Marathon Petroleum Corp (MPC.N) agreed to buy rival Andeavor ANDV.N for more than $23 billion in a deal creating one of the largest global refiners that will benefit from access to booming U.S. shale fields and growing U.S. fuel export markets. The United States has become the world’s top fuel exporter, shipping more than 3 million barrels per day (bpd) of gasoline and diesel. Refiners have capitalized on booming output from shale fields in Texas and North Dakota and are building out export terminals and processing facilities. Buying Andeavor gives Marathon more exposure to the booming U.S. shale oil sector, thanks to Andeavor’s logistics and terminal operations in Texas and North Dakota shale regions. Rising output from the Permian Basin, the largest oilfield in the United States, has driven the nation’s crude production to an all-time record above 10.5 million bpd. “The combination of the two companies allows us to go after and find ways to create a bigger presence in the Permian,” said Marathon Chief Executive Gary Heminger, who will lead the combined companies. The company would be able to process 3.1 million bpd of crude oil into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. Its capacity would be the sixth largest globally, behind China’s Sinopec (600028.SS), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), PetroChina, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Aramco, according to consultancy IHSMarkit. U.S. motorists consume more fuel than any other country in the world and overall demand nationwide hit a record 9.3 million bpd in 2017. Operations that have capacity to refine light crude produced in shale fields such as Andeavor will be better positioned to take advantage of the production boom. Both North Dakota’s Bakken and Texas shale regions primarily produce light, sweet crude oil. The deal also gives Marathon a line into fast-growing Mexican fuel markets. Andeavor is expanding its network of filling stations in the country. Mexico’s dilapidated refineries cannot meet the growing population’s demand for gasoline and other products. U.S. fuel exports to Mexico rose to 1.4 million bpd as of January, up more than 85 percent from two years ago. The deal values Andeavor, formerly known as Tesoro, at about $152 per share, or about 24 percent more than Friday’s closing price of $122.38. “We view this as pretty full value for Andeavor,” Scotia Howard Weil analysts said in a note. “Not many saw this one coming.” Shares of Ohio-based Marathon lost $6.52, or 8 percent, to close at $74.91 a share. It also missed Wall Street forecasts for quarterly profit by a wide margin on Monday as expenses rose. Shares of Andeavor, based in San Antonio, closed up 13 percent at $138.32. Including Andeavor’s debt, Marathon is paying $35.6 billion to hold 66 percent of a combined company worth some $58 billion at Friday’s close. Andeavor operates 10 refineries in the United States, largely in the western part of the country. It has pipeline, trucking and terminal operations in the Permian and in the Bakken region, the second-most prolific state for oil production in the country after Texas. (To see an image from the companies, click here: reut.rs/2JFgc58) “This creates one coast-to-coast, border-to-border refining and marketing company that seems well balanced with a pretty broad footprint,” said Garfield Miller, CEO of Aegis Energy Advisors. Marathon’s six refineries are largely in the Midwest, with one in Texas City, Texas. The Midwest region has reduced its reliance on crude oil from the Gulf Coast in recent years, pulling more of its barrels from Canada and North Dakota. Now, it is producing more products than it needs and has looked to export markets for additional opportunity. Analysts at Tudor Pickering Holt said they expected the location of the two companies’ operations to allow them to avoid antitrust hurdles. Combining the companies’ logistics subsidiaries will not happen immediately, Marathon CEO Gary Heminger said on a conference call following the transaction. He referred to that combination as a “day two issue.” Andeavor is expanding a retail network of motor fuel stations in the Mexican states of Baja California and Sonora under its ARCO brand. U.S. Gulf Coast refiners are becoming more integrated in the region’s energy industry, filling shortages created by underinvestment in refining across Latin America. “There’s no question the new company has greater resource capability going forward into Mexico,” Andeavor CEO Gregory Goff said on a conference call with analysts. The deal, which is expected to close in the second half of this year, could spur other North American refiners to look harder at acquisitions, said IHSMarkit refining and marketing director Rob Smith. “This may end up being the biggest of the bunch,” said Smith. “But it would not be surprising to see other mid-tier companies merge.” Reporting by John Benny and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru, Gary McWilliams in Houston; additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia and Jessica Resnick Ault in New York; Editing by Susan Thomas, Marguerita Choy and Cynthia Osterman

2016-07-27 17:26:29

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Critic's Notebook Every year, XXL magazine, the leading hip-hop publication, publishes its Freshman issue, in which its editors crown 10 up-and-coming rappers. It’s become something of a state of the union for emergent hip-hop movements, and the selection process helped the magazine become the first mainstream rap outlet to acknowledge the impact that the internet has on hip-hop taste. This year’s freshman class was eclectic and wide-ranging, including a pair of Atlanta rappers working at opposite ends of the genre’s creative spectrum: the schoolboy crooner Lil Yachty and the hardened tough 21 Savage. A video interview filmed for the package underscored their differences: Lil Yachty, hair in his signature red braids, noted that the rappers in this year’s class are young: “I just got out of high school,” he said, gleefully. Cut to 21 Savage, with a tattoo of a dagger between his eyes, who good-naturedly retorts: “I ain’t go to high school. I was in juvenile.” Later, Lil Yachty asserts that everyone selected for the group has his own sound. “I make positivity music,” he said, then added, “the opposite of 21.” 21 Savage grabbed the alley-oop and put down the dunk. “Yeah,” he said. “I make murder music.” That both Lil Yachty and 21 Savage are thriving at the same time is a testament to their hometown’s wide influence, and its increasingly centerless sonic approach. Both released new projects recently: 21 Savage has “Savage Mode,” a mixtape made in collaboration with the producer Metro Boomin, and Lil Yachty has “Summer Songs 2,” his second mixtape this year. “Summer Songs 2” deepens the deluge of Lil Yachty music during the last eight or so months. He has a vivid signature approach: sing-rapping with heavy digital manipulation, somewhere way past the saccharine Auto-Tuned warble of T-Pain, in an outlandishly naïve voice. It’s as if storytime at the children’s bookstore went rogue, or the inverse of a Kidz Bop song. “We are the youth!” he exults on “Intro (First Day of Summer),” both emphasizing his novel sound and acknowledging how it must come off to the uninitiated: “I’m playing through your house like a doorbell and you hate it.” Lil Yachty’s excellence doesn’t originate in his choice of words, or even in the rhythm he delivers them — he has created an alternate universe in which traditional narratives of rap excess are reframed as fantastical kiddie stories. His gun talk sounds like the musings of a wide-eyed outsider. His simile choices — “just got a new bitch, white with a little black like dice” — are appealingly bizarre. And on the whole, his songs are dreamlike and entrancing, from the soothing lullaby “Idk” to the deeply inspiring “Life Goes On.” Dipping into his pseudo-falsetto, he recalls the woodlands specter Bon Iver. When Lil Yachty tries straightforward rapping, as on “For Hot 97” — an implicit retort to criticisms of his rapping skill — he’s less centered, and less convincing (though the boast “money so old, check its colon” is hilarious). And even if “Summer Songs 2” is, on the whole, less effective than “Lil Boat,” the mixtape he released in March, it too takes the toughness of Atlanta hip-hop and repackages it with a sweet, sticky taffy coating. Following the mid-to-late-2000s reign of T. I. and Young Jeezy, hard-edge street rappers have had a more difficult time gaining wide attention. That’s partly because of the seemingly ubiquitous influence of the Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane, the most effective tweaker of hip-hop orthodoxies in the 2000s. Gucci Mane’s influence hovers over both these artists, though more abstractly than directly. Lil Yachty has mainlined Gucci Mane’s vocal quirk — a penchant for odd rhyme structures cloaked in unlikely melodies — and distended it to absurdist lengths; he has also signed with the label owned in part by Coach K, one of Gucci Mane’s former managers. And 21 Savage released an EP last year called “Free Guwop,” in honor of Gucci Mane, then still in federal prison. While in recent years Atlanta has had a string of impressive street-oriented rappers from Trouble to Alley Boy to Peewee Longway, not one has risen as quickly as 21 Savage. In part, that’s because he’s benefiting from the same sort of internet-driven interest as Lil Yachty. Online fame doesn’t discriminate: A street rapper with visual flair can be just as much an object of fascination as an art-school-esque outsider. “Savage Mode” is committedly grim. Metro Boomin, responsible for so much triumphalist music in partnership with the Atlanta kingpin Future, restrains himself to a set of beats telegraphing slow, meaningful menace. They’re an apt fit for 21 Savage, who’s given to short, clipped phrases delivered with a hiss. “They say crack kills,” he deadpans on “No Heart,” before shrugging, “My crack sells.” That song, bleak and relentless, is one of the mixtape’s best. “Seventh grade I got caught with a pistol, sent me to Panthersville,” he raps, referring to his time in juvenile detention. He then relates, in unprintable fashion, what eighth and ninth grade were like. Many of this mixtape’s songs — “Bad Guy,” “No Advance,” the title track — are like this. But at the end, 21 Savage softens his approach. “Feel It” is a love song, a pledge of fealty to a dedicated woman: “All my dog ways, had to put them in the kennel.” And the album’s closer, “Ocean Drive,” starts as a story about a rough childhood — “My uncle taught me how to scrape the bowl/ And my auntie still smoking blow” — but metamorphoses into something more transcendent. The hook, rendered with melody and digital effects, is optimistic, as if 21 Savage has heard a small part of Lil Yachty that he can use for himself.

2018-12-23 11:25:00

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Meghan Trainor is a married woman! The Grammy winner wed actor Daryl Sabara on Saturday — her 25th birthday — in front of 100 close friends and family in an intimate backyard ceremony at their L.A. home, PEOPLE confirms exclusively. “It’s the beginning of an awesome, whole new life,” says Trainor. “I got way more than I ever wished for.” “I’m the luckiest guy in the world,” adds Spy Kids star Sabara, 26. To walk down the aisle, the bride wore an elegant Berta gown, Badgley Mischka heels and Norman Silverman jewels. Then for the reception, where guests noshed on an assortment of comfort foods, Trainor slipped into a lace suit by Rita Vinieris and Aldo sneakers to get the party started. As for what the newlyweds are looking forward to most in marriage? “Just rockin’ them rings!” says Trainor, who exchanged bands with Sabara after reciting hand-written vows during the ceremony, which was coordinated by the wedding planners at Sacks Productions. “I’m really excited to say ‘hubby’ and ‘husband.&apos” Indeed, “I’m no longer the ‘future hubby’ — I get to just be the hubby, which I’m excited about!” adds Sabara, alluding to Trainor’s 2015 hit single “Dear Future Husband.” Trainor first met Sabara in 2014 at an L.A. house party before her rise to fame later that year. Then in 2016, their mutual friend, actress Chloë Grace Moretz, played matchmaker, setting them up. Sparks flew, and after a year of dating, Sabara proposed to Trainor in front of her family during a trip to Palm Springs in December 2017. Trainor’s relationship with Sabara inspired her upcoming third album, Treat Myself, due in 2019. In lieu of gifts, the happy couple asked friends and family to donate to the World Wildlife Fund on their behalf.

2018-03-14

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Samsung wants to make Apple-level repair services available to its Galaxy phone customers. The company announced today that it’s partnering with more than 300 uBreakiFix stores around the US to provide legitimate Samsung parts and tools in order to repair phones. (uBreakiFix also partners with Google to repair Pixel devices.) Technicians will provide front and back screen replacements, battery replacements, port and camera repairs, and other in and out-of-warranty support services to Galaxy phones dating back to the S6 and Note 5. Most repairs should take less than two hours, and the company says it plans to expand service beyond these initial stores later this year. Another 200 stores should be added by 2019. Users can make appointments through either Samsung or uBreakiFix. Certain Best Buy stores already offer official Samsung same-day repairs, but few stores participate; none in the state of New York offer repairs. Clearly, Samsung wants to be able to provide quality hardware service without users having to worry about faulty, third-party parts. Apple Stores across the country offer this kind of service, which puts it far ahead of other companies in terms of phone maintenance and service availability. Samsung seemingly wants to be able to compete at this level.

2018-07-16 00:00:00

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Conor McGregor has come under fire after sharing a photo of himself alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin on Instagram. McGregor attended the World Cup final as one of Putin's guests according to the caption below the image, in which he also described the Russian President as "one of the greatest leaders of our time". Today I was invited to the World Cup final as a guest of Russian President Vladimir Putin. This man is one of the greatest leaders of our time and I was honored to attend such a landmark event alongside him. Today was an honor for me Mr. Putin. Thank you and congratulations on an amazing World Cup. Россия вперёд! A post shared by Conor McGregor Official (@thenotoriousmma) on Jul 15, 2018 at 11:08am PDT "Today I was invited to the World Cup final as a guest of Russian President Vladimir Putin," wrote McGregor. "This man is one of the greatest leaders of our time and I was honored to attend such a landmark event alongside him." That post has been liked almost three million times since it was shared on Sunday evening. Not everyone was impressed, though. conor, you know better. disappointing to say the least — Miguel Ruiz (@ruizmiguel_) July 15, 2018 When your favorite fighter has disappointed you more than once... pic.twitter.com/hLsVpjOEcd — Plazziibo (@plazziibo) July 15, 2018 pic.twitter.com/b1IdcTkNgQ — DJ Swivel (@djswivel) July 15, 2018 Under Putin, the Russian Government has decriminalised acts of domestic violence, enforced discriminatory LGBTQ laws, and been accused of repeatedly silencing writers and protestors who speak out against them. A list of some of the Russian government's most recent controversies can be found in the Human Rights Watch's World Report 2018. Mashable has reached out to McGregor's representatives for comment.

2016-03-08 17:30:00

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On Tuesday morning, J.K. Rowling published the first in a series of short writings the Harry Potter author is rolling out this week called The History of Magic in North America. The four-part collection is intended to lay the groundwork for next fall's Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a Rowling-penned Harry Potter prequel film set in 1920s New York City. The first piece, "Fourteenth Century — Seventeenth Century," is a quick historical rundown of the wizarding world between the 1300s and 1600s. (You can read it on Rowling's fandom platform Pottermore.) At less than 500 words, the story is slight. And the content, while fascinating and enjoyable to any Harry Potter fan (including this one), is nothing particularly breathtaking or newsworthy. But what was intended to be a small treat for Potterheads has quickly become a Twitter-fueled shit storm of unhappy readers accusing Rowling of no small transgression — and something we consider to be one of the biggest pop culture no-nos: cultural appropriation. So let's talk about it. The piece traces the magic community's connections between the Old World and New, as well as the witches and wizards who lived in America before Columbus ever set foot here. "The Native American magical community and those of Europe and Africa had known about each other long before the immigration of European No-Majs [muggles] in the seventeenth century," Rowling writes. "In the Native American community, some witches and wizards were accepted and even lauded within their tribes, gaining reputations for healing as medicine men, or outstanding hunters. However, others were stigmatised for their beliefs, often on the basis that they were possessed by malevolent spirits." This, friends, is where we start treading into tricky territory. The Harry Potter universe has always straddled the world we know and the one in Rowling's imagination. Since The Sorcerer's Stone, that's been a key aspect of the series' irresistible charm. Cracking open Harry Potter means living in a world where magic is real, however briefly. What kid didn't fall asleep crossing her fingers she'd wake up to her Hogwarts acceptance letter? And by setting the books in a world that looks just like our own, Rowling has made it delightfully easy for you, the rational reader, to seriously ponder the possibility that magic exists — just out of sight, in invisible Patronuses and ordinary-looking Portkeys — long after you close the book. But it's that blending of reality and fantasy that is pissing people off about Rowling's latest. Native American readers and leaders are taking to Twitter to express their anger with Rowling for incorporating elements of their history and culture into a fictitious canon. This mashup of the real and the fictional has resulted in what people are calling problematic portrayals that misrepresent, disrespect, and perpetuate stereotypes about the traditions of Native Americans. And her dissenters are not mincing words. "Fuck you, @jk_rowling for appropriation/misrepresentation of Native peoples... You've added to too high pile of BS," wrote Native American scholar Debbie Reese. "It is clear that she is writing as an outsider who is using Native story/imagery for her own purposes," Reese said in another tweet. Dr. Adrienne Keene, the writer behind the website Native Appropriations, also took sharp aim. "You can't just claim and take a living tradition of a marginalized people. That's straight up colonialism/appropriation." One passage in particular has inflamed critics. In it, Rowling writes about "skin walkers" — a very real piece of Native American culture that Rowling re-imagines as a cover story for wizards on the run. "The legend of the Native American ‘skin walker’ — an evil witch or wizard that can transform into an animal at will — has its basis in fact. A legend grew up around the Native American Animagi, that they had sacrificed close family members to gain their powers of transformation. In fact, the majority of Animagi assumed animal forms to escape persecution or to hunt for the tribe. Such derogatory rumours often originated with No-Maj medicine men, who were sometimes faking magical powers themselves, and fearful of exposure." A fan tweeted at Rowling asking for a clarification about the "skin walkers" she writes about. "Were the skin-walkers evil or not? Or were they simple animagus?" Rowling replied, explaining, "In my wizarding world, there were no skin-walkers. The legend was created by No-Majes to demonise wizards." That statement was, of course, immediately pounced on. "So much wrong with this tweet," wrote Reese. "No doubt you'll use the cloak of artistic license." Keene contended, "It's not 'your' world. It's our (real) Native world. And skin walker stories have context, roots, and reality." And that, right there, is the issue, isn't it? Are we living in Rowling's world — where magic is real and all inspirations are fair game? Or are we occupying the real world, where there is a real heritage and history that merits respectful and accurate portrayals? And who gets to decide? Isn't Rowling the arbiter of her own universe? But then, aren't Native Americans entitled to ardently defend their culture and history, one that has been decimated in the real world and repeatedly mangled by pop culture? I don't have the answer to these questions, and I won't pretend that I have the experience or knowledge to speak on the issue with any authority. What I can say for sure is that had I read this piece in a bubble, without knowing about the accusations of cultural appropriation beforehand, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about how the tale might affect Native Americans. Is that the problem in itself, though? I don't know. What I can definitely speak to is the fact that Rowling usually comes down on the right side of these contentious public discussions, with a level head and focused conscience. She has stood up to hate-mongering Muggles on issues like gay marriage, racism, and xenophobia. In fact, virtually everything Rowling has ever said or written would suggest that she is a sensitive, intelligent, and open-minded person. I'm not sure how many critics believe that she intentionally meant to hurt anyone with her portrayal of Native Americans. As the debate continues to heat up — and the rest of her series gets published — Rowling will have to speak her piece. Let's hear what she has to say.

2018-04-02 00:00:00

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Tesla shares have dropped 7% amid scrutiny from a National Transportation Safety Board investigation into a fatal March 23 crash involving one of its cars in semiautonomous Autopilot mode, reports CNBC. The drop also comes amid a voluntary recall of its Model S cars because of a faulty power steering component. The state of play: The company will report deliveries of its entry-level Model 3 this week, per Fortune, which will once against test the company's stock price. Elon Musk told Tesla employees today that the company will miss its production goals for the Model 3 in the first quarter of 2018, per Jalopnik.

2017-12-22

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the Washington Examiner Thursday that he anticipates a “knock down, drag out” 2018 midterm election for Republicans, who will look to maintain their majorities in both houses of Congress with a historically unpopular president in the White House. “The environment today is not great, the generic ballot’s not good, and I’d love to see the president’s approval rating higher. So I think we should anticipate a real knock down, drag out — even on the Senate side,” McConnell (R-Ky.) said in an interview Thursday. While the party in control of the White House often struggles in the first midterms after a presidential election, the Senate races scheduled for 2018 would ordinarily bode well for the GOP, with Democrats defending several seats in states won by President Donald Trump last year while Republicans are protecting only a small handful of vulnerable seats. But with most polls showing Trump with historically low approval ratings for a president one year into his first term, Republicans have struggled at the ballot box in 2017, most notably in deep-red Alabama, where Democrat Doug Jones won a special Senate election to fill the seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Even in the five House special elections won by Republicans, Democrats outperformed expectations, mounting competitive races in traditional GOP strongholds like suburban Atlanta, Kansas and Montana. Republicans running in 2018 will also have to defend the massive tax reform bill passed this week by Congress, a top priority of the president’s and of GOP leadership that has thus far proved unpopular with voters. McConnell said Thursday that Democrats “want to have a debate over the tax bill, we’re ready for it,” imagining campaign ads against Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.), both of whom voted against the tax bill and are up for reelection next year. “But that won’t be the only issue. There are a lot of different things that affect the attitude of people, some of which we won’t be able to control,” the majority leader continued. McConnell also said he is prepared to wade into GOP primaries to “make every effort to make sure we have a nominee on the November ballot who can appeal to a general election audience.” He attacked former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who has said he plans to back insurgent GOP candidates and upset the Washington establishment, over his support for controversial Republican firebrand Roy Moore, who lost to Jones in the Alabama Senate race and was accused during the campaign of molesting girls as young as 14 when he was in his 30s. “Those political geniuses managed to elect a Democrat in the reddest state in America. I rest my case,” McConnell said. Moore won the GOP primary in Alabama’s Senate race in part by campaigning hard against McConnell’s leadership, a successful message among Alabamian Republican voters who rejected Luther Strange, the incumbent who was backed by the majority leader. But McConnell said his support, as well as support from his Senate Leadership Fund super PAC, won’t be an issue in 2018. “I’m not going to be an issue in a single race in America,” he said. “I can assure you the support of the Senate Leadership Fund is not a negative. You can ask a lot of incumbents around here whether they believe it was important to their success, and it was. And, it will be there again in 2018.”

2017-02-23

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HERE ARE THE TOP STORIES The star, named Trappist-1, is about about 235 trillion miles from Earth — that’s a lot closer than it seems — and is being heralded as a major step forward in the search for alien life. The planets are so close to each other that someone standing on the surface of one of them could gaze up and possibly see geological features or clouds of neighboring worlds, which would at times appear larger than the moon in our own sky. People were excited about the discovery, but mostly for the opportunity to get off Earth. Originally issued last May, the Obama policy said that a school “must not treat a transgender student differently from the way it treats other students of the same gender identity.” The Department of Justice and Department of Education told public schools that officials “have decided to withdraw and rescind the … guidance documents in order to further and more completely consider the legal issues involved.” But several state officials are wasting no time and said they would keep enforcing bans against transgender discrimination. Trump’s America The Department of Homeland Security wants to send immigrants caught at the southern US border back to Mexico even if they’re not from the country. A memo published Tuesday that gave federal authorities direction on how to implement President Trump’s executive orders on immigration said agents could return a migrant “arriving on land to the foreign territory contiguous to the United States … pending a removal proceeding.” Lt. General H.R. McMaster is facing huge challenges in his new role as Trump’s national security adviser. And Vice President Mike Pence visited Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in St. Louis after the historic Jewish cemetery was vandalized over the weekend. WE’RE KEEPING AN EYE ON Hundreds of demonstrators were told to leave the area by 2 p.m. CT or face arrest. As the deadline approached, some protesters were seen leaving the area and a handful of wooden structures used by the demonstrators were set on fire. A spokesperson for the local county sheriff’s department told BuzzFeed News that 25 to 50 people would be allowed to remain at the camp overnight in hopes they would leave peacefully. The makeshift campsite served as a rallying point for thousands of protesters trying to block the pipeline’s path near the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota. QUICK THINGS TO KNOW The fight against ISIS: Iraqi security forces have launched an attack on Mosul airport, as part of the government’s offensive to drive ISIS from the western half of the city. In science: Pregnant women with herpes may be more likely to have autistic kids, a new study shows. Tech updates: Snapchat’s growth is pissing off its neighbors who say the pre-IPO company is turning its Venice Beach, California, home into a sanitized, corporate campus. Facebook wants to start streaming Major League Baseball games. And the social media network is trying to smooth over its relationship with the media. Starbucks: Chatter about the company turned negative after its promise to hire refugees. #Peggygate: Furniture store West Elm is offering full refunds for a notoriously disintegrating couch days after pulling it from its website. Brit Awards: Katy Perry gave an incredible performance at last night’s award ceremony and she may have thrown some shade at Trump. Here are all the celebrities who attended the Brit Awards and 12 things they looked like. And the show ~wasn’t hacked~ during the 1975’s performance. For the latest news and updates, download the BuzzFeed News app for iOS and Android (available in Canadian, UK, Australian, and US app stores). This letter was edited and brought to you by BuzzFeed News. You can always reach us here.

2019-07-25 00:00:00

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The euro bounced up on Thursday off a two-month low against the dollar, as investors bought the single currency after the European Central Bank failed to deliver an expected rate cut, while ECB President Mario Draghi offered optimism on the euro zone economy. Investors had priced in more than a 50% chance of an interest rate cut prior to Thursday’s ECB meeting. After the ECB kept rates unchanged, the euro recovered from lows. The bank’s statement said rates would stay “at their present or lower levels.” The common currency’s outlook remained downbeat due to the prospect of further monetary easing. “I think the market had fairly dovish expectations going into the ECB meeting and some in the market had priced in a cut,” said Mazen Issa, senior FX strategist, at TD Securities in New York. The actual decision was a signal to cover shorts on the euro, he added. “Now the question was: how dovish would Draghi be at his briefing? While he was pretty dovish, there were some positive elements as well,” Issa said. Draghi, at his press briefing, said he saw low risk of recession in the euro zone, but noted that a rebound in the second half was less likely. Rabobank in a research note said Draghi did not live up to expectation that he would be more specific about whether to institute a new asset purchase program. Draghi said there had been no discussion yet on policy tools. “This suggests that while today’s actions may have been supported by a broad consensus, the discussion in September on the actual easing package to be implemented may reveal more division in the Council. Clearly, not everyone is on the same page here,” Rabobank said. In afternoon trading, the euro was up 0.1% at $1.1146 EUR=. Earlier, it dropped to a two-month low of $1.1102 after a bleak German Ifo business sentiment survey for July. The euro also rose 0.7% against the Swiss franc to 1.1046 francs EURCHF=, and was up 0.5% versus the yen at 121.217yen EURJPY=. The dollar index was up 0.1% at 97.813 .DXY, led by gains against the yen. The greenback rose rising 0.5% to 108.71 yen JPY= after a batch of generally positive U.S. economic data. New orders for key U.S.-made capital goods surged 1.9% in June, while weekly jobless claims declined to 206,000. “The strong data suggested any rate cuts by the Fed would be the modest insurance variety and not the start of a full-blown easing cycle,” said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst, at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington. The Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting is scheduled next week, and investors are widely expecting an interest rate cut. Reporting by Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss; Editing by Susan Thomas and David Gregorio

2016-08-29

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Aug 29 (Reuters) - T-mobile Us Inc * Mobile US Inc - “quadrupling speeds for mobile hotspot data on T-mobile One Plan and introducing new 24 hour high-definition (HD) day passes” Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2017-02-20

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Jewish community centers in cities across the country on Monday received phoned-in bomb threats. The JCC Association of North America reported that 11 Jewish community centers received bomb threats Monday, including centers in Chicago, Buffalo, Houston and Tampa. The threats "were determined to be hoaxes." “Our JCCs are strongly rooted in communities across the country," David Posner, director of strategic performance at JCC Association of North America, said in a statement. "We will not be cowed by threats intended to disrupt people’s lives or the vital role Jewish community centers play as gathering places, schools, camps, and fitness and recreation centers." Posner said the association is in "regular communication with the FBI, which is investigating these threats." The White House responded to the latest wave of bomb threats, saying hatred has no place in the country. "The President has made it abundantly clear that these actions are unacceptable." President Trump's elder daughter, Ivanka Trump, responded on Twitter, saying, "America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers." America is a nation built on the principle of religious tolerance. We must protect our houses of worship & religious centers. #JCC   She and her husband, senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner, are Jewish.  Many Jewish community centers have received bomb threats since the beginning of the year. The JCC Association of North America reported that since the beginning of the year, there have been 69 incidents at 54 JCCs in 27 states and one Canadian province. All bomb threats were determined to be hoaxes. Other locations that have received calls include centers in Manhattan, Long Island and New Jersey. During a press conference last week, President Trump clashed with a Jewish reporter over a question about the rising number of anti-Semitic incidents and what the president would do to address the uptick in anti-Semitism.  The president in response called himself the "least anti-Semitic person you've ever seen in your entire life." 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.

2018-03-14 00:00:00

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Mississippi GOP state Sen. Chris McDaniel is dropping his primary challenge to Sen. Roger Wicker, he announced Wednesday, and will instead run for the open seat coming as a result of Sen. Thad Cochran's pending resignation next month. McDaniel’s decision means Republicans won’t have to spend resources against a potentially pesky primary challenger, but could be a headache for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whose allies are determined to keep McDaniel out of the Senate. McDaniel nearly defeated Cochran in a 2014 primary challenge. But the announcement also dials up the pressure on GOP Gov. Phil Bryant, who will appoint someone to fill Cochran's seat until November. All the candidates, potentially including the eventual appointee, will run on a nonpartisan ballot together Nov. 6. If no candidate earns a majority of the vote, the top two finishers will face off in a runoff later that month. Bryant has ruled out appointing himself to the seat, and is considering Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, Rep. Gregg Harper and Agriculture and Commerce Commissioner Cindy Hyde-Smith as potential appointments. McDaniel said in a statement he hopes to clear the field of other potential GOP candidates. "By announcing early, we are asking Mississippi Republicans to unite around my candidacy and avoid another contentious contest among GOP members that would only improve the Democrats' chances of winning the open seat," McDaniel said in a statement announcing the change. "If we unite the party now and consolidate our resources, we can guarantee [President] Donald Trump will have a fighter who will stand with him." Cochran announced his resignation earlier this month, with an effective date of April 1. The filing deadline for the state's June 5 primary passed before Cochran's announcement, leading McDaniel to say he would run against Wicker. Wicker has already run ads attacking McDaniel over the latter’s criticisms of Trump during the 2016 election. On the Democratic side, state House Minority Leader David Baria and venture capitalist Howard Sherman are running for Wicker’s seat, while former Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy is considering a run for Cochran’s seat.

2018-08-20 22:00:00

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We’re back in Paradise for night 4, and if you were hoping that the will-they-won’t-they saga between Colton Underwood and Tia Booth was over, you have another thing coming. Monday night’s episode picks up where last week left off: with Booth furious after learning Chris Randone kissed Krystal Nielson the same night he professed his feelings for her. “We need to talk,” says Booth — and Randone seems to know exactly what it’s about (maybe because he bragged about his kiss to the entire group, but that’s just a guess). “Oh god, all right,” he says as they walk off together. When the two first sit down to discuss the night’s events, Randone doesn’t deny what he did. Booth explains that she’s not mad about the actual kiss, she’s just upset because the kiss happened mere hours after telling Booth he was all-in on their relationship. “That was real,” says Randone. “If I were offered a date card I would have denied it.” Naturally, Booth is all kinds of confused. “I spent time with Krystal last night and there was a moment, but it doesn’t change anything about how I feel about anyone,” says Randone. “I like you a lot.” “I don’t believe you,” responds Booth. “It’s not just because of how I feel, it’s the f—— facts.” “You’re just telling me s— you think I want to hear,” she adds. Just as Randone continues to try and convince Booth that it’s perfectly normal for him to kiss one girl while still pledging his loyalty to another, Nielson walks over. “We’re talking about last night,” says Randone. “This whole thing is confusing.” Randone also brings Underwood up, saying that he’s still confused about Booth’s status with him. At that, Booth tells Randone she’s no longer interested in pursuing a relationship with him. “That’s fine, I mean I had already made the decision,” says Randone. “I was pulling myself out of this.” And with Booth officially out, the path has been cleared for Nielson to get to Randone — and Nielson doesn’t seem phased by any of this. “I’m so relieved,” she says. “Last night with Chris I felt such like a special spark and now Chris is available. We are on the same page.” Let’s make something clear: Booth and Underwood make Ross and Rachel look like relationship experts. Minutes after Booth kicks Randone to the curb, she confesses that she still has feelings for Underwood. “After all this s— with Colton and calling him out for being indecisive, I’d rather have someone who is honest about being indecisive than a liar about being decisive,” she says. And while everyone is supportive of Booth and Underwood maybe finally getting together, even they are ready for the back and forth to end. As Jordan Kimball so eloquently puts it: “It’s time for someone to be a man, it’s time for someone to be a woman and it’s time for people to start defining what they want. Because I’m over it.” And when Underwood turns down a date card from newcomer Jaqueline Trumbull, it seems like the stars have finally aligned for Underwood and Booth. “I think that you and I owe each other an opportunity and a chance to really do this,” says Underwood. “We need to give this an honest go. I’m happy when I’m with you, I have fun when I’m with you. It’s effortless. I’m finally not scared.” Underwood and Booth end the night with a kiss. As if the Underwood and Booth saga wasn’t dramatic enough, leave it to David Ravitz to stir the pot even more. After Kimball and Jenna Cooper spend the night kissing and professing their feelings for each other, Ravitz swoops in for one last attempt to ruin their relationship. He gifts Cooper a giant stuffed dog that they name Brownie. And the gesture quickly sends Kimball spiraling. He immediately walks over, grabs the dog and throws it into the ocean. “I’m a pretty cool cat, just David, stop pushing me,” says Kimball. “He’s only here to sabotage what I’ve got going on and Jenna played into it.” Things only get worse when the other women begin to laugh at Kimball. “Stop chirping,” he says. “Sit over there, do your gossip. You’re envious, you want to hate. Shut the f— up.” Everyone agrees that Kimball crossed a line, and the cast encourages him to apologize — which he eventually does. And while Cooper says his actions concern her, she eventually forgives the outburst. After a drama-filled few days, the second rose ceremony commences, with the guys handing out the roses. Here is where the night leaves off: That leaves Bibiana Julian, Caroline Lunny, Nysha Norris and Trumbull packing their bags. Bachelor in Paradise airs Mondays and Tuesdays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.

2017-04-22 13:00:00

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Last week, Beauty and the Beast, the live-action remake of the original 1991 animated film, passed the $1 billion mark at the box office. That's impressive—it's the first film of 2017 to reach that peak—but it's far from surprising. Disney excels at repackaging and reselling our childhoods back to us. It's the same company that built an empire by adapting written fairy tales into animated films. Then, a few years ago, Disney began re-releasing those same films in 3D. The Mouse's latest penchant, of turning those animated films into live-action remakes, started with the release of Alice in Wonderland in 2010, which also made over $1 billion at the box office. Then came Maleficent in 2014 ($750 million), Cinderella in 2015 ($500+ million), The Jungle Book in 2016 ($950 million), and Pete's Dragon in 2016 ($140 million). Disney will be remaking and releasing Mulan in 2018. And after that? Over a dozen more live-action remakes of Disney animated films are in the pipeline, and they'll be released at the approximate rate of one film per year. But Disney is not the only media company mining its past for box office gold. Current box office behemoths like The Fate of the Furious, Power Rangers, Smurfs: The Lost Village, and Kong: Skull Island are either continuations of long-established franchises or reboots to pre-existing properties. And the trend won't be declining anytime soon; over 120 remakes or reboots are currently in production. Even video game companies like Nintendo rely on their long-established franchises to drive current sales. The company's mini NES Classic flew off shelves, and the rumored SNES mini will likely do the same. Many of these properties originated in the late 80's or 90's. Both the Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers TV show and the animated Beauty and the Beast film, for example, were released approximately 25 years ago. This is not a coincidence. "It seems that there's a cycle every 20 years," said Stuart Elliott, who served as The New York Times' advertising columnist for over 20 years, in an interview with Motherboard. "The 50's came back in the 70's. The 90's are coming back now. And in terms of marketing, that's because those are the childhood memories of millennial consumers, who are growing into their adulthood. This is the time when they're expected to buy cars and houses and furniture and all sorts of major purchases." The feeling that every advertiser wants to evoke in millennials is nostalgia; that warm, comforting sensation that one experiences when recollecting the past. People usually feel nostalgic for their own past, commonly referred to as autobiographical nostalgia. But oddly enough, they can also feel nostalgia for time periods when they weren't alive; perhaps their parents played old music to them when they were young, and now, they associate those sensory details with positive memories. The term "nostalgia" was first coined in 1688, and it was originally held as a negative character trait or even a disease; American military doctor Theodore Calhoun viewed nostalgia as indicative of weak will and "unmanliness." But the modern view of nostalgia is far more positive. Current research suggests that people use nostalgia to organize their lives into cohesive narratives. "When you experience something in the present, it's often complex." said Dr. Clay Routledge, psychology professor at North Dakota State University, in an interview with Motherboard. "But when you look back on it, you have [the opportunity] to make sense of it… Humans are in a constant endeavor to make sense of all the stimuli they're taking in, so it's not just a random stream of data. It helps them make predictions about life, and know what to expect from people and situations." Nostalgic people will often find the "silver lining" in dark pasts. The negative memories aren't repressed, per se, but any positives are extracted and brought to the forefront. British children during World War II, for example, might remember how close they felt to their families during the bombing of their city. In this manner, nostalgia can be a sort of coping mechanism for survivors of trauma and tragedy. "Negative emotions tend to fade faster than positive emotions," said Routledge. "Nostalgia seems to be adaptive, and weaves even unpleasant experiences into meaningful narratives." "There is an idea of a psychological immune system," continued Routledge. "Life is full of hardship and trauma and loss and suffering. And as a self-conscious species, we have to grapple with a lot of these anxieties. Other animals have fight-or-flight responses to threat, but they don't subsequently have to ruminate about [those threats] the way that we do. It is adaptive to cope. Otherwise, the species would never be able to dominate the planet the way that it has." But nostalgia does not only reframe the past. It can also provide comfort in the present. Routledge noted that there are two types of typical nostalgia triggers. The first is a lower order input; one might encounter a familiar smell or song and directly associate it with a distant memory. The second trigger is a higher order function. A person who suffering in the present—of loneliness, for example—may become nostalgic of old friendships. "This seems to be a regulatory function and an effort to compensate," said Routledge. "And one of the ways that one compensates is by revisiting positive memories. Elliott further noted that nostalgia becomes popular in times of national downturn. He refers to this as "comfort marketing"—making people remember better times and forget their troubles for a moment. Post-9/11 recovery and the housing market crash of 2007 were both accompanied by the increased demand for nostalgic and fantasy-driven entertainment. "When people are more optimistic," Elliott observed, "the tendency is look forward towards the future and to what's coming, rather than looking in the rearview mirror." Marketers convert this type of nostalgia into a reassurance of quality, stability and "good old" tradition. The Coca Cola company is a master at this. Take a look at this Coca Cola ad from 1953: Other soft drink companies change their logos and fonts multiple times to reflect current trends and changing societal norms. But Coca Cola, founded in 1886, has kept the same logo for decades. The company is not chasing what is new; it is using nostalgia—this positive recollection of one's past —to reinforce the reliability and longevity of its brand. It implicitly states: "The same Coke you enjoyed as an innocent, wide-eyed kid is the same Coke you can enjoy today." "There's this idea of authenticity," said Elliott. "Brands and products are bringing up their heritage and history to reassure shoppers that their product is worth your money and time: 'We're a product that your parents bought and your grandparents bought, and we're still worth buying.'" In a similar manner, a Hollywood remake or reboot gives consumers an assurance of quality and stability—that if the original franchise has persisted to the current day, then it must still be good. It's a safe investment, and all the remake needs is to add is some modernizing elements. Consumers will even embrace these changes, so long as the core, iconic elements are left intact. And where is the end point to this most recent nostalgia wave? Will people eventually become desensitized by its emotional, psychological effects? Both Routledge and Elliott can only speculate. Given such a quickly changing, unpredictable media landscape, it's understandable. "There is a saying in Hollywood that no one knows anything," said Elliott. "The hardest thing to do in consumer marketing is to figure what people want to see in a movie and sell it to them."

2019-01-24 00:00:00

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The media industry's current round of cuts and consolidation is accelerating. Sizable layoffs at Buzzfeed, Gannett and Verizon Media (home of AOL, Yahoo, HuffPost and others) were announced Wednesday, totaling over 1,000 jobs cut. Why it matters: If the headlines signal anything, it's that the news media will continue to struggle to find a sustainable business model in an advertising and attention ecosystem dominated by tech companies like Google, Facebook and Netflix. By the numbers: Verizon Media will cut roughly 800 jobs, or 7% of its global workforce across the organization, as well as certain brands and products. Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg told Axios earlier this month that each of the company's three units, including the media business, needed to be able to stand on their own. (A company spokesperson later clarified to Axios that Verizon Media Group will still have access to Verizon customer data when customers opt in to provide such information.) Buzzfeed will cut roughly 250 jobs, or roughly 15% of its workforce, including jobs within its news division. Gannett cut over 20 jobs Wednesday, per Poynter, with more expected as the company tries to shed costs amid buyout talks. The big picture: The struggle to create businesses that can support a healthy news environment is universal across the information ecosystem. It exists at the local, national and global levels, and across digital, print and television operations. Events in the past year that underscore this reality: the cheap sales of websites that had raised tons of money, like Mic.com and Mashable big layoffs at digital properties like Vox and Refinery29 Massive write-downs of media properties owned by bigger companies, like Vice and Verizon Media Be smart: Policymakers around the world want to address the problem, but most are still struggling to find workable solutions. In Europe, lawmakers have proposed a copyright directive that would force tech giants to pay publishers for linking to their content, but the directive experienced a setback five days ago after member states failed to agree on some rules. In the U.S., regulators at the FCC has rolled back decades-old broadcast ownership rules to allow local news companies to more easily merger to be better able to scale and potentially compete with some of their tech counterparts. The U.S. newspaper industry is still waiting on Congress for a proposed temporary safe harbor that would allow it to bargain as a group against big tech companies. Bottom line: Many news companies are struggling to find sustainable business models in the digital era. There's no sign it's getting any easier.

2020-01-27 05:00:18

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Can a sitting president block witnesses at his own impeachment trial? Ms. Finkelstein is a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. This week, as part of the impeachment trial of President Trump, the Senate will take up the question of subpoenas for witnesses and documents. House managers had previously tried but failed to convince their Republican colleagues to go along with a series of amendments on witnesses and documents. The vote on witnesses is critical. The testimony of key administration or former administration officials like Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton may be the only remaining hope Democrats have for disabusing Republican senators of their loyalty to Donald Trump before the vote on conviction. But the vote on witnesses is essential for another reason. The Senate is facing a test of the very issue under consideration in the second article of impeachment, namely Mr. Trump’s obstruction of Congress and the institution’s willingness to rein in a president who is abusing the powers of his office. Regardless of their inclinations on the final vote to remove, every senator should understand the critical nature of this decision for the integrity of the impeachment process, the preservation of congressional authority and ultimately for the rule of law. First, a vote to subpoena witnesses would strike at the heart of the president’s efforts — which continue to this day — to impede his own removal from office. Earlier attempts by leaders in the House to complete a detailed inquiry without waiting out the courts on the issue of witnesses fell flat. Admittedly, they had good reasons to move on. As Jerry Nadler explained, it took eight months to get a Federal District Court to say that Don McGahn cannot ignore a congressional subpoena, and it could have taken eight more for a final judgment affirming that ruling on appeal. By sending articles of impeachment to the Senate without having countered the president’s interference with House proceedings, Democratic leaders lost an opportunity. But there is a second shot at that confrontation, with the added benefit that any subpoenas the Senate issues will have bipartisan support. Calling a halt to Mr. Trump’s obstruction of Congress is essential if the process is to be impartial, independent and fully reflective of the conscience of our elected officials. Second, it is critical to push back on the president’s dangerous expansion of executive privilege, regardless of whether the process results in his removal. Mr. Trump actually believes he is entitled to use his authority to prevent witnesses from testifying or to withhold incriminating documents or other evidence. Consider his open encouragement to witnesses to defy subpoenas, as well as the idea he floated that he would assert executive privilege to block current and former administration officials from testifying, for the sake of “protecting future presidents.” These moves are consistent with Mr. Trump’s view that Article II allows him to do whatever he wants. If the Senate subpoenas witnesses, the Trump legal team will once more assert executive privilege, or the closely related idea of “testimonial immunity,” to block their enforcement, but this would be a gross abuse of that concept. The Senate must be prepared to go to the mat to enforce any subpoenas it issues, or the impeachment process itself will serve to weaken congressional authority and to establish the president’s entitlement to use the privilege of his office to immunize himself from scrutiny. The enforcement of subpoenas in an impeachment trial is potentially complex. The Senate Impeachment Rules provide that “the Senate shall have power to compel the attendance of witnesses” and to “enforce obedience to its orders,” meaning that the Senate can use its inherent powers to enforce any subpoena it issues during an impeachment trial. But the sergeant-at-arms, who is empowered to conduct enforcement for Congress, does not have a jail or a full police force at his disposal. Moreover, Congress has not used its enforcement powers since 1934 (and the action prompted an immediate habeas petition from its recipient). This leaves open the possibility that the Senate will turn to the courts, not to rule on the validity of the subpoenas but to help enforce them. Alternatively, the witnesses themselves could turn to a federal court to defend against a Senate order to testify. Either way, we can expect to see a pitched battle between Congress’ power and executive branch claims of executive authority play out in federal court. In such a scenario, there could be the unprecedented complication that the case could land in the Supreme Court while Chief Justice John Roberts is presiding over the trial. If Justice Roberts were to recuse himself, the country might face the specter of a Supreme Court deadlocked on the critical question of whether a sitting president undergoing an impeachment trial has the right to assert executive privilege to block witnesses at his own trial. Ultimately, getting clear about the limits of presidential authority and strengthening Congress’s hand is even more important for protecting democracy and the rule of law than removing the 45th president. Leaving unaddressed the question of whether a president can use the powers of his office to shield himself from accountability will make it impossible to undo the damage wrought on our system of checks and balances by the Trump presidency. This is the moment to push back on the expansion of presidential power and to reinforce the principle that we are a government of laws, not men. Safeguarding Congress’s authority and independence is the most important task facing the House managers in the Senate trial. Reasserting the ability of Congress to control its own process is the first step toward reclaiming that authority. Claire Finkelstein is the Algernon Biddle professor of law and professor of philosophy and the faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law at the University of Pennsylvania. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

2016-03-28 20:25:00

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Following a month of deliberation, Justice William B. Horkins sent down a chilling verdict against the victims and in favor of Ghomeshi. In his decision, Horkins painted each of Ghomeshi's accusers as unreliable based on the holes the defense was able to poke in each of their testimonies: Ghomeshi's skilled lawyer, Marie Henein, pulled out cordial emails and other correspondence between the victims and her client that continued after the alleged assaults. Why would a victim continue to talk to the man who assaulted them? Henein skewered the complainants for misremembering certain details, for not being consistent between their media interviews and police statements. In turn, Horkins, in his decision, pointed to the fact that Ghomeshi's accusers didn't behave exactly the way a victim of sexual assault might and are therefore untrustworthy. "There is no other evidence to look to determine the truth," Horkins wrote in his decision. "There is no tangible evidence. There is no DNA. There is no 'smoking gun'. There is only the sworn evidence of each complainant, standing on its own, to be measured against a very exacting standard of proof. This highlights the importance of the assessment of the credibility and the reliability and the overall quality, of that evidence." Following the controversial trial, one woman who testified against Ghomeshi is now speaking out again. This time, she's calling for reform of the Canadian justice system and its handling of sexual assault cases. The woman, who is only identified as L.R., started ComingForward.ca, a website where sexual assault survivors can share their stories and have access to the resources they need to prepare to bring those stories to court. L.R. says it's something she wished she'd had before she had to take the stand. "Coming Forward was born right after the verdict," she told Broadly. "I launched it on verdict day, actually." While the site is still in its infancy, she hopes that it can be a resource and a discussion forum for those in the position she found herself in. "When I was going through [the trial], I had no one to talk to," she said. She's also working with a lawyer to put together a guide that explains what it's actually like to go through the cross-examination process in court. "I don't think I could even begin to explain how unprepared I was," she explained. "I wasn't expecting the manner in which the judge read his judgment. I didn't realize how badly I was going to be attacked. Everyone was shocked by how he was so condescending. He basically called us manipulative liars." In court, the defense dragged her for the discrepancies in her story, describing it as an "evolving set of facts": Was she wearing hair extensions when her hair was pulled, or wasn't she? Was she "thrown" to the ground, or "pulled"? And why did she send him flirtatious emails after? Judge Horkins's decision also made a not-so-subtle claim that Ghomeshi's accusers only came forward for attention or fame, which is an insult that sexual assault victims of high-profile men endure too often. "Each one chose not to make a complaint to the authorities until years after the fact. Each one came forward in 2014 in the wake of, or in the midst of, the extensive publicity surrounding the very public termination of Mr. Ghomeshi at the CBC. Each complainant chose to come forward to the media first and then subsequently gave sworn video-recorded statements to the police. Each complainant was aware of Mr. Ghomeshi and his celebrity status prior to meeting him. Each was a fan to some greater or lesser extent," the judge wrote. L.R. told Broadly that she didn't think anyone would care about her sexual assault story until she saw the police chief call for Gian Ghomeshi's alleged victims to come forward when the scandal first broke in 2014. Even then she was hesitant to go to the authorities, which is not uncommon. Less than one in ten sexual assault victims report the crime to the police. Unfortunately, L.R.'s fears of not being believed were proven true. "My allegations against [Jian Ghomeshi] were never denied," she said over the phone. "[His lawyer's] defense strategy was to test if I could remember the details of my assault. If I didn't remember those the way they thought I should remember them, I must not be telling the truth. But I told the truth." While an obviously effective strategy to provoke "reasonable doubt," experts have long understood that, after traumas like these, victims don't often remember exactly what happened. It's also worth pointing out again that the events in question happened over a decade prior. "We have a societal expectation that both the victim of a major crime and any witnesses to that crime ought to be able to remember with perfect clarity exactly what happened," Rebecca Campbell, a psychologist at Michigan State University who studies sexual assault, told the Washington Post. "It is not an expectation that has any scientific merit." But because this wasn't a jury trial (Ghomeshi waived his right to a jury), no expert witnesses were brought in to explain this. The women who accused Ghomeshi of assault were left to flounder on the stand on their own as they were routinely eviscerated by his lawyer. Another troubling aspect of how sexual assault is handled in Canadian courts is the fact that victims themselves aren't represented by a lawyer. In criminal cases, Crown attorneys are appointed as counsel, but they aren't the victim's lawyer; they represent the state. Toronto criminal defense lawyer David Butt puts it this way: "I have the deepest respect for Crown attorneys, but they don't act for complainants and they will be the first ones to tell you that. So you have a justice system where the defense, a vigorous advocate, is totally dedicated to the defense interest. The community has a vigorous advocate totally dedicated to the community's interest. Who acts for the victim? Nobody." L.R. puts it even more bluntly. "My 'lawyers' weren't allowed to speak in court. They were just my advisors," she said. "Victims do not get represented in court; you're alone. Jian Ghomeshi had his lawyer, but we had nothing. You're left alone. Completely and absolutely alone. It's an uneven playing field. Everything is stacked against you, from the minute [you] walk in there." While L.R. did not receive justice, or by many standards a fair trial, she's determined to work to help change Canada's legal system so victims of sexual assault don't have to continue to go through what she did. She said that she's even thinking of lifting the publication ban on her name next week. "I plan on helping to get something changed," she said. "I don't know how long it's going to take me, but that's my mission, because this is barbaric. This can't go on. "How anyone report a sexual assault if they're going to be attacked?" she added. "There's no justice in it."

2018-03-30

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While he may work for the West Wing, White House attorney Ty Cobb said this week that the audience for his job is Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading an investigation of the 2016 campaign. Cobb, in an interview on Wednesday with Vox, said the Trump administration’s cooperation with the Mueller investigation was delayed at one point because of staffing issues. But Cobb said Mueller’s team has been understanding with him and has now received nearly everything it asked for. “The reality is that I had hoped with some success we could have gotten the document production [sending documents to Mueller] done earlier, but I didn’t have the staff or the support internally in the White House initially to get that done. And Mueller fully understood that,” Cobb said. “He’s my audience, not anybody else, and I needed him to understand that I was working as hard as I could with whatever I had to meet his deadline, so, mission accomplished as far as I’m concerned.” Cobb said the incendiary book by author Michael Wolff slowed the work of Mueller’s team because its contents prompted additional interviews to conduct. The FBI internal watchdog report that led to the firing of Andrew McCabe, the bureau’s former deputy director, could similarly slow Mueller’s team, as could the forthcoming book from former FBI Director James Comey, who was fired by the president last spring. The Trump administration continues to have no interest in firing Mueller, Cobb said, despite speculation that the president may be inching towards such a decision. Instead, Cobb said, the interactions between Mueller’s team and the White House have been mostly without incident. “This has gone in a very smooth way. You haven’t heard any complaints from Mueller, and everything is negotiated heavily, so it’s not like we just opened up the file drawers and let them come in and pick out what they wanted,” he said.

2016-04-20 16:20:00

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Wiz Khalifa Periscoped his 4/20 activities. He explained how he rolls a joint to around 31,000 viewers.He began by saying, "My favorite thing to do on 4/20 is just call up the homies and smoke." Sounds about right, Wiz. He even has new music coming out today, in honor of the annual celebration. In addition to rolling a joint (with papers, not blunt wraps because he doesn't like tobacco, in case you were wondering), Wiz will be hosting a "light-weight" pool party for a small group of friends. All in all, it sounds like a pretty chill day. I don't have to tell you why.In addition to Wiz, Snoop Dogg, Chelsea Handler, and Ice Cube (just to name a few) are all sharing their appreciation for the infamous date. Snoop has uploaded over 30 photos to his Instagram today alone. So whether you're lighting up, getting lit, or just scrolling through social media for some holiday amusement, happy hump day. Here are all the green-friendly celebs posting about 4/20 to their best buds. And yes, this post is being published at 4:20 p.m.

2016-07-15 15:42:06

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A little over a year ago, the chef April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman, her business partner, announced that they would open a complex of restaurants and bars on the top floors and in the lobby of 70 Pine Street, in Manhattan’s financial district. But now they have resigned from the project by mutual agreement with Adam Rose, the developer, who is converting the Art Deco skyscraper, formerly the AIG Building, into apartments. “We were all very excited about doing something together, but the logistics at 70 Pine were very tricky, and their concept was just too complex,” Mr. Rose wrote in an email Friday. “We need a simple bar with basic (but nice) food to make it work 66 stories up in the air on top of a landmark.” All the parties say they are unhappy about this turn of events, which The New York Post reported on Thursday. “It’s sad that we won’t be doing this project as we envisioned it,” Mr. Friedman said. Back when they announced the plan, he said that he and Ms. Bloomfield would have been “really jealous” if someone else had gotten the project. The two are partners in the Spotted Pig, Salvation Burger, the Breslin and other restaurants. Mr. Rose said that he had not decided on another chef or operator, but that he was working on it. He also said that it was highly likely that he would someday collaborate with Mr. Friedman and Ms. Bloomfield in another location. The Friedman-Bloomfield complex had been scheduled to open this summer.

2019-02-20

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(Adds comments, details, updates prices) * Minutes of Fed's Jan meeting due at 1900 GMT * Palladium up 19 pct so far this year * GRAPHIC-2019 asset returns: http://tmsnrt.rs/2jvdmXl Feb 20 (Reuters) - Palladium briefly surpassed the $1,500 mark for the first time to touch a record high due to tight supplies and gold topped a 10-month peak on hopes of a U.S.-China trade truce, as investors awaited clarity on U.S. monetary policy. Spot palladium, which traded as high as $1,502 per ounce, was up 1.3 percent at $1,498.56 at 1127 GMT. "There is a lack of supply in the market and demand is very high," said Afshin Nabavi, senior vice president at MKS SA, citing lack of supplies from major producers Russia and South Africa. The supply deficit is likely to widen this year as stricter emissions standards increase demand for catalytic converters, autocatalyst manufacturer Johnson Matthey said last week. "Environmental requirements are getting stronger, which means more palladium is needed in (manufacturing) a car," said Yuichi Ikemizu, Tokyo branch manager at ICBC Standard Bank. The autocatalyst metal is additionally supported by the fact that broad-based substitution from palladium to platinum was not immediately feasible, analysts said. Both metals are primarily consumed by automakers in catalytic converter manufacturing, but platinum is more heavily used in diesel vehicles that have fallen out of favor since the Volkswagen emissions-rigging scandal broke in 2015. Unlike platinum, palladium has benefited from a switch to petrol engines and expectations for growth in hybrid electric vehicles, which tend to be partly gasoline-powered, helping cushion the metal from falling global car sales. Indicative of the bullish sentiment, net long positions in palladium have jumped since August last year, with prices rising about 80 percent during the same period. Meanwhile, spot gold hit its highest since April 19, 2018 at $1,346.73 per ounce and was up 0.2 percent at $1,344.03. U.S. gold futures also rose 0.2 percent to $1,346.90. "Hopes for a deal between the U.S. and China and the U.S. dollar, which is slightly lower, are offering support to the metal," said ABN AMRO analyst Georgette Boele. U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said trade talks were going well and suggested he was open to extend the March 1 deadline for a deal. The dollar fell as traders positioned ahead of the release of minutes from the Fed's last meeting later today. Investors will scan the minutes for more guidance on rate increases this year. Higher rates tend to weigh on non-yielding gold. On the technical front, "the next psychological level is $1,350, but what is more important is that gold breaks above the$1,365 level," Boele said. Among other precious metals, platinum was up 0.6 percent at $822.49 per ounce, while spot silver was up 0.3 percent at $16.03. (Reporting by K. Sathya Narayanan and Karthika Suresh Namboothiri in Bengaluru Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

2020-01-08 00:00:00

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The House on Wednesday passed a slew of bills aimed at giving the U.S. a leg up over China in the race to implement the super-fast next-generation wireless networks known as 5G.  The trio of bipartisan bills, which passed the House near-unanimously, would funnel U.S. government resources into steering international wireless policy while securing the burgeoning networks against cyberattacks and foreign influence.   The legislation comes as the U.S. works to win the "race to 5G," which will enable a generation of Internet-connected devices and offer mobile data speeds up to 100 times what is currently possible. Congress and the Trump administration have been working to diminish the power of Chinese telecommunications companies currently dominating the 5G industry while pouring more money into efforts to build out the networks in the U.S.  “All three of these bills are important for securing America’s wireless future, and we hope they won’t languish in the Senate," Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) and communications subcommittee Chairman Mike DoyleMichael (Mike) F. DoyleHillicon Valley: Lawmakers say Facebook deepfake ban falls short | House passes bills to win 5G race | Feds sound alarm on cyberthreat from Iran | Ivanka Trump appearance at tech show sparks backlash House passes bills to gain upper hand in race to 5G Hillicon Valley: Senate sends anti-robocall bill to Trump | Federal study finds bias in facial recognition | Tech cash flows to Dems despite scrutiny | Facebook to ban misleading census content MORE (D-Pa.) said in a statement. The House on Wednesday also passed a resolution calling on the U.S. to follow a set of international cybersecurity standards as it develops 5G capabilities.  "The next generation of next-generation telecommunications systems is going to revolutionize our economy," Rep. Tom O'Halleran (D-Ariz.) said on the House floor ahead of the vote. "With the rapid expansion of new technology infrastructure, it is critical that these systems are secure, and the privacy of all Americans is protected."  Two of the bills – the Promoting United States International Leadership in 5G Act and Promoting United States Wireless Leadership Act – would require the U.S. to become more involved in international standard-setting bodies around wireless networks, which have seen increased involvement from China in recent years. Together, the bills would direct the Secretary of State and a key telecom adviser to boost America's presence on communications panels around the world. The U.S. has long warned against allowing China to set the standards around 5G network development, pointing to Beijing's track record of disregarding human rights and intellectual property rules.  Meanwhile, the Secure 5G and Beyond Act, which passed 413-3, would draw up a "whole-of-government" strategy to protect U.S. telecommunications networks from national security threats posed by Chinese telecommunications companies like Huawei and ZTE, which are currently leading the rollout of 5G networks worldwide.  Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who introduced the bill with a group of bipartisan colleagues last year, warned against the growing influence of Huawei and ZTE on Wednesday, pointing to her legislation as an effective method to knee-cap the successful Chinese companies. “To protect the privacy, data, and security of American consumers and companies, we need a national game plan to defend U.S. wireless systems from the next wave of cyber threats," Spanberger said. "As we witness the growing influence of foreign-based 5G companies like Huawei and ZTE, this bill would level the playing field for American tech companies and defend the online security of American families and businesses." The Secure 5G and Beyond Act would require the administration to create an “unclassified national strategy” to protect the U.S. consumers and allies from threats to 5G systems. The strategy would include language on ways to encourage research and development by U.S. companies around maintaining access to 5G for all Americans, and on protecting the “competitiveness” of U.S. companies.  The House bill has a companion in the Senate, increasing the likelihood that it will reach the president's desk. 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.

2017-07-17 12:31:35

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Global Health HOUSTON — With 4.5 million people in a hot, muggy metropolis built atop a bayou, America’s fourth-largest city, Houston, is a perfect target for the mosquito-borne Zika virus. But it may be better prepared than any other urban center to stop an outbreak. The city last year increased its mosquito-control budget by 33 percent. Officials are testing new high-tech traps and have plans to release genetically modified mosquitoes that produce short-lived offspring, reducing the population. Should the virus start spreading here, officials are prepared to follow Miami’s example, beginning aerial spraying and house-to-house inspections to clear standing water in which mosquitoes breed. “We’re much better prepared this year than we were last year,” said Mustapha Debboun, mosquito control director of Harris County, which includes Houston. Almost everywhere, Year 2 of Zika is looking much less threatening than Year 1. But the risk posed by this virus is far from gone. According to the Pan American Health Organization, the number of infections has declined precipitously in the Americas, except for Peru, Ecuador and Argentina. Zika infections are down by more than 90 percent in the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico. Cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome paralysis, linked to infection with the virus, are also down to pre-epidemic levels. Fewer infections overseas should mean fewer travelers returning to the United States with live virus in their blood, reducing the likelihood of an outbreak here. Dr. Scott C. Weaver, a Zika expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch in nearby Galveston, described himself as “cautiously optimistic” that the epidemic was fading out. Still, he warned, “it’s premature to conclude that the danger is over.” Data is limited on infections just over the border in Mexico, and the rainy season — prime time for mosquito breeding — has just begun in Central America and the Caribbean. Still, it’s a far cry from the situation last year, when a surge of babies born with abnormally small heads in Brazil sowed an international panic. The birth defects were shown to be linked to infection with the Zika virus, transmitted to pregnant women by common household mosquitoes. As the epidemic crept northward with warming weather, drug companies began testing more than 20 vaccines. The Obama White House fought a bitter battle with congressional Republicans over emergency funding, and the Gulf Coast, where similar mosquitoes had previously caused outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya, braced for the worst. Ultimately, the country recorded about 5,100 cases, of which about 4,800 were acquired by travelers overseas. Florida reported 218 cases of locally acquired Zika infection, however, mostly in Miami. Texas recorded only six, all in the Brownsville area, abutting Mexico. Thus far, 216 babies with severe Zika-related birth defects have been born or have died in the womb, 88 of them in the United States and 128 in its territories, mostly in Puerto Rico, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As winter returned, the disease receded from the headlines. This summer, there is no panic in cities like Houston, only uncertainty. Some pregnant women here are nervous; others are not, despite the city’s efforts to sound the alarm with posters, movie theater ads and other public messages. Jessenia Rocha, 31, a behavioral health representative at Legacy Community Health, is pregnant with her fifth child. Recently she drove 13 hours to San Luis Potosí, Mexico, for her great-grandmother’s funeral. “My doctor said, ‘Don’t go,’ but I had to be there,” she said. “So my doctor said, ‘O.K., then wear long sleeves and use repellent.’” Ms. Rocha stayed only two hours, then drove straight back. Krystle McConico, 31, a gospel singer expecting her first baby, worries not at all. “Two of my close friends are also pregnant, and we haven’t had one conversation about Zika,” she said. “My physician didn’t mention it at my first appointment.” Her job has taken her to Africa and Asia without problems. Some of her fearlessness may stem from her belief that God will protect her, she said. “Also,” she added, “mosquitoes just don’t like me. I can sit on the porch with my mother and father, and they get bitten all over and I get nothing.” Harris County’s mosquito-control program began during a 1965 epidemic of St. Louis encephalitis and was strengthened after the West Nile virus arrived in 2002. Every day at dawn, workers hoist nearly invisible nets in local parks to capture birds for blood sampling. (West Nile and several other dangerous viruses are found in birds, although Zika is not.) More than 400 mosquito traps are scattered around the county. Some are baited with dry ice, which emits carbon dioxide, the element of human breath that draws mosquitoes. Some traps exude the lactic acid-ammonia mix of human sweat, while still others use water to attract egg-laying females. Officials are also testing high-tech experimental traps made by Microsoft that can tell mosquito species apart. The county has its own virology laboratory, including a $300,000 P.C.R. machine acquired specifically for Zika testing. The biggest weakness in the county’s defenses is that officials still do “passive surveillance” for cases of Zika infection — meaning they must wait for doctors to report them. Not every doctor who sees a rash and red eyes thinks of Zika. Test results can take weeks, and doctors often fail to alert the health department to new cases, even though they are legally required to do so. Months could elapse before the city realizes the virus has appeared. A recent paper in Nature concluded that Zika actually arrived in Miami in March or April, but was not detected until July. Dr. David E. Persse, Houston’s chief medical officer, said he would prefer to do “active surveillance” — by, for example, testing all blood specimens taken in local hospitals. “But there’s no money for it,” he said. More than 60 percent of the counties on the Gulf Coast and Mexican border, the areas likeliest to see a Zika outbreak, are rated “in need of improvement” for mosquito control, said Dr. Oscar Alleyne, public health adviser to the National Association of County and City Health Officials. The $1.1 billion in Zika funding that Congress passed last year runs out in September. The Trump administration seeks to cut the C.D.C. budget by $1.2 billion, to what the agency had 20 years ago. Many county health departments depend on C.D.C. grants, and they have already been “eviscerated,” said Claude Jacob, president of the health officials’ association. Some 43,000 public health jobs were cut over the last decade. “We need a contingency fund for epidemics,” said Dr. Paul Jarris, chief medical officer of the March of Dimes, which fights for Zika funding because of the danger to infants. “If we have a hurricane, FEMA doesn’t have to wait for months until Congress responds. Not having a fund just doesn’t make sense.” Money is not the only obstacle to turning back the virus. If there is no intense epidemic somewhere in the Western Hemisphere this summer, it will be hard to test any candidate Zika vaccine, said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. For a valid study, between 2,500 and 5,000 people — ideally in several locations — must get either a vaccine or a placebo. “If we get a big, big outbreak, we can get an answer about the vaccine’s efficacy by mid-2018,” he said. “If we don’t, it may take till 2020 or 2021.” With fewer infections, it may take years to evaluate a Zika vaccine; experts fear that drug makers will lose interest, as they did in producing a vaccine against West Nile. (Although there are no human West Nile vaccines, three are licensed for horses.) The virus is a great threat to pregnant women, however, and Dr. Fauci said he hoped there would be enough potential customers in middle-income countries like Brazil and Mexico, along with wealthy American tourists and business travelers, to keep vaccine research going. At least one concern is gone: It now seems clear that the Zika virus will not sweep through Africa or Asia, damaging tens of thousands of babies, as had been feared. Since Zika was found in Africa in 1947 and detected in spots in Asia in the 1950s, scientists suspect it has circulated silently on those continents for decades, probably misdiagnosed as mild dengue or other rash-causing fevers. If so, most girls may get it in childhood and become immune before entering their childbearing years. If the Zika virus does reach Houston, it may not spread rapidly for another reason: Though huge, the city is not dense. Real estate is so cheap that even the poorest neighborhoods, like East Aldine and the Fifth Ward, have some grass around each house. Population density is far lower than in the slums of Brazil or Mexico, where a mosquito can find many victims living almost on top of one another. Officials do what they can to keep Houstonians on guard. The county’s “Skeeter School Bus” visits schools and playgrounds to enlist children in the cause, since they are effective at nagging their parents to empty birdbaths and clean gutters, said Dr. Umair A. Shah, public health director of Harris County. But a sense of fatigue is pervasive. “Last year, as soon as you turned on TV — Zika! As soon as you got to work — Zika!” Ms. Rocha said. “This year, I haven’t seen anything.”

2017-10-18 00:00:00

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When Rachel Romu, a 24-year-old from Toronto, was around 16 years old, she remembers starting to randomly feel really off. Her heart would race rapidly, she felt dizzy when she stood up, and sometimes she would faint and black out. Her doctors said her symptoms must just be a panic attack or sign of an anxiety disorder. "I was getting sent home, and I was getting ignored," she says. But Romu sensed that her fainting episodes were something bigger than panic attacks, because they often left her unconscious, but when she was able to lie down, her symptoms would improve. "I didn't know how to manage or identify [my symptoms], nor how to allow myself to take the time to deal with the symptoms day to day," she says. At the age of 23, a whopping seven years later, she got a diagnosis: she had dysautonomia and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. Dysautonomia refers to a group of disorders that affect a person's autonomic nervous system, which controls "all the stuff you don't think about," like heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, bowels, bladder function, and more, explains Blair Grubb, MD, a medical advisor for Dysautonomia International. When a person has dysautonomia, all of these otherwise involuntary bodily functions can stop working, which contributes to a host of vague but sometimes debilitating symptoms. "The things you take for granted that will happen automatically no longer occur," Dr. Grubb says. Since "dysautonomia" is an umbrella term for several different illnesses, its scope is pretty broad, Dr. Grubb says. According to Dysautonomia International, an estimated 70 million people worldwide live with various forms of the disorder. One of the most common forms is postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome aka POTS, and the majority of people with POTS are young women, between the ages of 13 and 50, according to a 2014 study. The female to male ratio for POTS is 5 to 1, and an estimated 1 to 3 million adults in the U.S. have it, according to the National Institutes for Health. Usually, dysautonomia is diagnosed through a series of tests that measure autonomic system functioning, although it can vary based on the specific disorder that someone has. For POTS in particular, doctors use something called a "tilt table test," in which a patient's blood pressure is checked while they're lying down, then at varying angles, according to Dysautonomia International. If their heart rate increases 30 beats per minute or more, or over 120 bpm within the first 10 minutes of standing, they'd be diagnosed with POTS. There is currently no cure for dysautonomia, which means people diagnosed with it simply have to learn to manage their symptoms. Some find that keeping their head elevated while sleeping helps with the dizziness, while others are careful to eat a high-salt diet, drink lots of water, and occasionally get an IV of saline; this helps increase blood volume which can be low in POTS sufferers. Careful exercise may also help to manage the symptoms, according to Lauren Stiles, president of Dysautonomia International, who also suffers from the disorder. These days, Romu says she is constantly fatigued, lightheaded, and frequently struggles with a racing heart. "These sort of symptoms get aggravated to where it can wreck my whole day," she says. Recently, she fainted in her bathtub despite taking very cautious measures to ensure it wouldn't happen. "It's as involuntary as a sneeze, like you can't make it not happen, but there's certain things that, lifestyle-wise, I have to do to mitigate risk," she says. For example, Romu drinks special soda water to ensure that she's getting enough sodium. As a result of her EDS, and a spinal tumor she had removed, she uses a cane to get around. "[Dysautonomia] doesn't mean we can't do things, it just means we need to do things differently, and it means that we might need rest in ways that seem strange," she says. Romu still needs to have more tests done to confirm that she has POTS, although symptomatically she seems to fit the description. The average time it takes to diagnose POTS in a patient is four years and two months, says Stiles. When she was 31, she sustained a concussion while snowboarding. Within a few days, she couldn't stand up without fainting, but no one could tell her why, she says. The majority of patients with dysautonomia have their symptoms blamed on some version of, "it's all in your head," Stiles says. Over the course of two years, Stiles was mostly bedridden and saw dozens of doctors. There are a couple of reasons why it takes so long for doctors to diagnose dysautonomia. For starters, there aren't a lot of specialized autonomic treatment centers around the country, and since symptoms can arise after another traumatic event, like an injury, accident, or even pregnancy, it can be hard to pinpoint. And, because the symptoms can seem vague or random, it takes time for patients and doctors to realize that there is an autonomic component to even look into specialized clinics for testing, according to Lucy Norcliffe-Kaufmann, PhD associate director of NYU Langone's Dysautonomia Center. Romu had a similarly frustrating experience when she first sought treatment. "I found that, as a woman in particular, you go into the doctor's office screaming or really complaining, and they try to diagnose you with an anxiety disorder," Romu says. "Realistically, when you do have your heart start to race it can aggravate anxiety-style symptoms, but it was a physiological response they were missing the whole time." Dr. Grubb agrees that dysautonomia doesn't get the attention it deserves because it disproportionately affects women. "If men were affected more, then it would become more important — but unfortunately because it affects women, it makes it seem 'less important,'" he says. At the moment, there's a real need for more research funding for dysautonomia, and also awareness among medical professionals. "Talk to your doctors about this and ask them if they've heard of POTS," Stiles suggests. It's also important to advocate for yourself as a patient. If you think you're being disbelieved by your doctor, go to another one until you feel heard — after all, nobody knows your body like you. October is Dysautonomia Awareness Month. To learn more or find out ways to help, click here.

2016-12-01 13:35:00

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How lucky are you, Aquarius? This month you'll host cosmic lovebirds Venus and Mars in your sign — a surefire way to kick your romantic life back into the highest possible gear. They’ll be pair-bonding from December 7th through the 19th, making you both fearless and fierce in the game of love. Better still, lucky Jupiter sends both planets a wink on the 1st and on the 25th, bookending the month in golden opportunities. Jupiter loves when you stretch outside of your comfort zone, so open your mind to a totally different type. Or, mix up your date night game with more adventurous experiences. The full moon on the 13th could bring one of 2016's romantic highs. Coupled Aquarians could experience some toe-curling surprises, like a gorgeous piece of jewelry or a proposal! This is a fertile full moon, so if babies are on your brain, you could have a special announcement to make soon. Ready to exit a bad romance? The Capricorn sun hastens your departure after the 21st. Out with the old, in with the new — just in time for 2017. To get the details on this look and more, click here.All products by Revlon®, prices vary by retailer. ColorStay™Makeup for Combination/Oily Skin, $14.49; ColorStay™ Brow Pencil, $6.97; ColorStay™ Creme Eye Shadow in Praline, $7.99; ColorStay™ Creme Eye Shadow in Black Currant, $6.97; ColorStay™ Crème Eye Shadow in Vanilla, $6.97; ColorStay™ 2-in-1 Angled Kajal in Onyx, $6.97; Dramatic Definition™ Mascara, $8.99; Insta-Blush in Berry Kiss, $12.99; Ultra HD™ Gel Lipcolor in HD Dawn, $8.99; ColorStay Gel Envy™ Nail Enamel in A Perfect Pair, $7.99; ColorStay Gel Envy™ Diamond Top Coat, $7.99.Photographed by Nick Eucker; Styled by Laura Pritchard; Hair by Peter Matteliano at Kate Ryan; Makeup by Ashleigh Ciucci; Nails by Holly Falcone at Kate Ryan; Set Design by Hans Maharawal; Modeled by Senait for IMG Models. Model wearing Sass & Bide top and Smith + Mara earrings.

2018-02-14

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January's shocking drop in retail sales looks like there was a body blow to the consumer, but economists say it is likely a temporary hit and the positive impact of the tax bill should more than make up for it. Retail sales, a measure of consumer spending, fell 0.3 percent, compared with an expected gain of 0.2 percent, and December's report was also revised lower. It was the worst decline since February 2017. Economists say even with the December revisions, it's unlikely the report is signaling a longer-term weakness in the consumer, the engine for about two-thirds of the U.S. economy. "The underlying fundamentals for the consumer are still pretty good. The unemployment rate is still moving lower, job growth is strong and consumer confidence remains elevated. It doesn't look like the consumer's going to go into any sort of pullback here," said Kevin Cummins, senior U.S. economist at Natwest Markets. The retail sales number was released just as the consumer price index showed the biggest pickup in inflation in the past year. CPI rose 0.5 percent, or 2.1 percent year over year, a much sharper jump in prices than the 0.3 percent expected. Economists also expect inflation to rise more slowly, and Cummins said inflation has a pattern of running higher in January than other months. The consumer also has seen wages rising, but could get another bump in pay. "I think there's a lot of things related to that tax package we haven't really seen before," said Drew Matus, chief market strategist at MetLife. "There are almost 8 million workers that work at firms that announced some kind of improved benefits, or bonuses or wages, and I have to assume that has to do something for consumer confidence." Most taxpayers should see a benefit from the tax plan, and that should begin to show up in paychecks this month. Even the Fed should not be concerned much about the soft spot in spending and is expected to continue on its course to raise interest rates. "The way they'll interpret this is they'll look at the outlook and say, hey, we have tax reform coming. People should have more after-tax income beginning in February. That should create more aggregate demand going forward," said Joseph Song, Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. economist. Cummins said spending should also pick up as consumers get their tax refund checks. January's weakness could be blamed on the weather, Matus said. He said the drop-off in some spending, such as vehicles, could be directly tied to cold weather. But he said apparel sales rose and prices increased as well, suggesting the bitter cold of January resulted in more winter clothing purchases. "When something happens that's going to be weak in the first quarter, we're going to blame it on the weather. We're blaming it on the weather," he said.

2018-03-19 00:00:00

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March 19 (Reuters) - Zhejiang VIE Science & Technology Co Ltd: * SAYS IT SCRAPS PLAN TO BUY STAKE IN EVATRAN Source text in Chinese: bit.ly/2ICoDy7 Further company coverage: (Reporting by Hong Kong newsroom)

2019-12-09 00:00:00

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Lufthansa (LHAG.DE) will initiate the sale of the parts of its catering unit LSG it is not selling to Switzerland’s Gategroup (GGRUF.PK) early next year, the German carrier said on Monday. Lufthansa announced last month it is selling the European operations of LSG to Gategroup. The businesses it is selling generated revenues of around 1.1 billion euros ($1.21 billion)last year - about a third of LSG’s total. On Monday, it said it had concluded that purchase agreement, setting up a new joint venture company for the Frankfurt and Munich operations which provide catering for its flights, with Lufthansa retaining a minority shareholding in that. It added that it would initiate the sale of the rest of the group early in 2020. Lufthansa has said the sale is part of its new strategy to focus on its airline business. Reporting by Emma Thomasson, editing by Louise Heavens

2017-07-11 14:30:00

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Laurel “Buff” Burkel lay unconscious with a broken neck on the day Greg Gangnuss clambered through smoke, fuel and twisted metal in order to pull her out of a crashed helicopter. Nearly 20 months after that horrible day in Afghanistan, though, the Air Force colonel instantly knew her civilian rescuer when she spotted him at the Pentagon. “Greg!” Burkel shouted, rushing toward Gangnuss when he walked into the conference room where the colonel was chatting with PEOPLE. “Thank you,” Burkel said emphatically, as she and Gangnuss embraced through smiles and mist-covered eyes. It was the pair’s first reunion since the crash that killed five and injured four aboard the aircraft, and one on the ground. Burkel and Gangnuss reconnected June 21 at Air Force Magazine Day, an annual program for journalists, where they told their story. It was nothing like the duo’s first encounter. At the time, both were advisors stationed overseas: Burkel, to the Afghan Air Force; and Gangnuss, to the Afghan Ministry of Defense. Their jobs kept them in different orbits, sharing nothing but a locale. “We never would have met each other,” Burkel tells PEOPLE. Then came October 11, 2015. On that day, Burkel joined other coalition personnel for a helicopter flight from the airport in Kabul to NATO headquarters, a short journey by air. As the two-helicopter flight approached the destination, the pilots saw that a soccer game was in progress atop the landing zone. The pilots changed course. Moments into the new route, the rotors on Burkel’s helicopter became ensnared in a surveillance balloon tether. The tether did not snap; instead, it held firm, preventing the rotors from holding the helicopter aloft. On the ground, meanwhile, Gangnuss was in his office inside the NATO compound. The reverberation from a helicopter both off-key and very low overhead caught his attention. “That doesn’t sound right,” Gangnuss recalled thinking. Then came the horrific noise of the British Puma Mk 2 helicopter smashing into the ground at more than 4,000 feet per minute. Gangnuss, a civil engineer, rushed outdoors. There, he saw what was left of the aircraft as it lay on one side, spewing smoke and highly volatile aviation fuel. Many in the area fled in fear of a likely explosion. Not Gangnuss. “I just knew when I saw it there were people hurt,” Gangnuss said. He ran toward the smoke-enshrouded wreck, and clambered atop in search of an opening. “I saw a hand,” Gangnuss said as he quietly discussed the memory. Drenched in fuel, Gangnuss removed the helicopter door, and began to dig. Another rescuer, Army Maj. Reuben Trant, later told an Air Force writer that Gangnuss went in when no one on the ground could see the wreck through the smoke and the dust. For more than an hour and a half, while a medic checked toe pulses on the entrapped passengers, Gangnuss and others continued their mission, working into the night by the glow of Trant’s hand-held light. Tragically, five could not be saved. They included the pilot, the door gunner, a French contractor and two Americans who were flying with Burkel, Maj. Phyllis Pelky and Master Sgt. Gregory Kuhse. The rescuers also found four survivors — among them, Burkel. “I saw that it was an American colonel,” Gangnuss said. He knew right away: “It was one of ours.” She was alive, but perilously so. “If I had turned my head, or thrashed around, I could have killed myself,” says Burkel, whose only memory of the event is the sensation of tumbling forward into a state of “chaos, confusion and yelling.” Many people jumped in to assist, Burkel says. “There was a lot of goodness on a really crappy day.” While first responders worked to save the other injured, Burkel was whisked away and placed aboard a flight to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. Gangnuss and Trant remained on scene until the only thing left for them to do was to wash themselves off. From there, Burkel proceeded toward recovery. Gangnuss went back to work. Eventually, so did Burkel. Once again, their work schedules kept them apart. In recognition of Gangnuss’ actions that day, the Air Force honored him in February of this year with its Civilian Award for Valor. The award goes to non-service members who risk personal safety and show courage in the course of heroism. Burkel was thrilled for Gangnuss to receive the award. “It’s great that he happens to be a civilian, because we don’t often think of civilians as heroic,” she says. For Burkel, the one thing missing was to be able to thank her rescuer in person. For Gangnuss, he wanted to encounter the healthy version of the colonel he last saw while she was strapped to a backboard, clinging to life. The Pentagon event provided the opportunity to reconnect. “I went there to meet the guy who saved my life that day,” Burkel says. “I had no idea when he was going to show up.” While waiting for the Magazine Day panels to begin, Burkel stood holding a coffee cup while chatting with a PEOPLE reporter, talking about how excited she was to see Gangnuss. “When he walked in, I was like, ‘Excuse me, I have to put this down and give this guy a hug,’ ” she says. “She knew me right away!” Gangnuss marvels. Their friendship clearly established, the two compared memories of the day one of them helped save the other’s life. Later, the two were inseparable while at an Irish pub near the Pentagon. “He’s definitely on my Christmas card list,” Burkel says. Gangnuss deflected suggestions that he was a hero, saying that he acted not from heroism, but from ordinary human caring. Burkel thinks otherwise. “A lot of us think we would be the ones who would run to help. He embodies it,” she says. “He did that noble thing we all hope we would do.” Being able to thank him in person was “powerful,” Burkel says. “I’ve never hugged a colonel before,” the unassuming Gangnuss said, smiling broadly. “Today I’ve done it twice.” Before the gathering ended, the two lost track of all the hugs, but not of one another. Says Burkel: “We’re friends for life.”

2020-01-15 00:00:00

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signing@ * EM stocks fall for first time in five days * U.S. tariffs to remain until Phase 2 deal - Mnuchin * Russian rouble, South African rand little changed * Turkish lira slides for second straight session Jan 15 (Reuters) - Emerging market stocks fell from 19-month highs on Wednesday, as optimism around a long-awaited initial U.S.-China trade deal was dulled by comments that U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods would stay in place until the next phase of the agreement was reached. An index of emerging market equities shed 0.4%, after gaining earlier this week as U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He geared up to sign the Phase 1 trade pact in Washington on Wednesday. The two sides have not yet disclosed finer details of the agreement, but a rally in world stocks lost steam after U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Tuesday the United States would keep existing tariffs until the completion of a Phase 2 deal. "Some air has come out of the trade deal party balloon as the market pivots to the unknowns around the Phase 2 component," said Stephen Innes, a market strategist at AxiTrader. "A more on the nose surprise, like an explicit roadmap for a further rollback in tariffs, could open the way for more definite appreciation (in markets)." Global stock markets have scaled record highs since December as investors bet on faster global growth this year, supported by relatively loose monetary policy by some of the world's most influential central banks and strong corporate earnings. U.S. banks kicked off the fourth-quarter reporting reason on a high on Tuesday, with the biggest U.S. lender JPMorgan Chase & Co hitting new profit records despite persistently low interest rates. Economic indicators in the developing world have been more mixed, with political uncertainty and sluggish growth in most regional economies denting demand for riskier assets. MSCI's index of emerging market currencies dipped on Wednesday after gaining for six days in a row. The South African rand was flat ahead of retail sales figures for November due later in the day. Africa's most industrialised economy stuttered last year, partly due to the most severe blackouts in a decade. Russia's rouble was also little changed versus the dollar, as investor attention turned to President Vladimir Putin's annual address to lawmakers and the ruling elite. The Turkish lira eased 0.2% for the second straight session, as data showed the budget deficit widened to 123.69 billion lira ($21 billion) in 2019, partly reflecting fiscal stimulus to lift the economy from recession. Currencies in eastern and central European economies such as Hungary and Poland slipped slightly against the euro. For GRAPHIC on emerging market FX performance in 2020, see http://tmsnrt.rs/2egbfVh For GRAPHIC on MSCI emerging index performance in 2020, see https://tmsnrt.rs/2OusNdX For TOP NEWS across emerging markets For CENTRAL EUROPE market report, see For TURKISH market report, see For RUSSIAN market report, see (Reporting by Sagarika Jaisinghani in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)

2018-06-12 00:00:00

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close Video High school pitcher consoles friend after striking him out Minnesota high school pitcher consoles childhood friend after striking him out to reach state championship. Sportsmanship was on full display over the weekend in Minnesota when a high school baseball player comforted his friend right after striking him out in playoff game to advance to the state championship. Instead of celebrating with teammates on the field, Mounds View pitcher Ty Koehn jogged off the mound after delivering the game-winning strikeout and embraced Totino-Grace batter Jack Kocon because “friendship is more important than just the silly outcome of a game,” Bring Me The News reported. “I knew the game was going to keep going or it was going to end right there,” Koehn told the Minnesota sports site. “I knew I had to say something. Our friendship is more important than just the silly outcome of a game. I had to make sure he knew that before we celebrated.” A fan captured the moment in a video posted to Twitter that shows Koehn pushing past his catcher -- who appears to try and congratulate him – to console his friend while teammates stormed the mound and threw their gloves in the air to revel in the moment. Koehn and Kocon reportedly played youth baseball together before going their separate ways in high school, but maintained a close relationship, according to the outlet. Mounds View defeated Totino-Grace 17-10.

2019-09-20 00:00:00

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Facebook today announced that its internal probe of application developer conduct has led to tens of thousands of app suspensions, a disclosure that came amid a rare Washington visit from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. “To date, this investigation has addressed millions of apps,” Facebook's Ime Archibong wrote. “Of those, tens of thousands have been suspended for a variety of reasons while we continue to investigate.” About 400 developers are involved, the social media giant reported. The audit targeted apps that had access to reams of data before policies were tightened in 2014. Zuckerberg launched the probe in March of last year amid revelations that Trump-linked political data firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly obtained information on as many 87 million Facebook users. The FTC in July unveiled a $5 billion privacy settlement with Facebook that resolved an investigation into Cambridge Analytica and other issues. In May of last year, Facebook had only suspended some 200 apps as part of its internal probe. The company said it has banned some apps, citing one called myPersonality. The company also noted recent instances where it’s sued app developers. Facebook suggested many of the affected apps were taken down because developers didn't respond to inquiries. “This is not necessarily an indication that these apps were posing a threat to people,” Archibong said. “Many were not live but were still in their testing phase when we suspended them."

2017-01-29 21:10:46

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CAIRO — The Germans criticized it. The British voiced their discomfort. The French, the Canadians and even some Republican senators in Washington stood in open opposition. But in Cairo and Riyadh, in the heart of the Muslim world, President Trump’s decision to bar millions of refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from the United States was met with a conspicuous silence. King Salman of Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s holiest sites, spoke to Mr. Trump by telephone on Sunday but made no public comment. President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, whose capital, Cairo, is a traditional seat of Islamic scholarship, said nothing. Even the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a group of 57 nations that considers itself the collective voice of the Muslim world, kept quiet. Leaders in Iran and Iraq, two of the countries targeted by Mr. Trump’s order, issued furious denunciations on Sunday and vowed to take retaliatory measures. But the silence in the capitals of Muslim-majority countries unaffected by the order reflected a lack of solidarity and an enduring uncertainty about the direction that Mr. Trump’s foreign policy might take in some of the world’s most volatile corners. Will he move the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem? Designate Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization? Fall in line with Russia in dealing with the conflict in Syria? “Trump has promised to do all kinds of things, but it’s not clear what he will move on immediately,” said Nathan J. Brown, a Middle East expert at George Washington University. “Nobody seems to know. It’s not even clear if Trump knows.” The lack of unity stems from an old problem: Muslim leaders pay lip service to the “ummah,” or global community of Muslims, but are more often driven by narrow national interests — even when faced with grave actions seen as an affront to their own people. “They don’t have a strong basis of legitimacy at home,” said Rami G. Khouri, a senior fellow at the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut. “They are delicately perched between the anger of their own people and the anger they might generate from the American president.” Still, Mr. Trump’s executive order — which froze all refugee arrivals in the United States and barred the entry of citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days — has sent a whirlwind of confusion, anxiety and fury across the Middle East and Africa. Refugees have been turned back at airports, families separated indefinitely and long-planned trips upended. “I thought in America, there were institutions and democracy,” said Fuad Sharef, 51, an Iraqi Kurd bound for New York who was turned away from the Cairo airport with his wife and three children on Saturday morning. “This looks like a decision from a dictator. It’s like Saddam Hussein.” On Sunday, Trump administration officials backtracked on one aspect of the order, saying green-card holders would be allowed to return to the United States. In a Facebook post on Sunday evening, Mr. Trump insisted that his policy was not a “Muslim ban” and accused the news media of inaccurate reporting. Hours earlier, he had characterized the conflict with the Islamic State in starkly sectarian terms, asserting on Twitter: “Christians in the Middle East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!” In fact, a majority of the Islamic State’s victims have been Muslims, many of them shot, burned or beheaded. Among the Muslims who managed to escape Islamic State territory are the refugees Mr. Trump has now excluded. In a phone conversation with Mr. Trump on Saturday, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany cited the 1951 Refugee Convention, which calls on signatories to take in people fleeing war, according to Steffen Seibert, Ms. Merkel’s spokesman. Yet in much of the Middle East, Mr. Trump is less likely to get such a scolding. He has drawn close to Mr. Sisi of Egypt, whom he called a “fantastic guy,” and is considering designating the Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Sisi’s sworn enemy, a terrorist organization. In a call last week, the two leaders discussed a possible visit to the White House by Mr. Sisi, whose administration faces accusations of human rights abuses — an unthinkable prospect during the Obama administration. In his order on Friday, whose stated aim is to keep extremists out of the United States, Mr. Trump invoked the Sept. 11 attacks three times. Yet Saudi Arabia, which was home to 15 of the 19 attackers, was not included on the list of countries whose citizens would be shut out. That reflects the deep economic and security ties between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Mr. Trump also has a personal financial link: In August 2015, just as his campaign was gathering steam, the Trump Organization registered eight companies in Saudi Arabia that were linked to a hotel development in the city of Jidda. Pakistan, another country whose citizens have carried out attacks in the United States, also ducked Mr. Trump’s list. Although Mr. Trump had a chummy phone call with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif shortly after the election in November, Pakistanis are nervously waiting to see if Mr. Trump will pull American troops from neighboring Afghanistan. “There’s a lot of concern,” said Zahid Hussain, a political analyst in Islamabad, Pakistan. “For now, they want to keep quiet and see how things go.” On Monday, King Abdullah II of Jordan is scheduled to meet in Washington with members of the Trump administration and Congress, the first Arab leader to do so since the executive order was issued. Muslim solidarity once existed. As recently as the early 2000s, most Muslim-majority countries agreed on issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and sanctions against Iraq. Now, after several regional wars and a surge in sectarian strife, that consensus has been shattered. Multinational organizations that represent Muslims are viewed as toothless entities. The head of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, which has headquarters in Saudi Arabia, was forced to quit last fall after he made a joke at the expense of Mr. Sisi of Egypt. In the early days of Mr. Trump’s campaign, the Islamic scholars at Al Azhar, the ancient seat of Islamic learning in Cairo, spoke out against the “smear campaigns being launched against Muslims in America.” But the scholars have yet to weigh in on Mr. Trump’s executive order, and even if they do, few observers expect them to stray from official Egyptian government policy. For many citizens of those countries, the docility of their leaders is frustrating. Samer S. Shehata, of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar, said that many of his students had already canceled their plans to study in the United States. “I don’t think anyone is under any illusion that if you are a Muslim or an Arab, you’re going to be treated different in this Trump presidency,” he said. Mr. Khouri, of the American University of Beirut, said the disconnect between rulers and civilians in some countries spoke to the underlying anger that fueled the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. “Even when this American move is insulting Muslims and Islam, they do nothing about it,” he said. “That’s going to create more anger, and more pressure, in the Arab world. It’s terrible.” An article on Jan. 30 about the conspicuous silence from some Muslim nations after President Trump decided to bar millions of refugees and citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from the United States gave an outdated position for Rami G. Khouri, who said some Muslim leaders “don’t have a strong basis of legitimacy at home.” He is a senior fellow at the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut, and no longer its director.

2016-08-08 00:00:00

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Aug 8 (Reuters) - St Augustine Gold And Copper LTD * St. Augustine announces receipt of renewal of mineral production sharing agreement for the King-King project from the Philippine government * Renewal is for period of 25 yrs, and was awarded to Co’s joint venture partner, nationwide development corp Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2018-06-08 00:00:00

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Masked murderer Michael Myers may be one of horror's most famous villains, but it's the franchise's "final girl" that gives fans a reason to return to Haddonfield. In the 2018 sequel Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode is now not so much a "girl" (or a teen babysitter, for that matter) but a badass woman ready to fight back against the very literal monster in her closet. The new trailer for Halloween proves that, once again, the fight will be a bloody one. Not that fans of the franchise would have it any other way. John Carpenter's original 1978 film Halloween was one of the first mainstream films to claim a place in the slasher genre, and Michael Myers — the escaped mental hospital patient with a vendetta against babysitters — one of this sect of horror's first household names. Myers returned for his methodical killing spree over multiple sequels and remakes. The most recent was Rob Zombie's 2009 remake Halloween II, which starred Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie. But this version of the Halloween franchise is going back to the very first battle, with its original Laurie Strode. The 2018 film promises to be one hell of an epic showdown between Myers and his maybe-sister Laurie, who has waited years for Myers to escape a mental institution solely so she can kill him. (Speaking of that sister thing: Laurie's granddaughter denies the sibling connection between Laurie and Myers, which suggests that the film is, possibly, retconning an established storyline from earlier sequels, as the franchise previously did by retroactively removing Halloween 4, 5, and 6 from the timeline.) Might Laurie finally succeed in offing the boogeyman? Err, doubtful — Myers might as well be immortal, just like the Halloween franchise. So... what's Myers up to in 2018? His old tricks, mostly. He still really hates babysitters, and really loves murder. Perhaps his cruelest trick of the trailer, however, is harassing a poor woman while she's on the toilet in a public restroom, making it rain bloody teeth when she was just trying to have one damn moment alone. The new film hits theaters this October. Welcome back, Michael and Laurie. It's been too long. Check out the trailer below:

2020-03-13 00:00:00

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March 13 (Reuters) - Stemline Therapeutics Inc: * STEMLINE THERAPEUTICS REPORTS FOURTH QUARTER 2019 FINANCIAL RESULTS * Q4 REVENUE $11.8 MILLION VERSUS REFINITIV IBES ESTIMATE OF $13.6 MILLION * QTRLY LOSS PER SHARE $0.38 Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:

2016-01-15 19:18:34

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CHICAGO — Despite calls to boycott an annual breakfast Mayor Rahm Emanuel was hosting in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a hotel ballroom was mostly full on Friday morning. The speech he delivered was greeted with polite applause. Some influential black leaders even offered friendly remarks from the stage. Mr. Emanuel, who has overseen a city upended since November by anger over police misconduct and shootings of residents, is in deep political trouble, especially among black voters. Some have called for his resignation and marched down Michigan Avenue with signs saying, “Fire Rahm.” But the anger here is not uniform, and as Friday’s breakfast showed, Mr. Emanuel so far retains support from some prominent African-American pastors and elected officials. Dorothy Tillman, a former Chicago alderman from the South Side, thanked the mayor and said that had Mr. Emanuel “not had this breakfast, there would have been a march saying you’re disrespecting Dr. King.” Still, the annual invitation-only breakfast was interrupted twice when a protester rose to chant, “16 shots!” alluding to the number of bullets a police officer fired into Laquan McDonald, a black 17-year-old. A small protest also took place outside, and some high-profile ministers who had called for a boycott of the event did not attend. Not far away, Chicago Teachers Union leaders, staunch political adversaries of the mayor, organized their own King Day breakfast. “I think it’s making a statement,” said the Rev. James Dukes, who was among those urging a boycott, and who spoke Friday outside the hotel where the mayor’s breakfast was held. “You’ll see notables who are normally in there who are not in there.” Before the crowd that city officials estimated to include 900 people, Mr. Emanuel reiterated his pledge to improve Chicago’s embattled Police Department, as he has several times since a video of Mr. McDonald’s shooting was made public after months of resistance by his administration. “We will not be the city we need to be and can be unless we restore trust between our police and our communities,” Mr. Emanuel said to polite applause, adding that such work will mean having “to root out the cancer of police abuse.” Since November, Mr. Emanuel, a second-term Democrat, has spoken repeatedly about the need for improved policing. He has fired the department’s superintendent and said that more officers would receive Tasers. Protesters have largely dismissed his efforts as political maneuvering, and have been unrelenting in calling for his resignation. He has not been helped by the emergence of new cases — including one on Dec. 26, when an officer fatally shot a teenager wielding a baseball bat and a bystander — and increased scrutiny of other shootings from months or years ago. Autopsies in the December case, made public this week, showed that the teenager, Quintonio LeGrier, was shot six times, including shots to his back and buttocks. The bystander, Bettie Jones, was shot once in the chest. On Wednesday, city lawyers dropped their opposition to the release of surveillance videos showing the 2013 fatal police shooting of Cedrick Chatman, a black teenager suspected of a carjacking who was running away from officers when he was killed. A judge ordered Thursday that the footage be made public, and also criticized city officials who changed their minds on the topic the day before a hearing. Hundreds of pages of police reports and other documents released in the Chatman case on Friday, including the autopsy, showed that Officer Kevin Fry told other officers that Mr. Chatman turned at one point and the officer thought he saw a gun in Mr. Chatman’s hand, at which point he fired four times. Mr. Chatman was apparently holding a black iPhone box, the records show. No gun was found. And in the McDonald shooting, numerous Chicago police officers have been called to appear before a federal grand jury investigating the case in recent months, The Chicago Tribune first reported late Friday, which was confirmed by records the city provided. Officer Jason Van Dyke has been charged with murder in state court in Mr. McDonald’s death. At least five officers who were present during the shooting provided initial reports that backed up Officer Van Dyke’s version of events and appeared to contradict video images of the shooting. In interviews at Mr. Emanuel’s breakfast, guests expressed a range of views on the mayor, but many seemed to agree that boycotting the King Day breakfast, which has been held in this city for 30 years, would only serve to distract from the event’s stated purpose. “I thought it was important for us to honor Martin Luther King,” said Vincent Jackson, 38, a social worker who lives on Chicago’s South Side. “The mayor invited us, so I wanted to support the mayor.” Police issues, though, were mentioned frequently, and sometimes pointedly. The Rev. Neichelle Guidry, an associate pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ, which President Obama used to attend, listed the names of black people killed in recent years by Chicago police officers. “Give us the strength, God, to resist the empty, patronizing words that protect the culpable and defame the innocent and dishonor the slain,” Ms. Guidry said in a prayer that received a loud “Amen” from the audience. Many at the breakfast said they were longtime attendees, and noted that Chicago’s first black mayor, Harold Washington, began the tradition decades ago. “I’ve been coming here for 20 years — over 20 years — why am I going to stop now?” said Alderman Walter Burnett. “It’s not about the person. It’s about King. It’s about his legacy. “We should not protest this,” the alderman added. “We should hug this and embrace this.” video

2020-03-12 16:00:00

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This story is available exclusively on Business Insider Prime. Join BI Prime and start reading now. On Thursday, Atlassian launched automation in its flagship product Jira, allowing users to automate commons tasks.In October, Atlassian acquired Code Barrel, which created the popular app Automation for Jira. These features are now included in Jira itselfDevelopers can use this feature to automatically update tickets while they're writing code, and IT teams can use it to automatically alert colleagues via Slack or text about high-priority issues.Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. $30 billion Atlassian just launched new features for its flagship Jira product that allows users to automate common tasks without having to write a single line of code.This was made possible partly thanks to Code Barrel, a startup that Atlassian acquired in October. The startup's flagship software, an app called Automation for Jira, similarly helps its over 6,000 customers automate their most common, repetitive tasks.Since the acquisition, Atlassian has been working to bake these automation features directly into its Jira Cloud software, which developers use to track bugs and their code progress. This officially launched on Thursday. Jira's automation features also integrate with outside tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams."We believe it's such a critical part of modern work that we want to make it available to all our customers as part of our standard package," Matt Ryall, Atlassian's head of product for Jira Software Cloud, told Business Insider.Atlassian bills it as a "no-code" feature, which means that people can use the feature without having to write a single line of code. If users want to automate a certain task, they can use drag-and-drop buttons to set it up. The goal, Ryall says, is to make it as useful to as many customers as possible by letting them customize it to their heart's content. "These are some things you can build with no code," Ryall said. "The possibilities are unlimited. We see customers doing many things with this platform. It's an incredible platform to unlock teamwork."The 'foundation for all our products in the future'Ryall says automation in Jira can help customers streamline their work and teams work more effectively together. As more developers need to release code faster and more often, they often have to use "arcane automation tools" that are difficult to use, he says."Automation is really a challenging space across the industry. Teams are trying to collaborate more," Ryall said. "There's more collaboration between small teams. As the industry moves to DevOps, it requires quite a lot of effort."Developers often have to jump in and out of Jira to update their progress while writing code, he says. Now, he says, these new features make it easier for them to update Jira tickets while focusing on writing and releasing code. For example, they can set it up to connect to their development tools so that if they complete a task, the Jira ticket corresponding to the task will update automatically.IT teams can also automatically set up Jira to alert people about high priority tickets, such as assigning the ticket and having Slack or a text message automatically notify the team.  "Automation being available to every customer really unlocks possibilities that we don't think would exist out there to see," Ryall said. "I'm excited to see what our customers come up with. We think automation is a big part of the future. This solution brings us much closer to reality."Atlassian has already been working to add automation features to many of its products, and it plans to continue. For example, Atlassian's work management app subsidiary Trello recently acquired a similar no-code app called Butler. Ryall says there's also potential to make the process of releasing code to customers more automatic. "This automation platform we're building now will be the foundation for all our products in the future," Ryall said. "These are some of the future possibilities we see for automation. It's connecting companies to customers. It's really an incredible tool. We're starting to scratch the surface of what's possible."Got a tip? Contact this reporter via email at rmchan@businessinsider.com, Signal at 646.376.6106, Telegram at @rosaliechan, or Twitter DM at @rosaliechan17. (PR pitches by email only, please.) Other types of secure messaging available upon request. You can also contact Business Insider securely via SecureDrop.

2018-07-03 11:00:08

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Allison Arieff SAN FRANCISCO — Not too many years ago, I was having dinner with my in-laws in Orange County, Calif. My mother-in-law was complaining about her new neighbors, an all-too-common pastime for any resident of a gated community with an HOA. The neighbors’ crime? “They let their children play in our cul-de-sac,” she lamented. “Everyone knows streets are for cars.” “But Granny,” my daughter, then about 6, piped up, “streets are for people, not cars.” I smiled to myself and thought, my work here is done. While my daughter had pointed out something that seemed obvious to her, convincing her grandmother would be something else altogether. It’s no surprise that my city kid, now 12, who walks alone to the corner store, takes public transportation with her friends, carpools to school and has parents fortunate enough to both have 15-minute BART commutes, should be an advocate for the streets she interacts with so regularly. But she’s in the minority. In 1969, 48 percent of kids in kindergarten through eighth grade walked or biked to school; by 2009, that number had dropped to 13 percent. Most of us pass through the places where we live, work and play not on two feet or two wheels but in cars. We are disconnected from our streets — and so we don’t care about them. It shows. As Jane Jacobs observed in “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”: “The trust of a city street is formed over time from many, many little public sidewalk contacts. Most of it is ostensibly trivial but the sum is not trivial at all.” You don’t have any sidewalk contacts when the car is your default. And I think we’re seeing the very real effects of being a car-dependent nation, one that assumes its collective reliance on fossil fuel is not only sustainable but somehow an inalienable right. Our love affair with the car far supersedes our connection to the street, and by extension, our community. We need to counteract the maddeningly retrograde efforts of the Koch brothers to kill public transit projects across the country in the name of personal liberty. This disconnect, as Ms. Jacobs observed back in 1961, is not at all trivial. A nation ensconced in private vehicles is a nation too easily able to ignore the realities on its streets. How do we change that? In June, a series of pilot projects begun by the National Street Service — a project of Greenfield Labs, a mobility research arm of Ford’s — in partnership with Gehl, were completed. No question there are already a lot of terrific nonprofits and grass-roots efforts that have long been engaged in this effort. And there are numerous initiatives that run the gamut from (PARK)ing Day, now over a decade old, which turns parking spaces into temporary parks, to Reimagining the Civic Commons, which is working to demonstrate the power of the civic commons to produce increased and more equitably shared prosperity — and to establish metrics to analyze their impact. What’s different about this effort is not so much its approach — it draws heavily from tactical urbanism, community engagement strategies and grass-roots organizing — but its funder. National Streets Service is funded by a car company: Ford. You may be surprised to learn that a company perhaps most associated with country’s best-selling vehicle, the F-150, is doing this. But Ford, like many other automobile manufacturers, sees the writing on the wall — in contrast to the policies of the Trump administration. Ford has been steadily diversifying from a car company to a “mobility company.” It acquired Chariot, a crowd-sourced shuttle service, as well as two transportation software companies; it has invested in bikeshare and is creating public-private partnerships with public transit agencies This shift comes from an understanding that 1) we can no longer continue to rely on fossil fuels, 2) we need to look at our public spaces, streets and highways as a connected system and, of course, 3) if car ownership truly begins its predicted decline as autonomous vehicles become more prevalent, Ford needs to stay relevant. A commitment to safer streets is a commitment to the public good; it puts the needs of the collective above the convenience of the individual. It embraces the fact that we’re all in this together rather than work to make sure we’re always further apart. It starts with shifting mind-sets, and that’s where the N.S.S. comes in. The intent of the N.S.S. is to provoke meaningful discussion among people who share street space in different ways. By engaging everyone who uses streets, from sanitation workers to street vendors, commuters to the homeless, the project aims to ensure streets are safe, welcoming and functional spaces for people, not just cars. “Streets are the connective tissue of a community,” says Elaine Clegg, a Boise City, Idaho, council member who participated in the project, “and if your connective tissue isn’t healthy, then your community isn’t healthy.” During the program, which has been piloted so far in Boise, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Francisco and Pontiac, Mich., volunteers came together to observe and explore their streets, to create opportunities to help others reimagine what the street is for, and to collaborate across neighborhoods on projects to make streets welcoming for everyone. Said one N.S.S. volunteer: “I was surprised at how ingrained certain feelings are about the street, and how a lot of those feelings stem from fear. But it doesn’t have to be that way.” Over the course of 10 weeks, participants first observe and learn about their favorite (and least favorite) streets and then brainstorm ideas for low-cost interventions to make those streets better. Volunteers and project leaders then collaborate on a larger-scale effort to carry out some of those ideas and engage their respective communities. There is, of course, an N.S.S. app, though this effort openly acknowledges the limitations of technological solutions to solve many of the issues being explored. All the real-time tracking of mass transit departures and arrivals, for example, may make it easier to not miss a bus but won’t pay for and maintain that bus. So, on the one hand it’s a grass-roots project that challenges what streets are used for; on the other, it’s being funded by a car company. It’s easy to be skeptical about this (I certainly am, especially in light of the not-too-surprising new report showing that pickups and SUVs account for 40 percent of pedestrian fatalities) but regardless, it’s a departure. Other car-based businesses are also diversifying (Uber, for example has acquired JUMP, a dockless electric bikeshare company and has talked about getting into public transportation, a development I’m not keen on, and Lyft has redesigned its app to emphasize ridesharing and public transit and is about to acquire Motivate, which runs CitiBike, the largest bikeshare program in the country). So yes, we can be cynical about this shift — or be hopeful that it means more and more people might be willing to embrace alternatives, to become, as one company that focuses on transit integration calls it, “omni-modal.” Streets should be designed to accommodate all modes in equal measure, from strollers to skateboards, pedestrians to carpoolers. Jane Jacobs was right about a lot of things, and the “eyes on the street” concept was certainly one of them. Not the “if you see something, say something” paranoia variety, but rather the “let’s all look out for each other” kind. If well-funded initiatives like the street service were adopted everywhere — and the private sector was a partner, not the decider (I am in no way advocating for a privatization of public spaces like parks, plazas and streets), it could radically change the way streets are designed and built. Of course, we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for the auto company equivalent of greenwashing. Dare I call it “car-washing”? The project suggests a very different city future than the last 100 years of car-oriented city building has produced. And ideally it could become a sort of anti-Koch version of Americans for Prosperity, one that inspired greater civic engagement (and higher pro-street/pro-public transit voter turnout). I’m open to seeing how that plays out.

2018-10-27 16:53:00

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As news continues to surface about the Pittsburg synagogue shooting that has left 11 people dead and six injured, celebrities are mourning the loss of life and offering their condolences. The shooting took place at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill section of the city, the Pittsburgh Public Safety Department announced on Twitter. The department added that it will be prosecuted as a hate crime and the FBI will be leading the investigation. No children were injured in the shooting, Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich announced at a press conference. A law enforcement official confirmed to PEOPLE the suspect is Robert Bowers, 46. Police sources told KDKA the shooter yelled, “All Jews must die” after entering the synagogue during the Saturday morning Shabbat service. “My heart is broken for the victims and loved ones of everyone affected by the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh,” wrote comedian Amy Schumer, who recently announced she’s pregnant with her first child. Actor Joe Manganiello, who was born nearby in Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, added, “My thoughts are back home today with the people of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh.” Without specifically mentioning the tragic shooting, television host Ellen DeGeneres made a call for everyone, no matter their political differences, to support one another. “Today, I send out love to each and every one of you reading this. Every single one of you. We are one world. We all need love. We all want comfort. Let’s give it to each other,” she wrote. My heart is broken for the victims and loved ones of everyone affected by the shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh https://t.co/IuMRo5S674 — Amy Schumer (@amyschumer) October 27, 2018 My thoughts are back home today with the people of Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh. — JOE MANGANIELLO (@JoeManganiello) October 27, 2018 Today, I send out love to each and every one of you reading this. Every single one of you. We are one world. We all need love. We all want comfort. Let’s give it to each other. — Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) October 27, 2018 This is horrifying. https://t.co/tMPa1jMha7 — Katie Couric (@katiecouric) October 27, 2018 💔 — Hoda Kotb (@hodakotb) October 27, 2018 White bigots are continuing to murder minorities in the United States and being civilly arrested. I will never shut up about what’s going on until everyone starts to truly realize what kind of time we’re living in again and DOES something about it. #PittsburghSynagogue — Lauren Jauregui (@LaurenJauregui) October 27, 2018 In addition to honoring those who had lost their lives, some celebrities also spoke out against President Donald Trump. When asked by reporters on Saturday morning whether the shooting should make lawmakers across the county want to revisit existing gun safety laws, Trump replied that the tragedy had “little to do with it,” CNN reported. He went on to argue, “If there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him.” Vehemently disagreeing, former One Direction member Niall Horan argued that the better solution would be for there to be “no guns at all.” “Trump kept saying in his chat with reporters that if there was an armed guard inside the synagogue that the ‘numbers’ would have been a lot lower. The fact is if there was no guns at all, there wouldn’t have been a shooter in the first place,” he wrote. “Get a grip.” Outspoken Trump critic Bette Midler wrote: “To the families of those who died in the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, my deepest and sincere sympathies. This horror is escalating day by day. If only we had LEADERSHIP that would actually take steps to stop it.” Trump kept saying in his chat with reporters that if there was an armed guard inside the synagogue that the “numbers” would have been a lot lower . The fact is if there was no guns at all , there wouldn’t have been a shooter in the first place. Get a grip — Niall Horan (@NiallOfficial) October 27, 2018 To the families of those who died in the synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, my deepest and sincere sympathies. This horror is escalating day by day. If only we had LEADERSHIP that would actually take steps to stop it. — Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) October 27, 2018 Other celebrities also urged people who were upset by gun violence to remember to vote in the upcoming mid-term elections, in order to increase the likelihood that politicians who want stricter gun safety laws get elected. “Sending love to every single one of you who feels targeted by this administration. i’m with you. VOTE NOVEMBER 6TH,” wrote actress Zoe Kazan. “The guns are the long arm of this racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT administration. the laws & judges being put in place are the longest arm. vote. them. Out,” she added in a separate tweet. This Is Us star Mandy Moore also urged anybody “feeling helpless and frustrated by this news” to vote in the upcoming midterm elections. “My heart goes out to all those affected by gun violence today and every day. Feeling helpless and frustrated by this news too? VOTE Nov 6th. VOTE. Use your voice,” she wrote, including #GunSenseCandidates. the guns are the long arm of this racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, anti-LGBT administration. the laws & judges being put in place are the longest arm. vote. them. out. — zoe kazan (@zoeinthecities) October 27, 2018 My heart goes out to all those affected by gun violence today and every day. Feeling helpless and frustrated by this news too? VOTE Nov 6th. VOTE. Use your voice. #GunSenseCandidates https://t.co/LCi3ufyMJH — Mandy Moore (@TheMandyMoore) October 27, 2018 Trump has condemned the shooting as an act of anti-Semitism. The suspect was taken into custody after surrendering to police, according to the Associated Press. City Councilwoman Erika Strassburger said the suspect was barricaded by police in the building prior to surrendering and that he was taken to the hospital, the New York Times reported. The Pittsburgh Public Safety Department tweeted, “Families of shooting victims can call 412-432-4400 for news of their loved ones. A Victims Assistance Center has been set up at Chatham University, Berry Hall, 106 Berry Street.”

2018-01-23 00:00:00

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Jan 23 (Reuters) - TIKEHAU CAPITAL SC: * ‍TIKEHAU IM ARRANGES EUR 14.4M ADD-ON UNITRANCHE FACILITY FOR TERRATEST TO EXISTING EUR 60M FACILITY​ Source text : bit.ly/2F7n1tH Further company coverage: (Gdynia Newsroom)

2019-01-18 00:00:00

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said a discussion should be held on whether to re-open the draft deal for Britain’s planned exit from the European Union, but only if all EU members agreed. Maas told public broadcaster ZDF late on Thursday he had spoken to Britain’s foreign minister, adding that it had become clear this week that there was no majority for a no-deal Brexit in the British lower house. Earlier on Thursday, he said it was “hardly imaginable” that the Brexit withdrawal agreement would be reconsidered. “So the question is what the deal looks like,” he told ZDF. “In the end, it will be about the question (of) whether to reopen the deal which needs the approval of all 27 member states, which means that everyone has to join in. This is what needs to be discussed now,” he said. “The British have up to now always said what they don’t want. Now they must also say what they want,” Maas added. On Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel told lawmakers that for her, “it is clear that there cannot be any renegotiations”, according to two participants in a closed-door meeting. Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Kim Coghill and Raissa Kasolowsky

2016-02-08 20:00:00

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George Clooney knows a thing or two about what it takes to be named PEOPLE’s Sexiest Man Alive. In addition to being a two-time honoree himself, Clooney famously campaigned for his pal Matt Damon to win the title and now has a new target in mind — his Hail, Caesar! co-star Channing Tatum. PEOPLE magazine recently caught up with the two real life friends to find out whether Clooney supports Tatum winning another title or if he’d rather the Magic Mike star remain a one-time honoree. “Remember, I worked with Matt Damon and got him over the hump,” Clooney reminds PEOPLE and Tatum of his involvement in The Martian star’s 2007 title. “It was hard because he ran a good campaign but I’ll tell you what I’m going to do for you my friend, I’m going to take you under my wing, I’m going to bring ya home and next year I see a two timer coming in.” “A two timer? I’m in,” says Tatum. “We’re going to work on it,” Clooney promises. “You have to do a few things, maybe wear a baseball cap sideways, [take your] shirt off, some sort of a dance-type thing, I’ve got some ideas.” “‘Sort of a dance-type thing?&apos” Tatum asks with a laugh. “I don’t know if I’m ready for the work that’s going to be involved.” “It’s a lot of work,” says Clooney. We’re excited to see how this campaign shakes out. In the meantime, catch the two SMA alums in Hail, Caesar!, now in theaters.

2016-07-06

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FRANKFURT, July 6 (Reuters) - A sharp fall in the pound following Britain’s decision to leave the European Union will hurt UK customers buying auto parts from abroad and likely force suppliers to cut prices, the chief executive of German autos supplier ZF said on Wednesday. ZF supplies automatic gearboxes which are assembled outside Britain to UK-based carmaker Jaguar Land Rover . “The things we supply them have become significantly more expensive for them to buy. This means that if the situation persists, we expect pressure on prices,” Sommer said at a press conference to discuss ZF’s progress integrating TRW. The pound has fallen about 13 percent against the U.S. dollar since the “Brexit” vote on June 23, hitting a 31-year low on Wednesday. It has also dropped to a three-year low against the euro. ZF does not have direct exposure to the pound since it sells products to customers priced either in dollars or euros, Sommer said. (Reporting by Edward Taylor; Editing by Mark Potter)

2019-08-15 08:22:25

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Fitz Frames is today launching out of beta to offer affordable, custom-made glasses for families, and in particular, for children. The company, which has raised $2.5 million in seed funding, was founded by Heidi Hertel and is led by CEO Gabriel Schlumberger. The company declined to disclose its investors, but shared that it was a mix of angel and institutional investors. Hertel started the company after taking her children through the process of buying glasses with little to no success. Hertel cites two main problems with buying glasses for children: 1) There isn’t much selection around style for kids, and 2) Glasses are made for kids and adults with little variation in size for kids who are in-between. Here’s how it works: With an Rx from a doctor or without, kids and parents hop on the Fitz Frames app to go through a virtual try-on. While the user is going through a virtual try-on to find the right pair of glasses, the Fitz Frames app is doing a full measurement of the face using thousands of data points, including ear-height, nose shape, etc. to make sure that the end result is a comfortable, well-fitting pair of glasses. From there, Fitz Frames sends the measurements to their manufacturing set-up in Youngstown, Ohio, where the frames are made from polyamide powder, which is 3D-printed using selective laser sintering. Not only does the polyamide allow for a more durable, flexible frame, but the manufacturing process as a whole allows Fitz to turn around frames quickly. The goal, according to Hertel, is to turn around a pair of glasses in a week or less. Fitz Frames are also made with no-screw hinges, opting instead for arms that pop right out of the socket and pop back in. This means repairing a pair of Fitz Frames is far easier and doesn’t require sewing hands and tiny screwdrivers. Kids can also have their name or favorite number or address etched into the arm of the glasses. Fitz Frames cost $95, but the company is also offering a subscription plan for parents. The idea is that kids lose and break their glasses all the time, and that small children shouldn’t have to feel responsible for something worth hundreds of dollars. “Glasses shouldn’t have to be so precious,” said Hertel. The subscription, which costs $185/year, includes two pairs of glasses. From there, subscribers can get unlimited frames (but not lenses, or shipping) throughout the year. In other words, your kids can lose their glasses as often as they’d like as long as you’re cool paying for the third, fourth, and so on lenses. Fitz Frames isn’t alone. A company called Pair Eyewear is also tackling kids glasses with an approach that focuses on easily changing the style through clip-on top-frames. Warby Parker also recently got into kids’ frames. Not unlike Warby, Fitz is also working alongside nonprofits to make glasses more accessible. The company has a partnership with Vision to Learn, which provides eye exams and glasses to kids in low-income communities, as well as a pilot program with Loving Eyes, an org that provides custom-fit eyeglasses for children with craniofacial anomalies who can’t wear conventional glasses. Fitz Frames also has plans to launch a pop-up in the Hamptons at the end of August.

2019-02-05

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Being rich is not a function of the number on your paycheck. So says Scott Galloway, a serial entrepreneur who sold his company L2, Inc., reportedly for over $130 million. "What's the definition of rich? The definition of rich is having passive income that's greater than your burn," says Galloway, or spending less than you make. Galloway says his dad and stepmother are the perfect example: Collectively, they take in $48,000 per year from social security payments and their pensions, he says. "They spend 40 [thousand dollars per year]. They are rich. They have more money than they need without having to leave the house and work," Galloway told CNBC Make It in September. Meanwhile, Galloway says people making millions can be "poor" if their expenses are high enough. "I also have friends here in New York who make between $1 [million] and $3 million a year as investment bankers or partners at a law firm," Galloway says — incomes which would put them in the top 1 percent of all wage-earners in the US, according to an October 2018 report from the Economic Policy Institute. But says Galloway, "between the alimony to their ex-wife, their house in the Hamptons, their fat co-op on the Upper West Side [of Manhattan] and private school tuition, they may make $2 million but they spend [$]2.1 million — they are poor because they have the stress of knowing if there's a hiccup in the economy or they lose their job there are deep s---," Galloway says. The upshot: Bringing in a lot of money doesn't make you "rich" if you spend more than you earn and you depend on a salary. So advises Galloway, "Focus on your burn. And have an honest conversation with yourself around how do you get to a point of true wealth and being rich — and that is getting to a point where with passive income from rental properties from [stock] dividends from some sort of a pension from the money you make from stocks — that at some point that will be greater than your burn." At the same time, don't let your spending grow along with your earnings, tempting though it may be. "It's also easy to fall into the trap of believing that I will spend to my income because as I get older I get more and more awesome and make more money," says Galloway, who is also a professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business. "Children focus on their earnings. Adults also focus on the other side of the ledger — and that is their burn." The key, says Galloway, is to starting putting a bit away every month when you are young. "So how do you increase the likelihood that you'll be a millionaire and have economic security at some point? Most of us when we are younger believe that we're going to have the big win, we're going to hit a home run and have a big liquidity event. But again assume that won't happen," says Galloway. So "pay yourself first every month. Force yourself to save a little bit of money. Saving a little bit of money at a young age goes a long, long way in case you don't have that big liquidity event," says Galloway. "The one thing I can promise you is that time will go faster than you think, and savings will compound faster than you think. So it's hard and I'm not saying that this is something that most people have the discipline to do, but the people that have the discipline to every month put a little bit away and start focusing on creating passive income are the ones that are going to be rich you know no matter or not whether they have that big hit."

2017-03-28

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LIBREVILLE/DAKAR (Reuters) - Charles Lekabi lived comfortably as a driver for an oil company in Gabon’s industrial town of Port Gentil until he was laid off three years ago. “Today, I struggle to pay my rent,” said Lekabi, who worked for French oil company Total for seven years before he was let go for economic reasons. “Since I was laid off, I bought a car to do taxi rides. Atleast with this car I can continue to feed my family.” A steep drop in oil prices in 2014 hit the oil industry worldwide. In OPEC member Gabon, production is in decline, the recovery is slow and may not come at all. The oil sector has accounted for 80 percent of exports, 45 percent of gross domestic product, and 60 percent of budget revenue on average in the past five years, according to World Bank data. With revenues declining and the population feeling the squeeze, President Ali Bongo is facing the strongest opposition in years and some social upheaval including a spate of strikes by oil workers demanding better pay and new contracts. “Depleting oil revenues are pushing Gabon’s economy towards the cliff edge,” said Maja Bovcon, senior Africa analyst atglobal risk firm Verisk Maplecroft. “Gabon is confronted with an unlucky combination of political and economic circumstances.” Bongo said that economic growth last year was expected to have reached 3 percent, a slowdown from the average of 6 percent since he first took office in 2009. The budget was cut by over 5 percent in 2017 because of declining oil production and prices. Income per capita rocketed from $3,090 in 2000 to $10,410 in 2014 as oil prices shot higher. But it fell in 2015 for the first time in 15 years, as oil prices slid. Companies including two of the largest producers Total and Royal Dutch Shell have scaled back, costing thousands of jobs. Exploration in deep water off the pristine Atlantic coastline that was supposed to make up for falling onshore output has yielded little. The former French colony is also still reeling from a disputed election last September that turned violent in the beachside capital Libreville, harnessing anger among poor people who say oil revenues never trickle below the moneyed elite. Bongo was initially handed victory, but opposition leader Jean Ping called the election a sham, declared himself president and demanded a recount in the Haut-Ogooue province, a Bongo stronghold where initial results showed the president won 95 percent of the votes on a 99.9 percent turnout. The case went to the Constitutional Court, which ruled in Bongo’s favor. Bongo, whose family has ruled the country of nearly 2 million for 49 years, has said he will diversify the economy beyond oil into mining, forestry and agriculture. He aims to rein in spending and increase social programs, though it is unclear how much progress has been made so far. Bongo said last year Gabon was building a manufacturing industry for wood products instead of only exporting the raw commodity from its forests and was developing mining by producing manganese. He also said the government was distributing land to boost agriculture. The International Monetary Fund said that progress had been made to diversify the economy but recommended “decisive action” to address short-term revenue problems, without elaborating. In a statement in February the IMF said it had begun discussions about a “possible financial arrangement” with Gabon. GETTING QUIETER Oil companies are also looking closely at their operations in Gabon where production has dropped over 40 percent from a1997 peak of 370,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Last year, output reached just 230,000 bpd, according to consultancy Wood Mackenzie, which expects output to drop to 220,000 bpd in 2017. Accelerated declines are forecast in 2018 and 2019. Citing volatile oil prices, Total in February said it had sold stakes in some of its mature Gabon assets to London-based Perenco. Shell, which has operated in Gabon for over 50 years, last week announced that it has sold its onshore assets in Gabon to Carlyle Group for $587 million. Drilling in offshore prospects, where the hope for new oil is highest, has been at a standstill since August 2016, according to Drillinginfo, which monitors rig activity in the region. There were nine offshore rigs operating in 2014, four in 2015, one in 2016 and none today, its data shows. “In Gabon, it is quiet and getting quieter,” said Andrew Hayman, an Africa specialist at Drillinginfo. “There has not been the success that there has been in Congo to the south.” Total this month said it had started production from its Moho Nord site off the coast of the Republic of Congo. In Gabon, 3,000 oil workers have been laid off during the downturn, the oil workers union ONEP told Reuters. It said the oil sector and connected activities now account for between 8,000 and 11,000 jobs. Oil worker strikes have flared up and interrupted production this year, fueled by what ONEP described in a statement this month as “flagrant violations of human dignity”. At one site run by Maurel et Prom Gabon SA soldiers took over the site in February to ensure operations continued. Former oil workers see their options dwindling. Estelle, 27, a former office worker for Perenco, was laid off two years ago, for economic reasons. She is still unemployed. “Today, I have to start from zero,” she said. ($1 = 612.1700 CFA francs) Editing by Tim Cocks and Anna Willard

2017-10-19 18:50:01

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On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump sent a series of tweets about the Russia scandal, attempting to put forth a counternarrative in which Democrats and the FBI are the real villains. With special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation moving forward and new revelations about Russian propaganda efforts during the 2016 election, the Trump-Russia scandal clearly isn’t going away anytime soon, and ignoring it no longer seems like a viable political strategy. So many conservative media figures and GOP politicians have increasingly tried to publicize other Russia-related matters that they say implicate Trump’s political enemies — whether the Obama administration, the Clintons, Mueller, fired FBI Director James Comey, or even the FBI as a whole — in misconduct of some kind. Two of these stories — questions about an Obama-era uranium deal, and questions about the salacious “dossier” on Trump — have been bubbling in conservative media for some time, and have gotten particular attention this week. So it was no surprise that the president himself tried to push them on Twitter Thursday: Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help and Obama Administration knowledge, is the biggest story that Fake Media doesn't want to follow! Workers of firm involved with the discredited and Fake Dossier take the 5th. Who paid for it, Russia, the FBI or the Dems (or all)? The political reason Trump is embracing both of these stories is clear enough: He’s trying to cast Russia-related dirt on both Democrats and the FBI (which he views as part of a “deep state” unfairly persecuting him), to try to discredit the investigation as a whole, and to change the subject from the question of whether any of his associates colluded with the Russian government during the campaign. And indeed, conservative media figures are arguing that these stories make Democrats and the FBI look at the very least hypocritical on Russia, and at worst like Russian patsies themselves. Much as occurred earlier this year with the “unmasking” controversy, the Trump administration, leading Republicans, and conservative reporters and media outlets are trying to publicize — some would say drum up — Russia-related controversies that make Democrats or the FBI look bad. So as much of the mainstream media continues to drill into the question of whether there was any collusion between Trump’s team and Russia during the election, much of the conservative media is spending a great deal of time on these other Russia-related stories. The two that Trump tweeted about Thursday morning are: Both of these matters have been hot topics on Fox News, and indeed, Trump appeared to be watching Fox & Friends when he tweeted about the uranium story Thursday morning. .@foxandfriends "Russia sent millions to Clinton Foundation" The Senate Judiciary Committee under Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has long been investigating the Steele dossier matter, and is now looking into the Russian nuclear matter too. And again, it’s entirely possible that there was some wrongdoing on either front. Still, the question of why Trump is so enthusiastic about these recent stories is hardly a mystery. The bigger picture is that he’s hoping to change the subject from questions about what he and his associates may have done, and to muddy the waters on the Russia issue by casting aspersions on his biggest critics.

2016-10-06 00:00:00

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Washington (CNN)Donald Trump's son, Eric Trump, appeared on a radio show Wednesday that caused controversy for his brother earlier in the year over its ties to a white nationalist. Eric Trump was interviewed on the "Liberty Roundtable" program with host Sam Bushman, who syndicates white nationalist James Edwards' program "The Political Cesspool." Edwards' program is considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be an "overtly racist, anti-Semitic radio show." Although Edwards did not appear on this specific episode with Eric Trump, in March, Donald Trump Jr. appeared on the program and was interviewed by Edwards. He later disputed that he knew Edwards would be doing the interview. Donald Trump's campaign condemned Edwards in a statement Thursday night. "As you know, we had no knowledge of James Edwards' participation and strongly rebuked him," Hope Hicks, a campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement, referring to Donald Trump Jr.'s interview. "Liberty Roundtable is a conservative program heard on radio stations and online, and dedicated to promoting the principles of the American founding. We would never associate with any program that was even wrongly perceived to be affiliated with a message of hate." In this particular episode of the "Liberty Roundtable" program, Eric Trump spoke about Tuesday's vice presidential debate and his father's plans to aid inner cities. Stephen Moore, one of Donald Trump's top advisers, was also on the "Liberty Roundtable" program last week. CNN's Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.

2017-11-29 10:45:00

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After months of swatching, testing and experimenting with over 500 drugstore beauty launches from 2017, for the third year in a row, the PEOPLE and TODAY Show team narrowed down the most amazing affordable finds for our 2017 Beauty Awards. Over the next three days, we will be unveiling the best of the best budget-friendly skin, body, makeup and hair products you can discover walking down your local drugstore beauty aisle. Tune into TODAY on NBC at 10 a.m. all week to see PEOPLE’s beauty and style director Andrea Lavinthal and TODAY contributor Jill Martin  join fourth-hour coanchors Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb to announce (and demonstrate!) the winners on-air during the show’s fourth hour. But today, behold the 12 most stand-out makeup items of the year that our testers couldn’t stop raving about. Maybelline New York Dream Cushion Foundation, $12.98; walmart.com Press the puff applicator into this cushion foundation, then tap onto skin for an absolutely flawless complexion. Neutrogena Hydro Boost Hydrating Concealer, $14.99; walgreens.com You can use this moisturizing cover-up anywhere, but it’s particularly brilliant for masking dark circles. Looking for more style content? Click here to subscribe to the PeopleStyle Newsletter for amazing shopping discounts, can’t-live-without beauty products and more L’Oréal Paris Infallible Pro-Glow Concealer, $8.99; target.com In addition to hiding imperfections, this lightweight concealer can also be used to contour and highlight. Revlon ColorStay Brow Pencil, $6.79; target.com Our testers loved that this blendable pencil lasted all day without budging. Essence Cosmetics Lash Princess Sculpted Volume Mascara, $4.99; target.com This mascara will make your lashes look so long and thick that your friends will accuse you of wearing falsies. Rimmel London Magnif’Eyes Eye Contouring Palette, $7.99; walgreens.com With a dozen shades and a range of finishes, this palette has everything you need to create any eye effect. Flower Beauty Flower Pots Powder Blush, $8.98; walmart.com Apply a touch of this satiny powder to warm up your complexion, or keep building the color for a bolder flush. Milani Eye Tech Extreme Liquid Liner, $7.49; target.com The fine felt-tip point on this liquid liner makes it easy to draw the cat eye of your dreams. L’Oréal Paris Colour Riche Matte Lipstick, $5.99; target.com From the chic case to the selection of stunning hues, this creamy opaque lipstick is as glamorous as it gets. Sally Hansen Miracle Gel, $9.99; walgreens.com The gold standard for DIY gel polish (it stays shiny and chip-free for up to two weeks) just added 18 more shades. CoverGirl Melting Pout Gel Liquid Lipstick, $5.99; target.com This highly pigmented lip color glides on smoothly and comes in 12 long-lasting vibrant hues. Essie Treat Love & Color, $9.99; target.com This perfectly sheer neutral polish nourishes and strengthens weak nails. Which 2017 Beauty Award winner are you most excited to try? Tell us in the comments below!

2019-08-07 16:53:00

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If you missed your chance to get Amazon’s now-viral tiny house and backyard guest house that sold out earlier this year, don’t fret — there’s an even more impressive structure currently available on the shopping site.  Tiny house lovers can get this prefab, expandable tiny home — complete with a bathroom,  kitchen, and a solar and wind power system — on Amazon. The under-$25,000 tiny house features everything you need to make it a full-time abode or a backyard getaway for guests. Buy It! Weizhengheng Expandable Prefab Module Tiny House, $23,800; amazon.com The small structure gives owners plenty of options. Residents can power the versatile space on its built-in solar and wind power system, or they can opt to outfit it with typical electrical work to power lights and appliances. It also features expandable areas and folding features, which are powered by a remote control, that open up to reveal even more space.  Homeowners can also choose to make it their permanent residence, or set it up in their backyard and use it as an office, guest house, and more. With a shower, sink, and toilet in its bathroom, plus a small kitchenette and designated spaces for a living area, dining area, and bedroom, the tiny house has everything you need to move right in. It even comes with furniture and an air conditioning unit.  The makers of the tiny house, Hebei Weizhengheng Modular House Technology Co. (WZH Group), sell a series of small homes including another expandable, solar energy-powered home via Amazon. And while both of these homes are more expensive than other tiny houses available through the retailer (they also come with $1,000 shipping fees), both prefabricated designs feature outfitted bathrooms and kitchens, and come with solar energy panels, Ada Yin, a WZH Group representative told CNBC Make It. Buy It! Expandable Container House with Solar Energy, $36,800; amazon.com DIY fans who are hoping to set up something more custom in their backyard can shop one of the many tiny house kits that start at just $3,000 on Amazon. Either way, you’re bound to find the perfect little structure for your space and budget.

2018-06-05 00:00:00

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For the more than 1 billion people without reliable electricity access, advances in off-grid solar (OGS) solutions present significant promise: A recent World Bank report showed that by 2017 the global OGS sector was providing improved energy access to an estimated 73 million households. Yes, but: Half of the projected $5.7 billion for OGS to hit its full potential from 2017 to 2022 still needs to be raised. While established multilateral and commercial financiers are expected to partially fill this gap, new financial innovations that tap less traditional investors also show strong potential to help meet the sector’s growing needs. Financial innovations such as pay-as-you-go business models have combined with falling photovoltaic-cell costs to open funding channels on terms acceptable to newer investors. This financing offers growing OGS companies the resources to expand their activities and increase customer access. The details: Several features make the OGS market particularly suited to today's financial services innovations (e.g., blockchain, cryptocurrencies, crowdfunding, receivables securitization, data-enabled lending): Newer technology and business models deployed by startups that lack track records or collateral Smaller transaction sizes with multiple parties Typically unmonetized social impacts (e.g., energy access and zero emissions) Decentralized, remote providers and low-income customers Large transaction data volumes Limited financial infrastructure in OGS markets, requiring new models to finance market entry Multiple companies beyond top firms that are needed to serve more customers What's next: Many private, government and multilateral stakeholders are piloting these financial innovations in the OGS market. This summer, the World Bank will release a study with the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance assessing these efforts and suggesting ways to scale moving forward. Jonathan Coony is global lead for green competitiveness at the World Bank Group.

2017-10-19 00:00:00

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Roger Goodell Officials inside the National Football League are characterizing Tuesday’s meeting in New York City between players, league officials, and representatives from the NFL as an important step in a process that began 14 months ago — and are hoping that the league actively backing bipartisan legislation that seeks to drastically limit mandatory-minimum sentences will be a major change. But plenty of questions remain about the rest of the regular season and the relationship between players, owners, the league, and politics. The NFL will not require players to stand for the national anthem, and commissioner Roger Goodell has said publicly that the players who demonstrate are not trying to disrespect the flag. But he said it was his intention to get the number of players demonstrating openly to zero. The kneeling issue didn’t come up Tuesday, the league sources said. For all of the momentum going into today’s meeting, the league sources insist that it’s still up to each individual player whether to kneel in protest during the national anthem. Goodell said Wednesday that ultimately, a half-dozen players have been consistently kneeling and that the goal of the dialogue between the league and players is to get that number down to zero. “We believe everyone should stand for the national anthem. We think our fans expect us to do that.” The sources confirmed that the player coalition in the meeting invited former quarterback Colin Kaepernick but he did not show. The league sources said there was a sense in the room that they should focus on “who's in the room and not on who's not.” On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the NFL policy statement "a step in the right direction," before Trump chimed in with an authoritarian-style message that has irked NFL players and coaches around the league: “@NFL: Too much talk, not enough action. Stand for the National Anthem.” The meeting Tuesday was led by former player and executive vice president of NFL football operations Troy Vincent. According to a pair of league sources present in the meeting, the league and players’ coalition centered any progress moving forward around three main focal points: refining a policy platform and ways to amplify it as a follow-up to players’ protests; creating ways for NFL players and entities to participate and engage in education inside communities; and creating partnerships to assist players in addressing public policy. The pair of league sources said that over the past 14 months, Goodell has gotten “a great deal of clarity on what’s driving players to take a knee on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays,” and that one of the issues is criminal justice reform. To that end, Goodell went on a ride-along with police in Miami as well as a “listen-and-learn” session in Philadelphia. The league sources said the NFL had been particularly interested in one part of the bill that creates a commission that would review the entire criminal justice system. One player in particular, Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin, was the driving force behind trying to get the league to support the legislation, according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Baldwin, a Stanford graduate, is said to have impressed league brass with his knowledge of the issue. Goodell, asked Wednesday at a press conference to address his understanding of the players’ concerns, failed to include anything in his answer anything about police brutality. In fact, police brutality — especially tragic encounters concerning black Americans like Philando Castile and Sandra Bland — has especially animated players in the NFL, and was the stated reason Kaepernick initially knelt during the national anthem. “Communities of color have also had to watch video after video of unarmed black men and women being handled without regard for their lives or well-being,” Eagles defensive player Malcolm Jenkins wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post. “As a black man, I see these images and I see myself; I wonder whether this will happen to me or one of my loved ones. In honor of their names, we are joining the fight for change. We are demanding police transparency and accountability so we can build trust and work together to make our communities safer.” The sentencing overhaul bill, by Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Dick Durbin of Illinois, aims to limit mandatory-minimum prison sentences, limiting the steepest penalties to drug and violent offenders and the most serious drug crime offenders. At the very least, the meetings this week add some new elements into the what has become familiar this fall: demonstrating during the national anthem. A source with knowledge familiar with the discussions told BuzzFeed News that the NFL might create something unheard of in professional sports: its own racial justice platform.

2018-05-28 04:00:00

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The Moon in Scorpio connects with Pluto at 1:12 AM, finding us in the mood to share secrets and explore hidden spaces. The Moon opposes Mercury at 1:25 PM, creating a talkative energy, before entering adventurous fire sign Sagittarius at 6:29 PM. All Times EST. The Moon in Scorpio encourages you to break a bad habit today, and you’re compelled to find answers that have been eluding you this afternoon. Tonight, the Moon enters Sagittarius and brings your focus to your relationships. The Moon in fellow water sign Scorpio illuminates the romance and creativity sector of your chart, and a dash of drama arrives this afternoon. Your focus turns to your responsibilities tonight as the moon enters fiery Sagittarius. The Moon in Scorpio finds you in a private mood today—but you’re eager to discuss your feelings and goals this afternoon. You’re in a more playful and flirtatious mood this evening, when the Moon enters fellow Fire sign Sagittarius. The Moon in Scorpio illuminates the communication sector of your chart today and opposes your ruling planet Mercury this afternoon, finding you eager to get things off your chest. Your focus turns to your home and family as the Moon enters Sagittarius this evening. The Moon in Scorpio lights up the financial sector of your chart today, and you find yourself eager to discuss worth and value this afternoon. The Moon enters Sagittarius this evening, inspiring you to communicate more bluntly. The Moon is in your sign for most of today, Scorpio, which finds you focusing on self care. You're eager to connect and communicate with your partners this afternoon, and the Moon enters Sagittarius tonight, shifting your focus to your self-worth. The Moon in Scorpio finds you in a sensitive mood today—but there is still plenty of work for you to do, Sagittarius. The Moon enters your sign tonight, encouraging you to focus on self care. Plan a trip! The Moon in Scorpio finds you in social mood today; however, you can expect a little drama to come up this afternoon. The Moon enters Sagittarius this evening, encouraging you to check in with yourself emotionally and catch up on rest and get some alone time. The Moon in Scorpio finds you focused on your career and reputation, and you find yourself having important conversations about boundaries and goals this afternoon. The Moon enters Sagittarius this evening, shifting your focus to your social life. The Moon is in fellow water sign Scorpio for most of the day, and you find yourself eager to get things off your chest this afternoon. You have a lot to figure out right now. Tonight, the Moon enters Sagittarius and lights up the career and popularity sector of your chart. The Moon in Scorpio lights up the intimacy sector of your chart today, and you'll be eager to discuss your wants and needs this afternoon. The Moon enters fellow fire sign Sagittarius tonight, encouraging you to try something new. The Moon in Scorpio lights up the partnership sector of your chart today, and you'll feel compelled to discuss your feelings with your partner this afternoon. The Moon enters Sagittarius tonight, encouraging you to focus on intimacy. Want these horoscopes sent straight to your inbox? Click here to sign up for the newsletter.

2016-07-12 00:00:00

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July 12 (Reuters) - Rongfeng Holding Group : * Says it will pay 2015 dividend on July 18 Source text in Chinese: 985.so/4UbP Further company coverage: (Beijing Headline News)